University City : Innovation + Job News

If you've ever left a doctor's office with an order for lab tests, you’re likely familiar with the inconvenient and stressful experience of waiting days for results that may or may not provide a definitive diagnosis.

Fortunately, thanks to a recent $1.6 million series B seed funding effort led by Trimaran Capital Partners, Science Center-based nanotech startup Graphene Frontiers is poised to put an end to many such experiences by "creating a major paradigm change in medical diagnostics," says CEO Mike Patterson.  

That paradigm change will come from unique biosensor devices that can actually identify antibodies, proteins and other markers of infection and disease.

Graphene has already developed a proprietary and highly efficient process to produce the graphene used in the sensors. The upcoming product will allow testing from a single drop of blood that can be drawn and processed right at your doctor’s office, providing near-immediate results.  

Patterson explains that the company is also working on using its biosensors as a preventative tool -- doctors will be able to monitor changes to a patient’s specific health markers over time. 

While Graphene's early business model relied primarily on providing its namesake material to other researchers, recent seed funding will allow Graphene to "refocus and expand their efforts into more industry changing applications with the [ultra-thin graphene] material," says Patterson.

In addition to job growth and a lab expansion at the Science Center campus, the company plans to pursue opportunities in the consumer electronics industry through a new partnership with the Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Albany.

Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Mike Patterson, Graphene Frontiers 
 

If you've ever spent any time inside an art or natural history museum, there's a chance you've encountered the ubiquitous hand-held audio wand. Attached to a museum wall alongside an exhibit and stored in a charging station, audio wands share pre-recorded information about adjacent objects and displays.    
 
Now, with a bit of business development assistance from Neville Vakharia of Drexel's Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, local tech entrepreneur Cliff Stevens has created a game-changing audio-tour tool that is both less expensive and more convenient than the traditional museum wand solution.
 
Known as CultureSpots, the product exists as a free web-based mobile tool -- not an app -- that users can easily access on smartphones or tablets.
 
Vakharia, who studies the roles technology can play in building stronger and more sustainable arts organizations, helped Stevens develop a business plan for the audio platform, positioning it specifically as a solution for small and mid-size galleries and museums. Institutions, in other words, that can't necessarily afford expensive audio-tour infrastructure.   
 
"I immediately gravitated towards [his] idea," says Vakharia, who first learned about CultureSpots during a chance encounter with Stevens at a Drexel T3 tech event. "I realized that Drexel could bring the resources and expertise to really make this successful, and to really make a change in the museum field."   
 
After piloting a beta version of CultureSpots at 15 local museums and galleries, "we were really pleased to see that people wanted it, and people used it," explains Vakharia. "Overwhelmingly, the feedback was very positive."
 
CultureSpots will be officially launched at Drexel's Leonard Pearlstein Gallery on October 22 from 9 to 11 a.m., during which visitors will have an opportunity to test the platform.   
 
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Sources: Neville Vakharia, Drexel University and Cliff Stevens, CultureSpots
 

Flying Kite has twice shared the story of Invisible Sentinel, a local life sciences firm that develops low-cost and user-friendly diagnostic tools for the food and beverage industries.
 
The company's most recent breakout success was the result of a partnership with Sonoma County's Jackson Family Wines -- a novel and fast-acting product known as Veriflow BRETT was developed as a way to detect a yeast strain that commonly affects both the taste and aroma of wine.  
 
According to Invisible Sentinel co-founder Ben Pascal, that technology has since been adopted by large sectors of the wine industry.

"We've been so successful in the food safety [sector]," says Pascal. "And so we started asking ourselves, 'What other groups have the same types of problems with these organisms that can affect quality?' And naturally, we came to beer."
 
More specifically, they came to beloved local brewers Victory Brewing Company. The heads of the two companies met during a dinner party, and when Pascal and his business partner Nick Siciliano began talking to Victory's Bill Covaleski about the success of their Veriflow BRETT technology, "I think it got his wheels turning," recalls Pascal.  
 
Following a few months' worth of meetings with Victory's brewers and quality control team, a decision was reached to partner on the development of a new rapid molecular diagnostic tool, Veriflow brewPAL, that will quickly detect two types of bacteria that can spoil the taste of beer, leading to spillage at brewing companies that can't afford to lose inventory.
 
"There isn't any [similar] technology that exists today that's easy to use, and that's accurate and cost-effective," explains Pascal. "And with a partner like Victory behind us, I think this product is really going to be a paradigm shift, and a big game-changer in the industry."
 
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Ben Pascal, Invisible Sentinel 
 

Morgan Berman was living in West Philadelphia when she experienced what she calls her "first burst of sustainability consciousness," and began attempting to live a life that was aligned with her newfound values.

She joined a neighborhood food co-op, took a job as Grid magazine's director for community engagement, and slowly became more involved in the local sustainability scene.
 
"But there wasn't a central hub where I could go and understand what sustainability means," recalls Berman. "It didn't feel like anyone had quite created the tool that people need to answer their quick questions about [sustainable living]."
 
Berman's new app for Android and iOS, MilkCrate, aims to fill that void -- initially here in Philadelphia, and if the app takes off, nationally.
 
Described by its nine-person team as a digital hub for sustainability, MilkCrate currently exists as a database-style listings service -- not unlike Yelp -- with a collection of more than 1,600 Philly-area businesses that operate sustainably and promote economically responsible practices.

"Everything from fashion to food to furniture [to] energy," explains Berman in a video created for the app's current crowdfunding campaign. "Anything you could possibly want that fits into your local, sustainable lifestyle."   
  
At the moment, MilkCrate-approved businesses are organized in both listings and map layouts. But with the infusion of the $20,000 Berman hopes to raise through an Indiegogo campaign (launched on August 25), users will be able to write reviews, add news businesses, and search by keyword and neighborhood.      
 
Perks for campaign funders include MilkCrate T-shirts and tickets to the app's upcoming launch party. Click here to donate. 

Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Morgan Berman, MilkCrate

Two new Philadelphia initiatives are underway, with related missions for supporting the city’s rapidly expanding innovation ecosystem, entrepreneurship and business development.

The City of Philadelphia's new Innovation Lab is a state-of-the-art 1,600-square-foot space modeled after the research-and-development and co-working facilities found in the private sector and academia. The lab, which overlooks City Hall, provides a central space and technology resources to host classes, meetings, workshops, hackathons and more; it will hopefully encourage collegiality, innovating thinking and creative problem solving in an atmosphere new to City government.

"The Innovation Lab serves as an important symbol to all stakeholders that we are truly in the innovation business," says City Managing Director Richard Negrin, whose office initiated and oversees the lab as part of a larger emphasis on innovation.

Meanwhile, a few miles away in West Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania has launched its Penn Center for Innovation, a new initiative to provide the infrastructure, leadership and resources needed to transfer promising Penn-developed research, inventions and technologies into the marketplace. 

"Most major universities have technology transfer practices that focus predominantly on patenting and licensing," says John Swartley, the new center’s executive director and Penn’s associate vice provost for research. "As we have become more involved in advancing technologies into the development sphere, we’ve also started to engage more and more in complementary activities such as new venture creation and corporate partnering around collaboratively sponsored research projects. What we’ve decided to do at Penn is to combine all those activities into a single organization -- to be a one-stop shop for our faculty, staff and students as well as members of the private sector."

Source: Philadelphia Office of the Managing Director and the University of Pennsylvania
Writer: Elise Vider

In mid-May, Flying Kite brought you the story of Creative Mornings, a wildly popular breakfast lecture series that had finally launched a Philadelphia chapter. (The most recent event featured a talk by The Heads of State, a local design team.)

Now comes news that Creative Cafe at Replica, a print and design firm/coffee shop in University City, has teamed up with Young Involved Philadelphia (YIP) to offer an early-morning monthly lecture series of its own.

Known as the Creative Cafe Coffee Chats, the events run from 8 - 9 a.m. on the last Monday of each month, and feature five-minute "flash talks" from four presenters. Twenty minutes of intimate conversation follow the talks. And because attendance at each event is capped at just 15 people, the hope is that attendees will walk away with the feeling that they've genuinely learned something new.
 
Not unlike Creative Mornings, each Coffee Chat is organized around a specific theme. June's inaugural event, for instance, took a look at the state of the creative economy in Philadelphia, and featured speakers including CultureWorks Greater Philadelphia founder Thaddeus Squire and Erica Hawthorne of Small But Mighty Arts, a micro-grant program for early-career artists.  
 
According to Mike Kaiser of YIP, an all-volunteer group that works to engage young professionals locally, the emphasis of each lecture will revolve around issues and topics that are relevant to Philadelphians today.
 
"The hope is that this inspires new ideas or a new connection for people," he says. "And that they can leave the event feeling excited as they walk into their day."
 
Tickets for each Creative Cafe Coffee Chat are $6.25; they can be purchased online.
 
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Mike Kaiser, Young Involved Philadelphia

Here's a little-known fact about Philadelphia's history as an urban innovator: The Percent for Art program, in which developers building on municipally-acquired land are required to spend at least 1 percent of their construction costs on public art, was pioneered by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority back in 1959.
 
In the years since, nearly every major U.S. city has adopted a similar policy.    
 
Philly has become home to roughly 400 public art projects since the program's inception, and one more -- the six-month residency of a Dutch artist duo known as PolakVanBekkum -- is currently underway.

Thanks to the construction of two new University City Science Center structures and a $168,000 grant, PolakVanBekkum will be working throughout the summer and into the fall to create an audio-enhanced Google Earth documentary and an interactive online map, both of which will attempt to explore the spatial and sensory experience of traveling through the city.
 
The project, which may also have a physical component, will be built with data collected from volunteers outfitted with GPS transponders and digital audio devices. Those volunteers -- who are currently being identified by the artists -- will wander for weeks in the urban environment, their every movement and sound simultaneously geo-located in space.

Come November, when the final interactive and online results are unveiled, the artists hope to share an entirely new story -- a mix of anthropology, place-making and technology -- about the various ways in which Philadelphians interact with their surroundings.
 
"I think the artists laid out a very good plan for what they want to do," says David Clayton of the Science Center's STEAM Initiative, which is spearheading the residency. "And we want to have them use the project as a process to engage communities. We liked that this type of thing has never really been done before."
 
To stay up-to-date on the project's evolution, visit 250miles.net.

Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: David Clayton, University City Science Center

Josh Goldblum is founder and creative director of Bluecadet, a respected local design agency. He's also pretty keyed-in to the local creative community.
 
Recently, a couple of Goldblum's friends relocated from New York City to Philadelphia, and asked the same question: "Where's the Creative Mornings chapter here?" They were surprised to find that he didn't have an answer.
 
"In New York, [Creative Mornings] is a huge thing," explains Goldblum. "It's like a part of the local fabric there."
 
Launched in 2008 by designer Tina Roth Eisenberg, Creative Mornings is often referred to as "TED for the rest of us." More simply, it's a breakfast lecture series specifically geared towards the creative community. Each early-morning event features one speaker speaking for roughly an hour on a pre-chosen topic.
 
And while the events now take place monthly in nearly 70 cities worldwide, Philadelphia's chapter is brand new. Goldblum is the city's host -- he applied after fielding those inquiries from his two friends. At 8:30 a.m. on May 16, he'll be hosting Philadelphia's second Creative Mornings speaker at Drexel's URBN Center. Game designer Will Stallwood of the video game studio Cipher Prime will be riffing on the topic of freedom.
 
"I think he's going to be talking about creative freedom," says Goldblum, "because he has complete creative freedom himself."
 
Creative Mornings events are free, and as for the 8:30 a.m. call time? "Basically, the whole idea is that it's always early in the morning, so you can go and get your inspiration, and then get to work on time for your first meeting," explains Goldblum.
 
Sign up here to receive announcements about future events and to reserve tickets. 

Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Josh Goldblum, Bluecadet
 

The independent workforce in Philadelphia certainly isn't hurting for shared workspaces. In fact, during the TEDxPhiladelphia conference in late-March, a speaker shared a PowerPoint slide featuring the logos of roughly a dozen local co-working spots, a number of which have opened over the last two years.
 
Now the University City Science Center and Drexel University have announced the launch of the city's latest flexible workspace, known as the Innovation Center @3401. In order to differentiate themselves, they've crafted a specific mission.

"We don't think of the Innovation Center strictly as a co-working space," explains the Science Center's Christopher Liang. "It was designed very purposely to house a mix of residents."
 
The Center was also designed to fill a gap in the University City incubation and startup spectrum. The Science Center's Quorum, for instance, is a social gathering place for local entrepreneurs, while its Port incubator is home to offices and labs.
 
"We've been talking for some time about how we can broaden our offerings to include companies that maybe don't need wet labs," says Liang. "So, the Innovation Center is related to a desire to be more inclusive of the entrepreneurial community -- particularly the tech companies that are starting to become so important to the city."
 
The Center is currently accepting applications from potential residents, which will include a mix of investors, entrepreneurs, startups and stand-alone professionals.

"We're less concerned about the structural format of the residents," adds Liang. "[We're] more concerned with their ability to fit within the general theme of [being] tech and digital creatives."
 
The Innovation Center @3401 plans to open its doors in early June.
 
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Christopher Liang, University City Science Center

Thirteen percent of Philadelphia's population is now of Hispanic or Latino descent -- that's nearly 200,000 people within the city limits alone. The organizers of the third annual Filadelfia Latin American Film Festival (FLAFF) -- the only annual festival of its sort in the Greater Philadelphia area -- have released the scheduled lineup for this three-day event, which runs April 25-27 at The University of the Arts, the Kimmel Center and International House Philadelphia. This year's films represent a diverse range of Latin countries and include full-length features, documentaries, shorts and even a family-friendly animated film from Uruguay.

Standouts include Cesar's Last Fast, a film about a one-man hunger strike held by Cesar Chavez in an effort to shine a light on the negative effects of pesticides, and Yo, Indocumentada, an exploration of the Venezuelan transgender community.    
 
According to FLAFF co-organizer Beatriz Vieira, "part of what we want to do [with FLAFF] is to make sure the audiences are being built very, very carefully." To that end, a fair amount of community engagement has been baked into the festival, she says, "to make sure [it] has a lot of relevance for the region."
 
For example, a student member of the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians will discuss the struggles of learning to read and write as an adult following the screening of Las Analfabetas, a Chilean film about a middle-aged illiterate woman. FLAFF is also partnering with The Food Trust and Fair Food; representatives from both groups will discuss their work with the audience after the screening of Cesar's Last Fast.   
 
Click here to view film trailers or purchase tickets.
 
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Beatriz Vieira, FLAFF

 

The Center City design-and-print firm Replica Creative has been in the brainstorming business for some 34 years now. But it wasn't until Replica opened the doors of its now three-month-old University City location, Creative Cafe at Replica (which also houses a coffee shop), that Brand Manager Keith Leaphart stumbled upon an idea that might prove to be Replica's most impressive yet.
 
Leaphart calls it the #DreamCup Campaign.

"Our locations are all about bringing people together," he says. "So, when we opened the second location with a cafe in it, I was sitting there and thinking: Who would people want to have their dream cup with?"
 
Leaphart started by sharing his plan with friends and fellow employees: What did they think about the idea of knocking back a latte with their favorite local thought leader or entrepreneur? The response was overwhelmingly positive -- people wanted to pick the brains of Comcast EVP David Cohen or Philadelphia Style Publisher John Colabelli -- and the #DreamCup campaign was officially launched.
 
To enter, potential coffee klatchers share the name of their would-be #DreamCup date in a Vine video or a tweet sent to @designprintcafe. Once a month, a winner is chosen. Of course, the object of a DreamCupper's affection has to agree to the meeting, which also includes a $25 Replica gift card for the winner.  
 
The campaign's first recipient, City Fit Girls founder Kiera Smalls, happens to be an entrepreneur herself. She shared a cup with Mayor Nutter's Communications Director, Desiree Peterkin Bell.

Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Keith Leaphart, Replica Creative 

Drexel University is hosting its second annual Philly Codefest hackathon this weekend (February 22-23). The event is a nonstop coding marathon that will run throughout the night on Saturday, ending at 1 p.m. Sunday.
 
When the various programmers and hacking teams gather at Drexel's URBN Center this Friday evening for a pre-Codefest meet-up, they'll learn about the event's purpose and its ultimate goal, which involves transforming various open-source datasets into online tools -- websites, apps, prototypes -- that offer actual solutions to real-world problems.          
 
When the Codefest hosted its first event last April, it focused solely on potential health care solutions. But as the event's co-organizer, Abhiroop Das, explains, "If you want to affect large-scale open datasets in health care specifically, there are issues like privacy [to consider]." As a result, most of the applications that came out of the first hackathon revolved around personal health.
 
This time around, "we want to give everyone an opportunity," says Das. "We want to highlight all the talent here in Philadelphia. It'll be more of a traditional hackathon."
 
Along with health and patient care, datasets provided to the coders will range from cyber security and data science to government and civic solutions. The Codefest's 20-person advisory board, which includes the city's Chief Data Officer Mark Headd and University City Science Center CEO Steve Tang, will judge the programmers' results and award prizes. Das says he's expecting well over 100 coders, including both students and professionals.
 
"[Hopefully], we'll see a good amount of projects stay alive beyond the hackathon, and go on to become, to some degree, a success," adds Das.      

Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Abhiroop Das, Philly Codefest

Two new biotechnology companies have moved to the University City Science Center's Port Business Incubator. They join the 45 other life science, healthcare IT, and emerging technologies startups currently working there. 

Targeted Therapeutic Solutions and Innolign Biomedical both launched as part of the University of Pennsylvania's UPstart Program, which develops Penn's intellectual property by helping faculty form new companies. The initiative provides participants with access to business planning, advice and support resources through collaborative relationships with entities such as the Science Center.

Targeted Therapeutic Solutions is currently developing a unique agent to reduce the incidence of stroke and bleeding for patients at risk for pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis and certain types of heart attacks. Innolign Biomedical is utilizing its microfabrication technologies and tissue engineering to develop assessment platforms for the pharmaceutical industry and biomaterials to promote therapeutic tissue regeneration.

"These two new companies complement the diverse composition of the Science Center's Port incubator," says Christopher J. Laing, MRCVS, Ph.D., the Science Center’s vice president of Science and Technology. "The UPstart Program is creating an exciting pipeline of startups in biotech and emerging technologies. We are delighted to provide an ecosystem that will allow these companies to continue to grow." 

Both startups will use laboratory and office space at the Science Center for product research and development. They have each received Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding from the National Institutes of Health.

Laing points out that with 198 hospitals and six major medical schools in the region, Philadelphia is the largest market for healthcare in the country -- which makes it a great city for startups in the field. 

"Greater Philadelphia is also home to 15 leading life science companies, and 78 have headquarters in the region," he says. "That is very important for health companies looking to establish relationships with industry."

Writer: Nicole Woods
Source: Christopher J. Laing, University City Science Center

Believe it or not, until December 2, there was no one-stop shop for caffeine and creatives—no Kinko’s/Starbucks joint venture. Keith Leaphart, the CEO who reimagined the graphic design firm Replica Creative at a time when many thought print was a dying business, saw this as an obvious opportunity. 

"I’m proud that Philadelphia is the birthplace of this concept,” says Leaphart. "The Creative Café @ Replica allows us to do what we love to do best, and that is provide great services, while meeting and greeting people. And what better way to do that than over coffee?”

The Creative Café @ Replica prints marketing materials, wedding invitations and custom wall graphics while serving up comfort food from DiBruno Brothers and coffee from Counter Culture. Leaphart hopes that the cafe/lounge/print shop hybrid will be more than the sum of its parts; its location at University City Science Center should be a huge asset.

"So much is happening in University City," he says. "The creative economy is truly thriving; and University City is one of the best places to be, to foster and grow original concepts. When we found this space in the Science Center, it was love at first sight…I was excited at the opportunity to launch the concept in the heart of the innovation zone."

Though two different groups of employees were hired to staff Creative Café (graphic designers and baristas), Leaphart looked for the same basic qualities when hiring

"Across the board, we like intelligent, energetic, creative types who understand that our corporate philosophy is ‘Grow or Go!’" he explains. 

The Creative Cafe @ Replica is located at 3711 Market Street; to learn more, visit replicacreative.com and follow @designprintcafe on Twitter. 

Writer: Nicole Woods
Source: Keith Leaphart, Creative Café @ Replica 

When considering international business opportunities, investors often overlook our neighbors to the North. However, the economic development spurred by Canadian companies is quite significant. 

Vince Finn, trade commissioner of Life Sciences & Health IT at the Consulate General of Canada, estimates that bilateral trade between Canada and the U.S. nets more than $24 billion annually and contributes to 300,000 jobs in Pennsylvania.

In November, at the fifth annual eHealth Innovation Summit at the University City Science Center, eleven emerging Canadian healthcare IT companies demonstrated their technologies. These startups are part of a "market immersion" program launched by the Science Center and the Canadian Consulate General; it has been dubbed the Canadian Technology Accelerator at the Science Center (CTA for Health IT). 

The CTA for Health IT offers a communal co-working space at the Science Center’s Port Business Incubator, as well as access to programming, resources and support from the local network. Participating startups aim to build their relationships with hospitals, insurers, clinics and physicians in the city. 

The program launched in May 2013. The second group of startups took up residency at the Science Center in September 2013. Companies from both classes presented at the summit: Infonaut offers real-time clinical information about hospital infection prevention and control; Pulseinfo Frame offers database-driven informatics for disease management and clinical workflow improvement; Sensory Tech develops telemedicine solutions for in-home hospice care services; and HandyMetrics Corporation commercializes hand hygiene methods. 

Some of the participating demonstrators, including Memotext and Pulseinfo Frame, have plans to stay in Philadelphia after the immersion program is complete.

Writer: Nicole Woods
Source: Jeanne Mell, University City Science Center