Fairmount / Art Museum : Innovation + Job News

Flying Bytes is nuggets of innovation from across Greater Philadelphia:

BROTHERLY LOVE GOES GLOBAL
Following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, there's been a swell of support from local companies and groups. Comcast is offering free calls to Japan for Xfinity Voice and Business Class Voice customers. Call Japan now until April 10, 2011 and get an automatic refund on your Comcast bill. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter of the Red Cross is accepting both online and text message contributions for Japan relief efforts and reports that it has received generous donations from Westchester's QVC and Philadelphia Insurance. The Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia has instituted a Disaster Relief Fund, and is also taking donations at the Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival.

THE GREEN GREEN GRASS OF HOME
Urban Blazers, a Philadelphia program that organizes outdoor activities for under-resourced youth, is co-sponsoring an East Fairmount Park Spring Clean-Up. The event, to be held Saturday, April 2 from 9 to 1, will start at Mander Playground, 33rd and Diamond, for a seasonal overhaul of nearby recreational spots, as well as the Woodford Mansion Orchard. It's part of the citywide Philly Spring Cleanup. Participating civic groups include the East Park Revitalization Alliance, Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis and Education, the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation and the Strawberry Mansion Athletic Association. RSVP on Facebook or email [email protected].

COME ON BABY LIGHT MY FIRE
Speaking of blazing, on April 16, grab a flashlight and head over to the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Washington Square Park for a warm spring evening of fun. Get Out Philly is hosting a game of Flashlight Tag beginning at 8. Put on your post-tax return attitude and casual clothes. Food and drink to follow at a nearby casual spot. Suggested donation is $1. You can RSVP on Facebook.

Source: Comcast, Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia, Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter of the Red Cross, Urban Blazers, Get Out Philly
Writer: Sue Spolan

In the spirit of Philly's other well-known celebrations like Beer Week and Restaurant Week, one of the main goals for Philly Tech Week, happening April 25 to 30 in locations across the city, is to have fun. Organized by Technically Philly, the week is meant to connect the many different segments of the Philly technology community, from hackers to Comcast and everyone in between, according to TP co-founder Chris Wink.

At this point, there are about 35 events on the schedule, with more to come. WHYY will serve as headquarters. Wink says the media outlet will host a daily lunchtime speaker series throughout the week, as well as the final big event Friday night. Tech Week coincides with two other major citywide happenings: The Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (PIFA) and The Philadelphia Science Festival. As a result, says Wink, some gatherings will carry all three labels, such as Augmented Reality Check: Seeing The Future Now, looking at the intersection of art, technology and science, to be held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on April 26.

Another exciting Tech Week gathering is The Future of Music featuring musician and producer RJD2, coordinated by Tayyib Smith, owner of Little Giant Media, which publishes two.one.five magazine. Smith hopes to draw like minded people actively engaged in creating, promoting and distributing music to envision the role technology will play in the future of music. "I am an analog person who is fronting like I am digital," says Smith, who hopes to get as much out of the discussion as any of the other attendees.

Local firm Azavea, which builds geographic analysis software, happens to be rolling out several projects that same week, and plans to show off the brand new goods. "One is Philly Tree Map," says President and CEO Robert Cheetham, whose goal is to create a crowdsourced urban tree inventory. Two other Azavea projects, Open Data Philly and PhillyHistory.org, will be showcased during Tech Week.

For those who have ever fantasized about going ballistic on your devices, be sure to attend the Office Space Printer Smash, co-sponsored by Nonprofit Technology Resources and The Hacktory. As the title indicates, participants will be encouraged to turn unrecyclable printers into a pile of mangled plastic and metal.

Source: Christopher Wink, Technically Philly, Tayyib Smith, Little Giant Media, Robert Cheetham, Azavea
Writer: Sue Spolan

Flying Bytes is a roundup of innovation nuggets from across the region:

OPEN UP TO ART
The second annual Art in The Open exhibit has been announced for June 9-12, 2011. The citywide exhibit features a juried selection of artists who will create site specific work along the Schuylkill Banks, from Bartram's Garden in Southwest Philly, and as far north as the Fairmount Park Waterworks. The result is a giant outdoor studio, with art stations for the public to get into the creative process. AIO co-founder Mary Salvante reports that all 2011 artist applications have been received, and the 40 winners will be announced shortly.

A CANAL PROPOSAL
The Manayunk Canal Towpath is about to get an art facelift. The Mural Arts Program, in association with the Manayunk Special Services District (MSSD) and the Manayunk Development Corporation, is calling for proposals to transform the disused canal into a temporary public art location with a focus on sustainability, incorporating water. The canal is the last surviving segment of a waterway that once ran as far as Schuylkill County, bringing coal from the mines into Philadelphia. The installation will coincide with this September's Manayunk Eco-Arts Festival. For more information, send email here.

MALVERN GETS 'SOFT
This week Microsoft opened a new 17,500 square foot Technology Center in Malvern. In attendance at the opening ceremony were Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The Philadelphia area tech center is the tenth in the United States, and joins 21 similar technology centers globally. According to Microsoft, "the center is designed to help companies throughout the mid-Atlantic region improve their use of technology to grow their businesses, add jobs, and strengthen their local communities."

PHILLY'S GONE DIGITAL
Digital Philadelphia and Code for America reports that our local team of fellows is working hard to get government data to citizens. Jeff Friedman says the Philly CfA team conducted over a hundred interviews in February, polling government and city workers, civic leaders including heads of non-profits, block captains, civic developers, and citizens. CfA Philly also held three Friday "hack" events to encourage local developers to engage with government data, an Open Data Forum with help from Young Involved Philadelphia, Technically Philly, and the City, and an open data camp where developers built out four functional mini-apps based on city data.

Source: Mary Salvante, AIO; Microsoft Technology Center, Jeff Friedman, CfA Philly
Writer: Sue Spolan

Any runner who has ever bought a bottled water with the fiver in their shoe can understand VitaBand, the new product from Philadelphia entrepreneurs at VitaProducts that allows athletes to carry the contents of their wallet right on their wrist. But in fact, the VitaBand started from a much scarier place.

One day in 2007, co-creator Jason Brown was on a 10k run when a car nearly clipped him, sending him diving onto the shoulder. He made it home safely but what if he hadn't? He hadn't left a note, no one knew where he was and he didn't have his wallet. How would medics locate his medical information? How would they contact his family?

"Had I been hit, I wouldn't have been found for days," Brown says. "Being the type of guy I am, I got home and started to look around for products that might be used for identification purposes for athletes and found that this might be a good business opportunity."

Company co-founder David Waxman looked beyond the bracelet, which is not unlike existing medical ID bands. Along with bringing a point-of-sale payment option to the VitaBand, allowing users to swipe their wrist to pay for that bottle of water, he began licensing the technology to manufacturers of everything runners use: cell phone cases, exercise gear and other proprietary partners. Waxman and Brown hope this bifurcated strategy will give the Vita technology life as both a product and a platform. After completing a first angel investment round last year, the company has received a second round of investment and looks to launch its pilot product, the original VitaBand, in January.

"When we came up with the concept, we wondered how to make this into a mass market product without a $200 million marketing budget," says Waxman. "We looked at the Intel Inside model or the Dolby Digital model, creating a bracelet to jumpstart the market for the licensing component of our business so we can focus on the payment and medical records and let our partners do the heavy lifting getting the products out in the marketplace."

Source: Jason Brown, VitaProducts
Writer: John Steele

It's one of life's great mysteries: you can travel to a thousand cities and eat at a hundred fancy restaurants and drink a dozen craft beers at each of the bars along the way. But a meal never tastes as good as one at your favorite neighborhood haunt. And according to Philadelphia's sustainability leaders, this phenomenon is not just good for your appetite, it can be good for your neighborhood and your city as well.

Based on a concept created by the William Penn Foundation, partners from the Sustainable Business Network, Azavea and NPower created Common Space, a new mapping platform that creates a network of neighborhood establishments within a certain walkable, bikeable or busable distance to help residents support local business.

"The really cool thing is, I can map my friend's common space as well as my own," says SBN Executive Director Leanne Krueger-Braneky. "So if I am leaving from my office in Center City and meeting my husband who is coming from our house in West Philadelphia, he could say he is going to bike for 15 minutes and I could say I was going to walk for 20 minutes and Common Space will map the area where we would be able to meet up and map local culture events and businesses in that field."

Partnering with tastemakers like UWISHUNU and Yelp, Common Space shows you the best spots in your transit area, allowing you the most sustainable way possible to hit your next favorite haunt. After their trial run, organizers hope to partner with citywide festivals and cultural events like LiveArts and Philly Beer Week.

"Sustainability was one of the values William Penn outlined, which is why they wanted to partner with us," Krueger-Braneky says. "Because the application does encourage walking, biking, and public transit, it's a way of showing what's going on in the city while encouraging alternative transit."

Source: Leanne Krueger-Braneky, SBN
Writer: John Steele

Philadelphians know SEPTA's Market-Frankford El as the Blue Line. But a new pilot program, which stores leftover power from the subway's regenerative braking system in a massive battery, would make the Blue Line a little greener, and provide SEPTA some much-needed capital.

Earlier this month, SEPTA and Conshohocken smart-grid firm Viridity Energy announced receipt of $900,000 from the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority to install a massive storage battery--about the size of a cement truck--at SEPTA's Kensington electrical substation. The current regenerative braking system transmits electricity, collected as trains enter stations, to other electric vehicles. But if no other vehicles are in range, the electricity is lost. The battery, capable of storing up to a megawatt of electricity, would siphon energy to be resold to the power grid. Viridity estimates that this one battery will generate $500,000 a year in clean, green profit. SEPTA has already applied for new funding to install these battery systems at all 33 substations across their service area.

"With this technology, SEPTA can be very strategic with their power; when they are using it, when they are storing it and when they are selling it back into the grid," says Viridity Director of Business Development Laurie Actman. "At peak periods, the grid is willing to pay premium prices for sources of reliable load."

Since 2008, SEPTA has struggled to execute capital improvements to its transit infrastructure. Most recently, a proposed switch to SmartCards has drawn scrutiny from city media and transit bloggers. When Governor Ed Rendell made a play to turn state thoroughfare I-80 into a federal toll road, he promised a chunk of the resulting revenue to SEPTA. Since Rendell's proposal was defeated, SEPTA has been looking for other ways to fund improvements, from fare hikes to advertising on the sides of trains. The battery system technology could be the answer they have been looking for that will finally bring the Philadelphia subway into the 21st century.

"As we all know, SEPTA has always had a constrained budget and not enough money to invest in its infrastructure," says Actman. "For so long, SEPTA's infrastructure, that was built nearly a century ago, has been a liability. We are turning that into an opportunity."

Source: Laurie Actman, Viridity Energy
Writer: John Steele

Studies in recent years have revealed that while Philadelphia welcomes up to 50,000 freshman to its colleges and universities every year, less than half remained in the region after graduation. That statistic, in part, is what motivates Young Involved Philadelphia, a comprehensive network of young professionals and student groups producing advocacy campaigns and social events to make Philly a better place to live.

This week, the group opens the State of Young Philly: Imagining Philly's Future summit, a massive, two-week event hosting over 30 partnering organizations for speeches, roundtable discussions and brainstorming sessions to make Philadelphia a more attractive place for young people. The summit will focus on four key areas--Community Engagement and Volunteerism, Government and Leadership, Business and Entrepreneurship, and Arts and Culture--in an effort to "engage, educate and empower" young Philadelphia.

"For the first time since the '50s, the city is gaining population, and although we don't have the newest census data yet, we would venture a guess that this growth is due partly to an increasingly vibrant youth culture," says YIP board chair Claire Robertson-Kraft.

With speakers as varied as former Mayor John Street and the Mural Arts Program's Jane Golden, the summit hopes to gain a wide-reaching perspective that can be gleaned into an agenda ranking priorities and creating concrete deliverables. This agenda will inform an ongoing blog and will serve as YIP's action plan for the coming year. YIP hopes to make the summit an annual event, creating a constant barometer on youth culture in Philadelphia.

"The most important thing we hope people take away from the event is a sense of empowerment," says Robertson-Kraft. "As young Philadelphians, we should be organizing, demonstrating our ability to contribute to the debate, and doing more to ensure our voices are heard."

Source: Claire Robertson-Kraft, Young Involved Philadelphia
Writer: John Steele