Innovation + Job News

In 2011, Michele McKeone, a teacher and University of the Arts alum, entered the Corzo Center for the Creative Economy at the University of the Arts intending to market her specialized curriculum. One year later she launched the beta version of Autism Expressed, an interactive web-platform that helps autistic students develop digital skills. McKeone and three other 2011 Corzo Center/Wells Fargo Fellows will share trials, mistakes, successes and plans from their creative ventures during What’s Cooking at Corzo on Tuesday, Nov. 13.

Like many artistic entrepreneurs, McKeone, a former media design student, struggled to turn her passions into something marketable. Many creative startups also have difficulty appealing to traditional funding sources.

“When the politicians talk about ‘job creators,’ they are not talking about the small businesses created in the creative economy,” says Neil Kleinman, Senior Fellow for the Corzo Center for the Creative Economy. “As we know, though, a thriving economic community requires that we have a creative culture.”

The Corzo Center provides workshops, mentorship and consulting to meet the specific needs of creative startups and offers select entrepreneurs a $10,000 grant. The presenting 2011 Corzo fellows demonstrate a diverse range of business concepts rooted in creative education. In addtion to McKeon, presenters include:

ADMK:  As a graduate student at UArts, Andrew Dalhgren, a master crafter, spent a year investigating the state of textiles in Philadelphia. He developed a vision for scalable production of handmade knitting enabled by advanced technology, and plans to launch Knit Lab as a shared workspace.
 
Bonded Forever Jewelry: This company designs jewelry that “bonds” cancer patients with their loved ones. Cassandra Hoo, a writer, filmmaker and recent Alliance for Women Entrepreneur (AWE) fellow, developed the concept after her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Bonded Forever Jewelry is sold in local shops and helps fund cancer research.

Bioskin: Eric Zola is an industrial designer developing new forms of environmentally sound insulation using biomimicry—sustainable design based on biological forms.

McKeone, who since completed the Good Company Ventures accelorator and was awarded a 2011 AWE fellowship, is currenlty testing Autism Expressed at area charter schools. She credits Corzo for pushing her to incorporate entrepreneurial thinking into her vision.

"At the time, I had no clear business model, just an emerging vision," she says. "After working through the incubator, attending its workshops and open office hours with experts in the areas of law, business, marketing, etc., I emerged with not only a well-defined vision, but a scalable product and business model."

In the past three years, six of the ten total Corzo Incubator fellows launched startups that continue to progress. Nonetheless, Kleinman says the ultimate focus is not about success.

"We have emerging entrepreneurs with remarkable stories," he says. "Their time with Corzo was intended to be a learning process—the first stage along a path that may lead to new ideas and new ventures. Each started at a very small spot on the road and has begun to move out into some delightful, surprising forms of recognition.”

Source: Neil Kleinman, Michele McKeone, Corzo Center
Writer: Dana Henry

Anyone whose attempted vegetarianism knows eating more plants can mean endless hours in the kitchen. There are special groceries and lengthy chopping sessions, not to mention the new-recipe-learning-curve. Conshohocken-based Real Food Works is launching a weekly subscription meal service offering fresh, local, plant-based entres with vegitarian and ominvor options. They are currently hiring a web engineer and expect to hire more positions early next year.

“With a plant-based diet you’re working pretty much from scratch,” Mike Krupit, co-found of Real Food Works and dietary convert, explains. “On Sunday I would spend a good four or five hours in the kitchen cooking four or five days’ worth of meals for myself. You’re not dealing with complex ingredients, but in order to get something to taste good and have a variety of ingredients requires a whole bunch of time.” 

At heart, Real Food Works is a tech business that connects customers to local chefs. Early in the week, when kitchens are staffed but don’t get many customers, the company commissions meals that meet stringent nutritional requirements. They currently matches customers with kitchens at Trattoria Totaro, Miss Rachel's Pantry, Eat Your Heart Out Edibles, Turnersville, Su Tao Cafe, Earth Elements, Stella Blu, Gypsy Saloon, and Wine Thief.

As Krupit explains, responsible eating has been chalked up to personal education. Someone looking to change their diet might read a book, follow a website, or join a meetup group. Real Food Works aims to give national traction to the plant-based movement by selling it. Krupit, and his cofounder, Lucinda Duncalfe, are experienced tech entreprenures and avid plant eaters, who say changing their diet changed their lives.They expect that other professionals will embrace the opportunity to make the switch without the hassle.

“When you look at national subscription meal plans, their food sucks,”  Krupit says. “We provide high-quality food that’s fresh and we came up with a model that can grow across the country.” 

Source: Mike Krupit, Real Food Works
Writer: Dana Henry

On Tuesday, Oct. 23, local businesses, community colleges, education professionals and tech advisors met at Temple University for the first Delaware Valley STEM Workforce Development Conference. The ongoing incubator, which addresses issues related to the gap in STEM education and the growing number of tech-sector jobs, launched an “enabling committee” to foster partnerships between businesses and schools in Greater Philadelphia. Writer: Dana Henry

In the fall of 2011, leadership from Philly Startup Leaders and Ben Franklin Technology Partners began meeting with  Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies, and officials from Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation and The Mayors Office. Despite seemingly different agendas, the group collaborated around a shared interest: How do we keep promising companies in Philadelphia?

In just a few years, WizeHive has established a successful track record selling their collaborative platform as an application review tool and is ready to expand into new verticals. The Conshohocken comapny is hiring several positions including high-level web developers, web designer, experienced sales lead, and business development expert.

For the past decade, the Elkins Park East commercial corridor, home of the once thriving Ashbourne Market, struggled to retain businesses. With help from Weavers Way and considerable investment from the Cheltenham community, Creekside Co-op will open where Ashbourne once stood. They are hiring a financial controller and several store positions.

“The Ashbourne Market operated for over 30 years and was a destination for many folks from all around Philadelphia looking for quality food,” Max Minkoff, Creekside Board President, says.  “We hope that Creekside will be an anchor for the great businesses [of Elkins Park East] and boost the entire area.”

Previous attempts to reopen the Ashbourne site were less than successful. The comercial district, however, is revitalizing with a newly beautified High School Park and several emerging businesses including Shakti Yoga, The Stitching Room, Fresh From Provence, and The Whistle Stop Café.

Creekside Co-op will operate as a full service grocer offering local, gourmet, and all-natural selections. Most co-ops attempt a few hundred memberships, but CreekSide already has 1,500 members, who provide over $200,000 in equity and $330,000 in loans to the new market. In recent years, Mariposa expanded, Weavers Way opened a second store and  Fishtown organized a co-op, proving cooperative neighborhood food stores are succeeding in Philadelphia. CreekSide Co-op opens mid-November with a grand opening celebration in January.

“Turning an empty building dragging down the neighborhood into a thriving, tax-paying business is something that is easy to get behind,” Minkoff says. “Some are motivated by the opportunity to buy local, quality food, some by the ability to have a food market within walking distance, some by revitalizing the neighborhood, and some by increasing property values, but we can all get together and create this business that makes sense for these and so many more reasons.”

Source: Max Minkoff, Creekside Co-op
Writer: Dana Henry

ElectNext has grown membership by 1,000 percent for four straight months. Having partnered with 40 media sites and secured more than $750,000 in investments, the civic-engagement startup is moving fast to keep up with upcoming federal elections and their own ambitions. They are hiring data scientists and engineers.
 
According to Dave Zega, National Director and CMO of ElectNext, political campaigns operate like a corporate marketing agenda: They purchase personal information, available via internet, and deliver highly tailored messages to individual voters. So how do you know who you’re really voting for? ElectNext turns the tables by collecting data on the politicians from multiple sources, including interest group ratings, campaign finance records, and politicians’ websites, to reveal candidates’ true stance on various issues. Members sign in, answer a series of issue-related questions, and receive their best voting ‘match.’
 
“What do we know about our politicians?” Zega asks. “Most of us can’t even name them and that is a huge data divide. That is why we are building the big dataset on your politicians and putting it together with a recommendation engine, so that anyone, anywhere can use our data and technology to engage on their most important political issues, every day.”
 
As elections approach, voters seek the company’s partner news sites, which include national and local outlets, driving traffic to ElectNext. Upon discovering their match, new members can publicize their results on social media platforms, sparking political conversations and civic activity while creating more potential members.
 
Collectively, the answers members provide illustrate the policy positions of the voting public. ElectNext generates profit by leasing access to this aggregated data to broadcast media, search engines, and educational nonprofits, without revealing anyone’s personal information.
 
So far, the “big dataset” accounts for federal elections, but ElectNext expects to build state and local elections into their platform in 2013.
 
“Some of our most important issues happen on a daily basis in our communities,” Zega says. “Think community centers and public parks, property taxes and the neighborhood school. So that is where we most want to help you engage.”
 
Co-founder Keya Dannenbaum, worked on several campaigns before entering Wharton’s demanding MBA program and losing all civic awareness—it’s difficult to balance political research with real life. ElectNext aims to better connect estranged voters with authentic politics. They’re continued success could help make super-packs and fact-checking frenzies a thing of the past.  

Source: Dave Zega, ElectNext
Writer: Dana Henry

With the presidential race in full swing it’s easy to overlook that thousands of political seats—at municipal, state and federal levels—are up for re-election across the country. Luckily, Azavea keeps track of legislative data with Cicero API, a GIS platform matching people, businesses, advocacy organizations and nonprofits with their elected officials. Azavea is hiring two to three paid research assistance internships to help overhaul Cicero as well as one or two software engineers for their Justice and Enterprise Services Team.

“[A user] can geo-code their address and [Cicero] will know the local district and the state district and tell you exactly who you should contact and what their contact information is,” Maya Gutierrez, Product Manager of Elections and Politics at Azavea, explains.

Unlike similar services which estimate your districts based on zip code, Cicero is remarkably accurate, pinpointing the precise longitude and latitude of an address. The platform holds comprehensive data of federal and state legislative districts as well as city council data for 80 of the largest cities. In addition to updating official information for up to 10,000 inaugural seats, the Cicero team will be working double-time to redraw district boundaries, which have changed in accordance with the 2010 census data. Their product is a valuable informant for a range of clients.

“Cicero is used by the political campaigns but it can also be used by constituents,” Gutierrez says. “A number of clients use it for legislative advocacy projects.”

Winning Mark used Cicero to create a web-app voter’s guide for Oregon residents. SEPTA uses it to remind officials which transportation routes effect their constituency. News outlets view the political landscape through Cicero. The platform has even helped with analysis of the impact of voter ID law. Because nothing like Cicero exists in the public realm, Azavea offers nonprofit pricing options as well as pro bono accounts for several non-profits signed up through TechSoup and selected local organizations, keeping the civilly-minded resource as available as possible.

Source: Maya Gutierrez, Azavea
Writer: Dana Henry

By all accounts, the fully revamped State of Young Philly 2012 was a breakout success. From the 12 events that sold out at more than 75 attendees apiece, to the closeout dance party where local leaders and dedicated volunteers partook in the Electric Slide, Young Involved Philadelphia (YIP) proved it could pull off a civic-advocacy conference that was bigger, livelier and more ambitious than any seen in Philly to date. 

“It’s that whimsical optimism you have when you’re young,” Sophia Hwang, Outreach Coordinator of YIP, says. “But [YIP] is also rooted in doing good work.”

Pennsylvania State Rep. Brian Sims came by Hamilton Hall at University of the Arts for Saturday’s closing ceremony to commend YIP. He encouraged everyone in the audience, which he recognized as Philadelphia’s rising leadership, to run for political office. 

SYOP’s greatest achievement, however, may have been the launch of three projects, winners of the culminating YIP Challenge: It’s My Life in the education track, OKWork!Philly in the economy track and Bike Generator Demonstrator in the sustainability track. All three received $1,000 seed money and YIP will continue to provide them with networking and public relations assistance.

Lawanda Horton Sauter, CEO of Mission Incorporated, will pilot It’s My Life at four area high schools and help students use live theater to safely practice situation related to their sexual health. Sauter was inspired by her young, HIV-positive client and has been researching staggering realities of rising STD rates among youth.

“[The YIP Challenge] really encourages the next generation of social entrepreneurs to do things that impact the community instead of just worrying about the bottom line for their companies,” Sauter says. “[YIP] made this possible by opening it up to so many people regardless of what their ‘connections’ were.”

OKWork!Philly was created by four UPenn recent graduates—David Wengert, Anne Misak, Maurie Smith and Elizabeth Frantz—three of which are currently seeking employment. Their concept harnesses the networking power of LinkedIn to create a more effective web platform for local hiring.

“It benefits Philly to have jobs filled faster,” Misak says. “We want one central place where you can see a job posting, apply directly through the website and then see who in your network is connected to the employer and ask them to write a personalized recommendation. [OKWork!Philly] will save time and money on both the employer side and job seekers side.”

Aaron Roche, a structural engineer who graduated from Drexel, met recent transplant, Becky Schwartz, during SYOP’s Sustainability 101 event. Together they teamed up with Matt Weaver to develop Bike Generator Demonstrator, a design project that powers light bulbs and small electronic appliances using human-power generated from a bicycle.

“One of our goals is to generate interest in energy efficiency,” Roche says. “How can these common appliances be powered in such a simple way?”

According to Hwang, it takes just one voice to start an avalanche of change:  “A single individual came to State of Young Philly last year and said, ‘it was good but not good enough.’ We met with him, had coffee, and this [year’s programming] was what we did. We’re young, we’re nimble, we’re flexible, so if you have an idea, let’s run with it.” Hwang says.

As noted by YIP’s board chair, Claire Robertson-Kraft, Philadelphia now retains twice the local university graduates it did a decade ago and offers an increasing number of “friends of” groups connected to YIP. SYOP 2012 may be a sample of what YIP will show us for years to come.

Source: Sophia Hwang, Rudy Flesher, Claire Robertson-Kraft, Young Involved Philadelphia
Writer: Dana Henry

From inception, the founders of AppreNet saw their online practical skills consortium reaching a range of professionals. The Drexel-based startup continues serving legal education with LawMeets and is now piloting K12Meets, a parallel tool for teachers. They seek full- and part-time web developers and a business-development expert.

At virtual ‘meets,’ a user posts a specific work-related problem and receives feedback from a network of peers as well as advice from experts. Top peer-reviewed responses are catalogued in a resource library. The 'meets' format is based on the teaching method of Karl Okamoto, a professor at Drexel’s Earle Mack School of Law, who cofounded ApprenNet with Emily Foote, a former student, and Paul Tzen. It may prove invaluable for teachers, who encounter social and structural complications when they enter the classroom and have little time or financial resources to seek outside support. K12Meets could help with a classroom managment issue or with eveluation of teacher performance.

“There’s a disconnect in graduate school, where teachers are trained, between practice and theory,” Foote, who is a former public school teacher, says. “There tends to be more of an emphasis on theory and when you get into the field you’re kind of on your own. K12 meets provides an easy way to gain more practical experiences.”

ApprenNet is funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and anticipates multiple revenue sources: providing continuing education credits, sponsorship from related institutions, selling archived meets as graduate education-material, and small fees for user participation. Foote, who participated in live meets in Okamoto’s classroom, believes the opportunities for low cost, scalable apprenticeships are limitless.

“I never had an educational experience as rich as I did in law school through how Karl taught,” she says.

Source: Emily Foote, ApprenNet
Writer: Dana Henry

The foliage blossoming from the roof of the Shake Shack at 20th and Sansom in Center City is the work of Mario Gentile and his company, Shift_Design. Their portable 'living tile,' aka green roof tile, offers urban homes and storefronts a DIY method of adding rain-absorbing shrubbery to any impervious surface, be it a concrete patio or any of the countless flat roofs in Philly. Their latest edition, the Fairmount Living Tile, will be demoed at the Design Philadelphia event, Up and Dirty.

“A green roof for the masses is not easily accessible yet,” Gentile says. “The costs associated are exorbitant. We wanted to solve larger issues—stormwater management, heat island effect, and air quality—by offering an accessible, well designed living tile kit that makes it easy for the end user. No need for a structural engineer, landscape architect, contractor, roofer, installer, etc.”

The tile, a rectangular aluminum tray, includes specially formulated Gaia soil, which is half the weight of typical soil, but absorbs twice its weight in water. According to the company’s structural assessment, Gaia soil can be supported by the roof of a row home during maximum snowfall, but it’s so light weight it easily blows away. Shift_Design includes burlap casing, made from La Colombe coffee sacks, to mimic natural ground floor covering and keep the soil in place.

Shift_Design was founded in 2008 when Gentile—who currently teaches biomimicry architecture at UPenn—pulled a few of his former Temple design students for a residential rain barrel project. The company has since graduated from Good Company Ventures as experts in elegantly designed passive stormwater management technologies—ie raised gardens, living walls, rainwater collection etc. Their work is installed at Shake Shack, Urban Outfitters Headquarters, and countless homes across the city.

Sure, it looks pretty, but greening also serves an impending urban need. Sixty percent of Philly’s sewers are “combined" sewers meaning they carry both sewage and rain water. As climate change increases the east coast’s annual rainfall, combined sewers carry the risk of overflow, creating a potential citywide sanitation hazard. The Philadelphia Water Department has proposed a $2 billion plan to catch excess water before it hits the sewer using greening and other passive technologies—it’s a lot cheaper than building new pipes.

In addition to stormwater reduction, green walls and roofs support dwindling pollinators, remediate air and water pollution and lower household energy consumption by regulating temperature. In their market segment study, Shift_Design found east coast cities, including Philly, New York and Baltimore, have a profusion of impervious surface ripe for alteration.

“Flat roofs are abundant and they’re doing nothing for these cities,” Gentile says. “Adding just a little bit of greening, a little bit of life, to your home reduces stress. If many households do it, the added benefits [for the city] are incredible.”

Gentile, who has a track record of hiring his employees directly from Philly schools including UPenn, Temple and UArts, will also launch a kickstarter campaign for manufacturing toolage during Design Philadelphia. With advanced equipment, Gentile says, Shift_Design can increase production and lower the price point even further while adding a few green manufacturing jobs to our area.

Source: Mario Gentile, Shift_Design
Writer: Dana Henry

Awaiting its official launch, Shindig Mobile has found a new type of client, the college campus. The makers of the fully customizable event series app—whose clients include Philadelphia Fringe Festival and Live Arts, Second Conf, and the American Association of Cancer Research—will work closely with Campus Philly to discover how their cross-platform mobile technology can serve the higher education sector. Shindig is currently hiring a sales rep and expects to add a few more positions at the beginning of next year.

“Campuses throw lots of events with lots of people who always need to know what’s going on.” Corey Floyd, CEO of Shindig, says. “There’s extra-curricular activities, student orientation. [Shindig] has a lot of mapping capabilities. The system can help people with navigating buildings and finding a class.”

Normally, when an organization wants patrons to track their events, they build and distribute an individual app with separate versions for Android, iOS, mobile web and other platforms. According to Floyd, this can easily cost $100,000. Shindig provides a comprehensive events-app structure from a central platform that’s already hooked into a distribution channel and can publish across all mobile devices. The client adds data and branding using mobile web templates, similar to the way a blog works, drastically reducing the price point. 

The Shindig concept began as the 2010 Philly Beer Week App, which Floyd and several Shindig co-founders, including Johnny Bilotta, Kevin Lee and Michael James—who are all longtime IndyHall members and successful app contributors—built after a conversation at Coco Heads Meetup. After Beer Week, a few contributors moved on and Salas Saraiya, and later Mike Zornek, joined the team. The Beer Week apps, they discovered, had implications for a larger problem.

“We were building [the Beer Week apps] as a one-off.” Floyd says. “We built one for iphone, then one for Android; it was starting to get hard. That’s when we put together this concept of building a platform where we could put [all versions] out at one time.”

“We built a backend that worked for us and it worked well. About a year ago we started thinking, ‘if this system works for us why not make it available for anyone to use?’ So what started out as finding a destination for beer in Philadelphia can now be ‘How can I get to my class?’” Floyd says.

Shindig’s official launch and party is planned for late October. Sign up for their newsletter to receive details.

Source: Corey Floyd, Shindig
Writer: Dana Henry

University City Science Center received the Sal Buccieri Memorial Venture Impact Award during the 15^th annual Early Stage East, venture capital conference, on Thursday (Oct. 4). Previously, this award, which honors individuals and organizations that help early stage companies flourish in Philadelphia, was largely given to venture capitalists.

“[The University City Science Center] has created a true center of innovation,” David Freschman, Founder of ESE, says.  “It offers counsel, resources, facility and thought-leadership which has been the impetus for the launch and growth of many companies in our region that currently employ thousands of employees.”

“This award is especially meaningful as we embark on our 50th anniversary year,” Stephen Tang, President & CEO of UCSC, says of the acceptance.  “I did not have the honor of knowing Sal Buccieri, but from what I've heard about him, he exemplified the pay-it-forward mentality we need to nurture a thriving culture of entrepreneurship and innovation.”

During the conference, 25 technology startups from Club Pitch presented to venture capitalists and angle investors. Freschman says many participating companies gain their first-round investment from contacts made at ESE. Innovation Capital Advisors, where Freschman serves as Managing Principal, invests up to 70 percent of their capital in companies that participated in Club Pitch. Among the 16 presenters from the Philadelphia region, Freschman cites Snip Snap, Localty, People Linx and Cloud Confidence as companies to look out for.

“Philadelphia is very much a city driven by ‘substantive’ enterprise,” Freschman says. “These are businesses that will grow because of customer acquisition and sales growth versus publicity and marketing presence. Maybe they aren’t as sexy as what you read in INC magazine, but [Philly companies] are really productive.”

Freschman believes the greater Philadelphia public, however, needs to look beyond banking and insurance to find the real success story of our local enterprise community.

“We need to really praise and recognize these emerging companies” he says.

Source: David Freschman, Early Stage East
Writer: Dana Henry

Young Involved Philadelphia (YIP) kicked off its third annual State of Young Philly on Thursday with a standing-room only crowd at the Kimmel Center’s Innovation Studio and full-fledged ambition.

“State of Young Philly, for all intents and purposes, is totally redone from the previous two installments,” says Jason Wolfson, YIP's Programing Committee Chair. “The first two have been very positive in terms of getting people excited, getting people to want to do more, getting people more involved in their community. What we really want to do now is make that tangible.”
 
Drawing support from over 50 participating change-making organizations, this year’s catalogue offers 12 total events from “key issue” areas: Economy, Education and Sustainability.  

Instead of simply listening and networking, participants are guided by action-oriented questions. Sophie Hwang, YIP's Outreach Coordinator, offers an example from the Education Track: “Not everyone has a computer but most everyone has a mobile device. So how can we use mobile technology to better inform parents?”
 
Last year’s State Of Young Philly gave birth to the educational nonprofit, Philly Core Leaders. This year’s installment encourages similar results, offering $1,000 in seed money to winners of the YIP Challenge.

“People can get inspired by attending the first couple of events, meet new people, build teams and submit a proposal,” Hwang explains.
 
It’s passion and drive balanced with fun. One night, City Councilman Bill Green’s office hosts a pitch competition for educational entrepreneurs. The next, DIY experts give how-tos on composting, making all natural cosmetics, and altering refrigerator coils to save energy.
 
“We’re going to have events for everybody, regardless of how knowledgeable you are in a particular field.”  Wolfson maintains.
 
When else can you visit the home of an internationally-renound orchestra and leave with your very own homemade deodorant?

Source: Jason Wolfson, Sophie Hwang, Young Involved Philadelphia
Writer: Dana Henry