Innovation + Job News

It's 2011. Do you know where your power is? With the expiration of Pennsylvania power rate caps at the start of this year, state utility customers are searching for alternative providers. If you are all about clean renewable energy that's local and sustainable, Community Energy provides 100 percent Pennsylvania generated wind power, and it's expanding to provide solar as well.

The Radnor-based company, founded in 1999, began selling retail wind power to commercial customers ahead of state mandates, enabling Community Energy to build demand for the construction of its own wind projects in Pennsylvania as well as in New Jersey. "In 1999, there were a total of 10 megawatts of wind power east of the Mississippi," says Jay Carlis, Vice President of CEI's Retail Division. Texas boasts two of the world's largest wind farms, and California is not far behind. Carlis reports that in the past year, CEI experienced strong growth and has doubled in size, thanks largely to the addition of solar energy to its offerings. After CEI's initial foray serving commercial clients such as Carnegie Mellon University and Giant Market, CEI added residential clients to the roster, and then partnered with utility companies, enabling its reach to include the entire northeastern United States.

While the Pennsylvania PUC has created PA Power Switch, an easy to navigate website that helps customers shop for energy, Carlis says the site leaves out some vital information. "Most people don't understand the complicated aspects of the market. If you want wind power, and it's coming from Texas, the grids don't even connect," says Carlis. Rather, utilities are dealing in tradable Renewable Energy Certificates. For someone living in Pennsylvania, he says, there's a lot of benefit to having wind in the local grid, including a future price edge benefit. "Twenty years from now, if all of Pennsylvania is buying from Texas, Texas will look good, and it won't make a bit of difference for Pennsylvania. It's important that people understand the implications of their choices."

Source: Jay Carlis, Community Energy
Writer: Sue Spolan

Flying Bytes is a regularly occurring wrap-up of innovation nuggets from across Greater Philadelphia:

A WEEK OF TECH CELEBRATION
It's a week long celebration of technology innovation, according to Technically Philly's Christopher Wink, one of the organizers of Philly Tech Week, April 25 to 30. "Wharton, University City Science Center, First Round Capital, the Franklin Institute, and Indy Hall are either sponsoring, hosting events or getting involved," says Wink. Check the PTW calendar for panels on Augmented Reality, Switch Philly, and a municipal government data unveiling. The final Friday night signature event will take place at WHYY, which will serve as headquarters for the week. Stay tuned for more.

TIRED OF WINE & CHEESE
LA's biggest underground art show is coming to town. Pancakes & Booze features over 50 of Philly's underground artists, and will take place Friday March 11 at Bookspace, 1113 Frankford Avenue, starting at 8 p.m. and scheduled into the wee hours. Admission is just $5 and covers all the pancakes you can eat plus live body painting. Pancakes & Booze is on national tour, with stops in San Francisco, Nashville, Denver and more. It's worth going just to see Bookspace, a massive former elevator factory converted into a surreal bookstore stacked to the rafters with more than 50,000 titles.

ENTREPRENEUR EXPO 2011
Philly Startup Leaders wants you to show off your stuff at the Entrepreneur Expo 2011. The area's brightest business minds are set to convene at University of the Arts on March 31. Last year's event drew 400 people. PSL is now accepting exhibitor applications from members, and will accept bids from the general public starting March 13. Register to attend this free event at Ticketleap.

LAUNCHROCK @ SXSW
The winner of this year's Startup Weekend Philadelphia plans on giving away $5,000 at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas March 11-16. LaunchRock is a service that creates a viral "coming soon" page for budding businesses. The entrepreneur who gets the most signups using LaunchRock during SXSW will receive a dollar per sign-up up to $5,000. Results of the competition will be tracked on a 22-foot leaderboard on Sixth Street in Austin.

Source: Technically Philly, Bookspace, Philly Startup Leaders, Launchrock
Writer: Sue Spolan

A suburban boy is moving to town. Milkboy, one of the area's most beloved coffeehouses, is expanding from the Main Line to the Midtown Village section of Philadelphia, hiring a projected 20 new employees. Milkboy began in 1994 as a four-track cassette recorder and one microphone, growing into a recording, communications and promotional powerhouse, with two cafe/live music venues in Ardmore and Bryn Mawr.

Now Milkboy takes the party downtown, opening a multilevel bar and restaurant at 11th and Chestnut in Center City this spring. The venue will have two floors, with a fully stocked bar downstairs, and a stage upstairs. Milkboy co-founder Jamie Lokoff estimates capacity at 150 to 200 people, and of the food, he says, "Just because you're going to see a show in rock club, you won't have to sacrifice what you're eating." Milkboy is in talks with some of the city's best known chefs. "It's a lot more than what we can do in Ardmore," says Lokoff, "and it will be more geared toward a rock club environment."

Construction has been beset by the unexpected. "The owner of the building terms the area 'the hole in the donut,' " says Lokoff, who explains that the leased property, which couldn't possibly be more central, was lacking both a gas line and a telecommunications cable. Passersby to the Ardmore coffeehouse may have seen union picketers lately. Lokoff explains that the building owner, not Milkboy, hired the contractor. While several unions are represented, the contractor chose not to employ workers from the Carpenters' Union. Because of that hiring choice, says Lokoff, representatives are picketing Ardmore with signs reading, "Shame on Milkboy Coffee." Milkboy maintains a sense of humor about the controversy, selling Shame on Milkboy Coffee T-shirts. Lokoff says the Philadelphia location should be open late spring 2011.

Source: Jamie Lokoff, Milkboy
Writer: Sue Spolan

The egg comes first in the conversation about food safety. Both poultry and egg production are on the rise in the US. According to the USDA's most recent Census of Agriculture, sales have increased 55 percent in the last decade. But it's egg safety that's in the news. On the heels of a massive egg recall last summer, University of Pennsylvania researchers have developed a new test to detect the presence of Salmonella in eggs.

Shelley Rankin, an Associate Professor of Microbiology at Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine, says the kit, which detects Salmonella enteritidis, or SE, a strain of Salmonella specific to eggs, provides results in just 27 hours. Rankin explains that the Food and Drug Administration's new Federal Egg Safety Program, instituted in July of last year, was based in part on the Pennsylvania Egg Quality Assurance Program (PEQAP), which was developed by Rankin and colleagues. "I wanted Pennsylvania to be the first state to get a novel, non-culture based test approved by the FDA for our producers to use," says Rankin.

Previous FDA guidelines required some expensive and laborious methods, taking up to ten days to see results. "At that point my colleagues and I within the PEQAP decided we should look for a better method," according to Rankin, whose team was able to identify a gene that is present only in SE. Working in collaboration with California based company Life Technologies, which already sells kits for detection of more than 2500 strains of Salmonella, the new kit focuses a laser, literally, on potential SE contamination. Polymerase Chain Reaction technology amplifies a small segment of the gene which lights up and is detectable via laser. If the light goes on, says Rankin, then SE is present. The Applied Biosystems TaqMan Salmonella enteritidis Detection Kit is FDA approved and contains 96 single-use tests.

"I chose to work with an industry partner to make that test available nationwide to improve the public health of the nation," adds Rankin. Plans are underway, says Rankin, to further reduce testing time from 27 to 12 hours.

Source: Shelley Rankin, PhD, University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine
Writer: Sue Spolan

The switch is flipped at Crane Arts. This week, the Kensington warehouse building, which houses artist studios and commercial space, powered up Philadelphia's largest rooftop photovoltaic solar array. Over four hundred panels will supply 81 kilowatts per year. The array is owned not by Crane, but by a new company called Solar States, which hopes to expand partnerships with property owners to create 15 commercial solar rooftops in the city for a total of 1 megawatt of solar capacity outputting thousands of megawatt hours.

In a departure from traditional solar panel installation, the for-profit Solar States offers photovoltaic installation at zero cost to building owners, selling back electricity at a discount. According to Micah Gold-Markel, founder of Solar States, the plan is for Crane to remain on the grid, so tenants will be using a mix of solar and traditional electric company power. Another way Solar States could profit is by selling back surplus power to the grid. It's a complicated auction system in which a company like Solar States sells a certificate to electric companies as a way of diversifying their energy portfolio, in compliance with the state Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard. While Gold-Markel hopes Crane will use the maximum output offered by the solar array, there will be many hours of sunlight when the building is quiet, and excess power generated by the array will generate certificates, as well as a discount to Crane. Gold-Markel says that for Solar States, profitability is sustainability. Solar States, not the building owner, also receives all Pennsylvania and federal solar rebates, tax incentives and credits.

The Crane array was designed by Helio Systems and GRASS (Green Roofs and Solar Systems), and Solar States estimates that it will provide a 20 percent cost savings over standard PECO rates.

Source: Micah Gold-Markel, Solar States
Writer: Sue Spolan

Philadelphia is a steamy city, and the proof is issuing out of all those vents. This week, Veolia Energy North America announced the completion of the transition that renames Philly's steam loop provider from Trigen to Veolia. The Center City steam loop is a green idea from way back in the late 1800s, when the Edison Electric Light Company (now PECO) realized it could repurpose exhaust steam from its plant at 9th and Sansom Streets to heat the nearby Irving House on Walnut Street. The system grew to a total of 26 miles of underground pipes.

The synergy was such a success that cities around the country adopted the steam loop concept. Currently, 300 Philly buildings utilize Veolia's steam heat. The highest profile building, literally, is the Comcast Center. According to Mike Smedley, Vice President of the Mid-Atlantic Region for Veolia Energy North America, the tower's "utilization of district energy was one factor that contributed to its status as the tallest LEED-certified building in the US."

Why the name change? Smedley says that the Trigen brand name is only known for district energy, while the Veolia name is synonymous with creative environmental solutions. Not only does Veolia supply steam heat, but it's also pretty chill: the company also "built, owns and operates a 7,000-ton chilled water facility for Thomas Jefferson University and Hospital."

Traditionally, says Smedley, the production of heat and power are separate processes that are energy inefficient because a large portion of fuel burned is lost as waste heat. In contrast, Veolia's combined heat and power (CHP) plant recycles waste heat, and converts it into useful thermal energy. By combining the processes using CHP, says Smedley, Veolia can produce thermal and electrical energy using up to 40 percent less fuel than if the two forms of energy were produced separately.

Source: Mike Smedley, Veolia Energy North America
Writer: Sue Spolan

Press the start button on Play Eternal, Philadelphia's newest game development company. Play Eternal hopes to create titles that are easy to pick up, play and, perhaps most important, put away. Lou Tranchitella, CEO of Play Eternal and father of three, says that while his company's larger target demographic is men aged 15 to 45, Play Eternal wants to think outside the XBox to create action for aging gamers in their 30s and 40s who have jobs, families and activities that take life beyond the screen. Tranchitella explains that Play Eternal AAA action adventure titles are slated to provide 10 to 12 hours of in-game time, whereas traditional titles in the genre may take up to 60 hours of play to resolve. The far lower price point of Play Eternal games is commensurate with shorter play. Forget lengthy tutorials and introductions, says Tranchitella, whose own gaming life now centers around casual games like Bejeweled, as increasing real life responsibilities prohibit full immersion.

Launched this week, Play Eternal hopes to be at the forefront of a growing trend for the city. "Two of the best game schools are Drexel and Penn," says Tranchitella, who notes that Drexel RePlay is ranked third in the nation for game development by the Princeton Review, and Penn has the only graduate program for game developers, but degreed gamers end up leaving the city for companies elsewhere.

Play Eternal's four principals are Tranchitella, COO Michael Worth, Chief Creative Officer Brandon Van Slyke, and Albert Vazquez, who is the company's Chief Technology Officer. While Play Eternal is not at liberty to discuss specific games under development, Tranchitella says the appeal to publishers is in both time and money: a shorter production interval between concept and finished product, and direct delivery to the consumer by download to console or PC, bypassing expensive packaging.

Play Eternal is a virtual company for now, but in the next month or so will announce a move into office space in University City. "Both Mike and I have family roots in Philadelphia," says Tranchitella, who grew up here and plans to position Play Eternal at the forefront of the city's growing gamer business community.

Source: Lou Tranchitella, Play Eternal
Writer: Sue Spolan

Flying Bytes is innovation nuggets from throughout Greater Philadelphia:

VANITY FUR
Forget LOLcats. Now you can get LOLdogs, in the form of CoverPuppy, a new iPhone app that puts your mutt's mug on the cover of your favorite glossy rag. Spots Illustrated and Bone Appetit are just a few of the possibilities. For $1.99, you can download this latest offering from Philly's own ChatterBlast Labs and see your puppy's picture on the cover of Rolling Over. Share with friends via email, Facebook and Twitter. A portion of CoverPuppy proceeds goes to the ASPCA.

BELL IS BROKEN. PLEASE KNOCK.
This week the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation announced the top-10 list of submissions for its With Love, Philadelphia XOXO Billboard Contest. It wasn't easy choosing from 2,711 entries sent in from all over the country (106 submissions with Rocky but only 19 mentions of Adrian). The top ten can be seen in a video roundup. Mary K.'s winning entry "Dear Philadelphia, You had me at Yo!" will adorn a billboard above I-95 by the Girard Avenue exit.

SEPTA SEEKS FLOWER CHILDREN
Get to Springtime in Paris via rail or bus. Going to the Philadelphia International Flower Show at the Pennsylvania Convention Center next week? SEPTA is encouraging visitors to leave cars at home and tiptoe through the tulips with a One Day or Family Independence Pass. SEPTA is also offering discounted tickets to the event, which runs March 6-13.

OPEN FOR GREAT MUSIC
No need to knock at JJ Tiziou's door. The Philadelphia photographer and supporter of the arts has announced the start of his 2011 house concert series at 4531 Osage Avenue. The April 2 lineup includes "pleasantly aggressive folk duo" Nervous But Excited from Ypsilanti, Michigan, and Washington DC's Tinsmith. As always, donations of money, food and drink are always welcome. Proceeds pay performers and also benefit the larger Philadelphia arts community.

Source: ChatterBlast, GPTMC, SEPTA, JJ Tiziou
Writer: Sue Spolan

Imagine having access to thousands of movies with no time limit and no storage on your hard drive. That's the promise of FlixFling, a service offered by Philadelphia's Invincible Pictures. And when you sign up for FlixFling, you get a free Roku Digital Video player, which also plays many other providers' offerings, including movies from Amazon and Netflix, music from Pandora, and TV shows from Hulu.

FlixFling is part of the larger vertical service offered by Invincible, a film producer and distributor with studios located in Northern Liberties. Tom Ashley is the CEO of Invincible and says his company was the first, before Netflix and competitors, to have a working version of streaming online film offerings for mobile devices.

"It's a digital locker system," says Ashley of FlixFling, which offers 5,000 titles with the basic monthly subscription, priced to compete with iTunes and Netflix streaming. FlixFlings offerings skew heavily toward indie productions. "When you buy a movie, we store it indefinitely." Some competitors require customers to view a film within 24 hours of start time, and must be stored on an individual's hard drive.

With FlixFling, says Ashley, "If you buy a movie, it streams instantly," and you can continue the show on your phone, laptop, tablet, and even inside Facebook. Ashley, who is adamantly against torrents because it stifles the revenue stream of independent filmmakers, takes aim at big cable companies, and offers consumers a chance to cut the cord, and say goodbye to $200 monthly bills. FlixFling's basic subscription is $12.99 per month, with premium titles available for an extra fee.

Source: Tom Ashley, FlixFling
Writer: Sue Spolan

Your objects may have social media envy. John Richardson, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Downingtown's ThingWorx explains that within the next decade, the number of things communicating on the internet is set to eclipse the number of people who communicate. Think of it as Facebook for the manufactured world. Holding company Safeguard Scientifics agrees, announcing this week $5 million in Series B financing for ThingWorx.

Richardson predicts that by 2020, well over a trillion devices and machines will connect via cloud computing. It's known as IoT, or the Internet of Things. Almost everything, large or small, will have a network enabled chip, including cars, factory equipment, and thermostats.
ThingWorx is a 100 percent software solution, according to Richardson, who cites the example of a beverage factory bottling line running low on syrup that will be able to send out an alert to a computer or smartphone, enabling adjustment, potentially without human intervention. "We've written the software in as small a footprint as possible," says Richardson. "A piece of the code could be imbedded in a device." Using the cloud-based proprietary program, devices will talk to open protocols.

While Richardson is not at liberty to divulge the names of his company's Fortune 500 clients, he says ThingWorx is moving software into pharmaceutical, food, oil and gas, and electric grid sectors at local, national, and international levels. Most are running ThingWorx on Amazon's cloud platform, but "companies that are averse to private data in the cloud could host on site." And there's good news for local job seekers. Richardson reports that the company is on track to create 30 new jobs at its Chester County headquarters by the end of 2011, with a projected workforce of 140 employees in three years.

Source: John Richardson, ThingWorx
Writer: Sue Spolan

Flying Bytes is innovation nuggets from throughout Greater Philadelphia, with a focus on food and beverage this week.

WHAT A LOVELY TACO YOU HAVE
It's art. It's tacos. It's coming to a neighborhood near you. Celebrity chef Jose Garces announced this week the launch of the Guapos Tacos truck, which will be hard to miss. It's covered in a mosaic of 45,000 beer bottle caps, designed by Jun Aizaki, who created the interiors of all seven of Garces' restaurants. Follow the truck on twitter @GuaposTacos.

BAKIN' & SNACKIN': A GOOD THING
Soup sales may be down, but Campbell's reports its Baking and Snacking sectors are on the rise. The company just released Second Quarter Results for 2011. While the company's core product, canned soup, decreased four percent, CEO Douglas R. Conant says "Baking and Snacking, our second largest segment, delivered top and bottom line growth in the quarter." A top seller is Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies.

IN OTHER CANNED NEWS
Philadelphia's Crown Holdings is expanding its production of aluminum beverage cans at all three of its manufacturing facilities in Vietnam. The Hanoi plant expansion will allow Crown to crank out 1.5 billion cans; in Ho Chi Minh City, expected output for 2012 is 3.2 billion cans. Crown's global clients include Coca-Cola, Heneken and Kronenbourg.

TAKE IT TO GO
Food flavoring company David Michael announced the upcoming Innovation Roadshow that will take place in Philadelphia on March 30. This year's conference is all about going global with food and beverage products and features Mary Wagner from Starbucks' global R&D division. David Michael & Co. produces over 40,000 flavors, stabilizers and natural colors.

Source: Garces Restaurant Group, Campell's Soup, Crown Holdings, David Michael & Co.
Writer: Sue Spolan

A degree in fine arts doesn't often come with instructions on how to take economic control of your creations. The Corzo Center for the Creative Economy at the University of the Arts steps in with a rescue plan, applying the concept of enterprise funding to creative business ideas. With a grant from the Dorrance Hamilton Foundation, UArts professor Neil Kleinman developed The Creative Incubator, a $10,000 opportunity open to graduating students and recent alumni to "give students in arts and media economic control over their lives."

On a recent Wednesday, Kleinman and associate Todd Hestand welcomed a dozen hopefuls to an orientation in preparation for the March 21 proposal deadline. "Some of you are here only for the money," said Kleinman, "Some of you are interested in getting self-positioned, to learn more about how to put an idea out there, and make it continue." Kleinman plans to give two to three applicants with sustainable ideas $10,000 each, divided into three payouts: a third up front, another midway, and the final payment after the project is complete, with the idea that once the $10,000 runs out, profitability is well underway. Last year, says Kleinman, about eight smaller grants were given out, but only one reached the final payout. "Many fell prey to the very problems we were afraid of: no sustainable plan, and lack of awareness about underlying costs." This year, there will be fewer grants and more competition, with greater scrutiny of applicants' business plans, budget, marketing structure and audience.

One applicant is Michael O'Bryan, a 2007 graduate of UArts, who is attempting to create workshops for marginalized youth, combining artistic exploration with civic engagement. He says he got the idea while working two jobs: as a Youth Services Coordinator at The Salvation Army, and as Music Department Coordinator and Community Outreach liaison at the New Freedom Theater.

The Corzo Center offers applicants like O'Bryan, as well as all community members regardless of application status, full entrepreneurial support, including assistance developing proposals and business plans, workshops, special programs, and real world business contacts. Eventually, says Kleinman, the Center hopes to expand its funding to include creative entrepreneurs citywide.

Source: Neil Kleinman, Michael O'Bryan, University of the Arts
Writer: Sue Spolan

The visionary folks at Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern PA have been as busy as the companies they support.

The highly successful economic development program announced on Monday a total of $1,975,000 to seven early stage companies with promising technology innovations. The companies included Ambler's Bioconnect Systems Inc. ($500,000), Glen Mills' Holganix LLC ($250,000), Devon's LiftDNA Inc. ($250,000), West Chester's LoSo Inc. ($125,000), Bala Cynwyd's Orion Security LSP, LLC ($200,000), Malvern's Quanta Technologies, Inc. ($250,000), and Malvern's Valence Process Equipment ($400,000).

Last Thursday, 21 other companies strutted their stuff in front of potential money as Ben Franklin partnered with Greater Philadelphia Venture Investors and the University City Science Center to host its annual Early Stage Venture Showcase at the Navy Yard. The event was open only to investors; angels, venture capitalists, and individual investors packed the room. Upstairs, the highly popular IT/Physical Science/Clean Technology track companies presented; downstairs, Life Sciences entrepreneurs told their stories to a much smaller crowd.

Ryan Caplan, of ColdLight Solutions, opened with a strong presentation highlighting his company's impressive proprietary Neuron platform, which offers automated data analysis derived from artificial intelligence, leading to highly targeted recommendations for retail, pharmaceutical and communications applications. Another standout was Holganix, a Glen Mills-based organic fertilizer company which is already servicing some massive lawns in its first year of business, including Longwood Gardens. The Holganix process unlocks already existing nitrogen from the soil and air through biological means and dramatically reduces the need for pesticides.

Downstairs a smaller but tougher crowd checked out Science Center tenants BeneLein Technologies, which uses a bioprocess to create generic antibiotics, and Vascular Magnetics, which hopes to develop a magnetic nanotechnology treatment for peripheral artery disease.

Doug Leinen, founder of BeneLein, says that he has not received direct feedback from investors. Richard Genzer, who attended the Venture Showcase on behalf of the Mid-Atlantic Angel Group, reports that he has taken further action with three companies.

Source: Doug Leinen, BeneLein, Richard Genzer, Mid-Altantic Angel Group
Writer: Sue Spolan