Media : Innovation + Job News

Trippy puzzle game-maker Cipher Prime blooms in Old City, to release CD of game tunes

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Cipher Prime has the market cornered on the music of beauty, and the beauty of music. The startup game developer based in Old City recently released Fractal: Make Blooms Not War on the Steam network, which Cipher Prime co-founder and Creative Director William Stallwood terms the largest game distribution platform in the world, for Mac or PC in English, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish.

With in-game titles like Clustodial Duties and Bippity Boppity Bloom, Fractal is a good example of Cipher Prime's philosophy of fun, creating a new genre of trippy puzzle games.

"I like pretty pictures and colors," jokes Stallwood, who is responsible for the gorgeous graphics that set apart Cipher Prime games like its newest title, Pulse: Volume One, which Stallwood says was the number one selling iPad music game in the world in May 2011, and Auditorium, the team's first title and its largest revenue generator.

Like the other titles in the Cipher Prime catalog, Pulse is easy to learn and hard to put down. A review in Digitally Downloaded called the newest release of Fractal " a thoroughly charming and chilled out little puzzle game."

Co-founder Dain Saint is the soundtrack powerhouse of the duo, and Cipher Prime's music is set to spin off, with an upcoming CD release of game tunes.

Stallwood says the three and a half year old company is about to launch a fourth title, Splice, in the next month, although he cannot furnish details just yet. Stallwood, who is from South Jersey and attended the Art Institute of Philadelphia, and Saint, who grew up in North Jersey, are able to make a living having fun. Auditorium was a web based game that was then launched on iPhone, PS3 and PSP.

Fractal, built using Flash, initially didn't do as well, says Stallwood, hence the new and improved relaunch on Steam. Pulse began life as an iPad only game, and has won many awards, with 10,000 downloads a day at the outset, and currently purchased an average of 100 times a day, at a price of $2.99. Fractal is available at the iTunes store for $1.99, and Auditorium on Steam sells for $6.99 per download.

Source: William Stallwood, Cipher Prime
Writer: Sue Spolan

Temple grad's ad-automating blog tool 123LinkIt acquired by national syndication network

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, November 29, 2011

It is possible to make money in your sleep. Yasmine Mustafa, founder and CEO of 123LinkIt.com, has created such a successful affiliate marketing tool for use on Wordpress blogs that the company has been acquired by Netline Corporation, a national B2B syndication network. Mustafa is now onsite at the company's east coast office in Lansdale, where she is serving as Product Marketing Manager.

123LinkIt automates the advertising process for bloggers. Once you install the Wordpress plug-in, 123LinkIt does the work for you, finding keywords in your blog and creating hyperlinks to places like Amazon and other online retailers.
As a blogger, you don't have to do anything special to make money. There are no ads on the side of your page. There are no annoying pop-ups when the reader rolls over particular words. A 123LinkIt hyperlink looks like any other. The magic is under the hood.

"What's special is it has a tracking code," says Mustafa of the link, which drops a cookie in the reader's browser. "When someone buys the item mentioned in the blog, it lets us know there was a sale involved. We split the commission with the blogger, who gets 85 percent, and we take 15 percent." With over 20,000 dowloads of the 123LinkIt software, those commissions add up.

Mustafa, who grew up in Royersford, Montgomery County and attended Temple University as an entrepreneurship major, was struggling with her own blog readership and advertising revenue when she hit on a winning formula one day, almost by accident. "I wasn't seeing results, so I forgot about it. Usually my posts took hours to write and research, but one day I was on the train, and wrote a silly post on the top 20 entrepreneurial quotes. It blew up. The first day I had 20,000 hits. There was advertising on that post. The next month, I got all these checks from AdSense and Commission Junction and I realized there is something here." Mustafa found the process of creating links to be time consuming, so she came up with the idea of automating the process, enlisting the help of developer John Bunting, who developed the first version of the product.

123LinkIt first targeted mom bloggers, says Mustafa, because they know how to engage their readers and promote their blogs, they write about products, and are not necessarily tech savvy, so an automated plug-in is ideal. The next groups 123LinkIt will target are fashion and technology bloggers. The company is part of Philadev Ventures.

Mustafa is a frequent tweeter, and has hinted at the announcement regarding 123LinkIt's upcoming deal on social media, so stay tuned to her twitter account @myasmine for details in the next few weeks.

Source: Yasmine Mustafa, 123LinkIt
Writer: Sue Spolan

Copyright, innovation and whack-a-mole: Protecting technological innovation in the 21st century

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, November 08, 2011

"I've been thinking a lot about Napster," says Rutgers-Camden law professor Michael Carrier. "Google just gave me a research award to examine the effects of Napster on digital innovation." Nice gig if you can get it, and Carrier gets it.

The author of Innovation for the 21st Century: Harnessing the Power of Intellectual Property and Antitrust Law, which came out in paperback earlier this year, Carrier promotes a new way to look at copyright, anti-trust and patent law as technology rapidly and dramatically changes commerce in several areas, including media, pharmaceuticals and innovation.

Ever since the advent of the VCR, issues of copying and sharing have kept courts busy. "Peer to peer offers real benefits to consumers," says Carrier, who points to the concept of dual purpose use, where a technology can be used for both infringement and non-infringement. As long as there is a single substantial non-infringing use, the technology should be upheld, he explains.

Carrier's work also extends to brand name and generic pharmaceutical products, a topic close to home, with the world's largest drug manufacturers within a 100 mile radius of Philadelphia. The big brands, says Carrier, pay generic makers out of court settlements to keep them off the pharmacy shelves. "The brand company is able to pay $100 million, which is a drop in the bucket for the billion it will make. The problem is that consumers don't have access to generic drugs," says Carrier.

On a grander scale, when asked if Carrier's bent is pro-consumer, he responds, "That's such a loaded term. Pro-consumer is consistent with what I am doing, but I would characterize it as pro-innovation." says the Rutgers-Camden prof, who also mentions threats to locally based media giant Comcast.

Two controversial bills were recently introduced into the U.S. Congress. The Protect IP Act, now known as the E-PARASITE Act (S. 968), goes after piracy and rogue sites all around the world. While E-PARASITE may be too controversial to move through congress, yet another bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act, was just introduced into the House on Oct. 26.

"It's a whack-a-mole game, designed to allow the government, and even private parties to shut down websites. The proposed laws are not as nuanced as those we have now," explains Carrier. "Internet service providers like Comcast would have to take measures to make sure these sites would not be able to be accessed."

While Carrier says anti-corporate sentiment is fashionable these days, he adds, "I don't know if I need to go that far. I believe in patents. Patents are needed for innovation, and for companies to able to make money." Rather, Carrier stands against the overly aggressive use of laws that limit innovation across a wide range of business practices.

Source: Michael Carrier, Rutgers-Camden Law
Writer: Sue Spolan

Search challenger DuckDuckGo expands to new office in Paoli, hiring

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, November 01, 2011

How much smaller is the bubble going to get? If Google and Facebook have anything to say about it, predictive search will narrow your results to the size of bath bubbles, one cell of information at a time.

Enter DuckDuckGo, a search engine challenger to the big guys that aims to burst the bubble, offering a disruptive paradigm worth $3 million in recently raised first round VC funding, which also allows for DuckDuckGo's physical expansion, from self-funded, home-based business to offices in Paoli by next month. The company now has two full time employees and four contractors, with plans to double staff by the end of 2012.

MIT-educated Gabriel Weinberg is the mind behind the engine. He launched his company in 2008, garnering national press. "I was well aware of Google's domination but it didn't phase me," says Weinberg. "It's not my goal to make a dent. One of my reasons for starting DuckDuckGo was the feeling that Google was too cluttered with ads and commercial results."

Ad clutter's not the only thing DuckDuckGoes after. Another feature is Zero Click, aka goodies, which are all free and open source. Type your query into the search box to get instant results for complex calculations, recipes, and statistics, rather than just links to web pages with answers. Weinberg and team are adding new features constantly, with growing contributions via open source channels.

To get the eye of the tech elite, DuckDuckGo rented a high traffic billboard in the SF Bay area at a cost of $7000 for two weeks. Weinberg, who grew up in Atlanta and went to school in Boston, strategically chose the Philadelphia area, and specifically Valley Forge, to raise a family and grow the business.

Weinberg attributes the surge of interest in DuckDuckGo as "a bunch of threads coming together," citing an increase in people looking for alternatives and growing concern about spam and privacy.

On privacy, and its increasing lack thereof, Weinberg says, "A large percentage of people would like their privacy reasonably protected if they had real choices and were educated on the issues."

Source: Gabriel Weinberg, DuckDuckGo
Writer: Sue Spolan

Philly Tech Meetup's rapid growth bodes well for region's brightest startups

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, November 01, 2011

In a matter of months, Philly Tech Meetup has grown into a force to be reckoned with. Rohan Mehta, founder and organizer of the monthly event, says he was inspired by New York Tech Meetup, which regularly draws a crowd of a thousand. Judging by the rapid growth of the local Tech Meetup, Philly isn’t too far behind.

According to the PTM website, 233 attended the Oct. 26 evening gathering, held at Quorum inside the University City Science Center. A show of hands indicated that over half were first-timers. PTM already has almost a thousand members in total.

"PTM exists to advance entrepreneurship and innovation in the region," says Mehta. "Our focus is on hosting productive events that engage and inspire. Our goal is to build a sustainable tech ecosystem, and that begins by convening all stakeholders regularly to learn and share."

This month, Lokalty, Spling and Ajungo gave demos in front of a standing room only crowd that was overwhelmingly male, although diverse in age and ethnicity. Of the several hundred in attendance, about a dozen were women.

Lokalty, a cross referenced loyalty program, gave the example of going to a spa, then getting a discount at a nearby coffee shop. While the startup has plenty of competition, it differentiates its offer by allowing users to accumulate universal points. Currently there are seven participating retailers, all in Center City.

Ajungo officially launched at PTM. The initiative mashes up social media with travel; notably, sports fans who follow their teams to away games. Members can connect, post pictures and reviews, and in the future, earn rewards.

DreamIt Ventures company Spling announced it has received a Series A round of funding from a Menlo Park, California VC firm, even though the startup is still in pre-launch. Also social in nature, Spling participants share and discover online media. Founders Billy McFarland and Mac Cordrey say they already have 2,000 users in the closed beta.

Philly Tech Meetup has been the darling of local startups; since February, rapid growth companies including Launchrock, CloudMine, RezScore, Storably, and ElectNext have been among the presenters. There is also a brand new Philly Tech Meetup website.

Mehta also announced the upcoming Tech Arts Beer (TAB) Festival, to take place in Spring 2012, gathering entrepreneurs from all three disciplines. You can sign up for one of the planning committees.

The next Philly Tech Meetup will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 30 at the Quorum. It’s free to attend. Startups that wish to present can apply for a spot on the agenda.

Source: Rohan Mehta, Philly Tech Meetup
Writer: Sue Spolan

Local tech VP appointed to FCC's advisory committee on diversity

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Brigitte Daniel is on her way up, literally. By the time you read this, Daniel will be on a seven-week fact-finding mission through Southeast Asia funded by an Eisenhower Fellowship. But wait, that's not all. Daniel was just appointed to the Federal Communications Commission’s Federal Advisory Committee on Diversity in the Digital Age. We'll get back to that tour of India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore in a minute.

How about that FCC appointment? Daniel, an attorney and Executive Vice President of Wilco Electronic Systems, is one of the youngest appointees to the committee and the only representative from Philadelphia. The committee will meet in Washington, DC to ensure that minorities and low income communities get broadband access. "It's being reframed as a civil rights issue of the 21st century," says Daniel, who adds that increasingly, institutional interactions require internet access. If you want to apply for a job, apply to college, and get social services, you need the web.

Wilco is a family business founded by Will Daniel, Brigitte's father. One of Wilco’s primary missions is to provide low cost, high speed advanced telecommunication services to minorities and underserved communities in the Greater Philadelphia area. “One of the reasons I was appointed to the diversity committee for the FCC was because Wilco served as a catalyst to bring together the various partners and community groups that formed the Philadelphia Freedom Rings Partnership. Freedom Rings is a citywide consortium of educational institutions, municipalities, The City of Philadelphia, and Wilco, which had the goal of providing high speed access to underserved and economically stressed areas."

While Freedom Rings provides free access to participants, Daniel stresses that ultimately, the goal is affordable service. "When you start talking about free, it's hard to be sustainable. Someone will always have to pay for it." Daniel adds that if the service is free it will perceived to have less value. "Our whole point is to make it affordable." To prove that point, Wilco customers can get digital cable, high speed internet and a laptop for under $50 a month. "It's our version of the triple play," says Daniel.

Back to that whirlwind trip to the other side of the globe: Daniel is a 2011 Eisenhower Fellow. The India and Sri Lanka segments of her seven week trip are funded by the fellowship; she added the other destinations in order to gather even more knowledge of emerging technologies and policies for connecting impoverished populations.

Daniel returns in December and begins a two-year term at the FCC while remaining at Wilco. "Whatever we recommend, I hope it's taken to heart. At Wilco, we are on the ground, in the trenches. If the FCC takes our policy recommendations seriously, that's exciting."

Source: Brigitte Daniel, Wilco Electronic Systems
Writer: Sue Spolan

DreamIt-backed data mashup startup Metalayer hiring

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Matthew Griffiths and Jon Gosier dream of clean data. The pair formed Metalayer to sort and visualize any kind of information gleaned from just about any source. The DreamIt Ventures backed company grew out of Gosier's 2007 company Ushahidi, founded in Africa to collect and map eyewitness reports of violence in the aftermath of the disputed presidential election.

Griffiths and Gosier met in Uganda, and although neither is Ugandan, both profess a love for all things African. "We met two years before Metalayer, working to find signal in noise," says Griffiths. "We identified key bits of information in times of crisis." Ushaidi's SwiftRiver project was awarded the 2011 Knight News Challenge.

Both came to the United States this year, where Gosier was raised (Griffiths hails from the UK), and realized that Ushaidi's algorithm could have verticals in other industries, particularly journalism. "Our passion is tools for better data narratives." For example, you might want to mash up a real time Twitter feed with XML, email, and a document you downloaded onto your hard drive. You might be looking for certain keywords.

Once Metalayer gathers data from diverse sources, the user can create infographics or visualize it on a map. Griffiths recalls that the whole process began by going through the motions of research themselves to understand the steps that human brains take. Gosier put together a video to explain the way the application works.

As far as revenue, Gosier says the idea is to package the technology. "We plan to offer the underlying APIs to developers. The application will be available for businesses or individuals to use." One potential revenue source is governments, which could use Metalayer to pre-empt or respond rapidly to uprisings and crises.

Gosier says Metalayer has virtually no competition because the only other companies doing this kind of data mash up are at a very high level, working for the military. "In that landscape, there are a couple of key players at the top."

Metalayer, now in talks with investors, is looking to hire in the area of business development. In addition to being a DreamIt company, Metalayer is also supported by the Comcast Minority Entrepreneur Accelerator Program.

Source: Jon Gosier, Matthew Griffiths, Metalayer
Writer: Sue Spolan

AssetVUE changing game in data center inventory management

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 25, 2011

When Comcast is your first customer, you know you're doing something right. It helps that Gary Aron has ties with the media giant, but as vice president of business development for AssetVUE, he has a lot more to offer than just some friendly advice.

Aron and company president Sean Cotter explain that AssetVUE has adapted RFID technology to rapidly read and inventory assets in massive data centers. AssetVUE works within the Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) framework, cutting inventory time by up to 90 percent.

Aron and Cotter had worked together previously, when Cotter was CIO for the DVL Group and Aron was an executive running data centers for Verizon, JP Morgan Chase and Comcast. "We talked for a period of time about things that didn't exist," says Aron. "I said, 'Let's go after those holes in the products.'" The biggest one, says Aron, is keeping information up to date. "Building a data repository is time consuming. People purchase products that can take years to implement, and they don't take full advantage of the tools they purchase."

The second piece is validation, which takes a considerable amount of time as well, working out where physical assets sit, as well as validating information pertinent to specific clients. This maintenance level information is kept in massive databases.

Before RFID technology, the client would go in, open up the doors to a rack, count information and compare. Now, with RFID, the same data gathering happens instantly, and it's also possible to get advanced views of a rack. "With these tools, you can get a top down, or elevation view," says Cotter. "When you click on a rack, it brings up every device in that rack within a minute's time."

Asset VUE now employs three full-timers as well as two contractors, with a recent $200,000 investment from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania slated for marketing and staff development.

"We have just two clients installed right now and we've engaged in a handful of proof of concepts that have gone well, so we expect that half dozen more companies will come on board," says Aron.

Source: Sean Cotter, Gary Aron, AssetVUE
Writer: Sue Spolan

Two newcomers among six startups to rake in more than $1M in Ben Franklin Technology funds

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Two suburban companies, AssetVUE in Bucks County and MobileReactor LLC in Chester County, were each approved for $200,000 investments in the latest round of funding announced in a news release on Monday from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania.

AssetVUE, based in Bristol and led by President Sean Cotter, provides hardware, strategies, support, assembly and upgrades for data centers. The other new investment was for MobileReactor, based in Devon and doing business as OneTwoSee, which develops products and services that allow TV viewers to use mobile devices to play along with their favorite shows and other viewers in entertaining ways that are also meaningful for advertisers.

Also funded were:

Essential Medical, Wayne: $250,000 to aid in developing innovative products for use in cardiac catheterizations in leg arteries.

Novetas Solutions, Philadelphia: $200,000 toward processing and marketing of recycled glass that is crushed through a patent-pending grinding process and used in industrial processes. Previous Ben Franklin investments total $300,000.

Real Time Tomography, Villanova: $150,000 to continue its development of state-of-the-art image processing and image reconstruction for next-generation 2D and 3D medical imaging systems. Previous Ben Franklin investments total $425,000.

TicketLeap, Philadelphia: $25,000 for the e-commerce company providing online ticket-selling services for event organizers also provides barcode scanning, instant credit card swiping and design and tracking services. Previous Ben Franklin investments total $500,000.

Source: Jaron Rhodes, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania
Writer: Joe Petrucci

Take me to your leaderboard: Gamification growing up

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 11, 2011

It's pretty much impossible to surf the web these days without coming across some kind of gamelike feature. Do a Google search and a glinting +1 button accompanies each result, beckoning you to click. What's all this about? It's called gamification, and it's the hot topic for web design. There's only one problem. No one really knows how gamification works. There is no formula for fun.

Last Monday (Oct. 3), Penn's Wharton School hosted Gamification: Practical Advice from Game Developers. Ultimately, practical advice was trumped by theory. Panelists and speakers agreed that gamification is a nearly undefinable term. We know it when we see it. But how to achieve it?

If you think about the kids today and their incessant videogaming, refocusing the online experience to act more like a game makes sense. "Ninety-seven percent of kids 12 to 17 play videogames," cited Wharton professor Kevin Werbach, referring to a recent Gartner study. The mobile check-in service Foursquare is the poster child for gamifying, he said, with its point system, leaderboards, badges and fun little icons. Werbach also pointed to FoldIt, which was developed by researchers to crowdsource the process of protein folding. Werbach's current provisional definition of gamification: "The use of game elements and game design techniques in non-game contexts."

It's plenty easy to define what gamification is not. But getting to a place of practice is quite another challenge. Panelists included Frank Lee from Drexel University's gaming program who comes from a psychology background; Playmatic's Margaret Wallace; Ethan Mollick, an assistant professor at Wharton; Jesper Juul, who writes The Ludologist blog and is a visiting prof at NYU; and 30 year gaming veteran Eric Goldberg, managing director of Crossover Technologies.

Mollick, who wrote the book Changing The Game, said that the billions of hours spent online playing games are a powerful message to business. "It's a reality is broken approach," explained Mollick. "Life is boring. Games are fun." One thing all agree upon: if gamifying a site is purely a marketing ploy, it will not fly. Chris Grant, editor in Chief of Joystiq, posited to the panel that no one is fooled by a crass attempt at commercialization. Gamifying cannot be unethical, immoral, or exploiting people's time.

Eric Goldberg responded, "Games are an art form, like movies and fiction. One of the core lessons game developers learn early on is that we are in the crack cocaine business. It's the manipulation of people. Manipulation, like any other tool, has the potential for evil and good."

So, back to practical advice. Mollick concluded, "Fun is hard to theorize about. Competition is fun. Randomness and art are fun. The best way to figure out what is fun is through development, testing and gathering data on how to get closer to fun." Because fun is good. And quite possibly lucrative.

Source: Kevin Werbach, Ethan Mollick, Eric Goldberg, Chris Grant, Wharton Gamification Conference
Writer: Sue Spolan

King of Prussia life sciences Sharepoint provider NextDocs 'hiring nonstop'

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 11, 2011

NextDocs has probably quadrupled in the last two years, according to CEO and co-founder Zikria Syed, who says the company, a Microsoft SharePoint partner, is now in a period of 60 percent year over year growth. "We have 100 people now. In 12 months we'll employ 160."

As a result, King of Prussia based NextDocs is in a hiring way, and jobs are available throughout the entire organization, from technology and customer support to sales and marketing. NextDocs is also growing geographically, with a new office in Portland, Oregon to cover west coast operations. The company already has a presence in Western Europe and Canada, and in the next few weeks, will open another office in Japan.

When asked how many people NextDocs is hiring, Syed responds, "We're hiring nonstop. It's hard to tell. New people start literally every day. We are only limited by our ability to find people quickly enough."

In the past three years, the company has grown more than 3,000 percent; at the end of fiscal year 2010, it reported $9.8 million in revenue, and it projects 2011 annual figures at $15 million. NextDocs just received $10.3 million in Series A financing from OpenView Venture Partners.

The company, which has garnered best in class status in just five years, was founded by Syed and CTO Matt Walz in 2006. Both had been at Microsoft. "Essentially we are a technology company. We're focused on document quality management." When NextDocs began in the basement of Syed's home, it was in response to a lack of existing solutions for compliance and quality management.

Syed defines NextDoc's relationship with Microsoft as the software giant's go to market partner for life sciences, pharma, medical devices and biotech. He says that the recent $10.3 million injection will go to three areas: first, further investment in solutions and products; second, geographical expansion, and third, a deeper investment in customer support.

Source: Zikria Syed, NextDocs
Writer: Sue Spolan

ElectNext, like eHarmony for voters, part of DreamIt's Comcast minority entrepreneur accelerator

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Want to blow your voting mind? Head over to ElectNext, a new website that matches citizens with candidates. "If you change the context from Republican vs. Democrat, it changes the world," says ElectNext Communications Director Dave Speers, who recently joined founders Keya Dannenbaum and Paul Jungwirth to fundamentally change the way you think about your vote.

Speers describes ElectNext as eHarmony for voters. When you sign up, you answer a series of questions about your political philosophy. The results can shake people up. A lifelong democrat may find that her take on the issues most closely aligns with a moderate republican like presidential candidate Jon Huntsman. "I'm a Republican," says Speers. "What could separate you and me is one issue. In reality, we're 99 percent in agreement."

Speers reports that some voters go ballistic upon seeing their results, which may not align with their perception of the candidates or themselves. "When you walk into a voting booth, like millions of people, you see one or two names you recognize. As far as the rest of the candidates, you might skip the vote, or vote dogmatically down party lines, or it could be arbitrary, like picking someone by the ethnicity of their last name."

Dannenbaum met Jungwirth at a Philly Tech Meetup. Jungwirth, who's working on a PhD in Classics from Penn and has a professional background in computer programming, was looking for an opportunity to use both sides of his brain, and Dannenbaum terms the partnership a perfect fit.

The startup is funded by DreamIt Ventures and is part of the Comcast Minority Entrepreneur Accelerator Program (MEAP) within DreamIt. Dannenbaum, who is on leave from MBA studies at The Wharton School, says that getting the $25,000 DreamIt grant was possible after participating in the Good Company incubator program, which provided office space at University of the Arts.

"The training and the curriculum at Good Company is what prepared us to be able to talk to the DreamIt folks at the end of the summer," says Dannenbaum.

DreamIt also receives a 6 percent equity stake in the for-profit company with five employees. Dannenbaum credits the Wharton Venture Initiation Program as well, which offers ElectNext on-campus meeting space and mentors.

Dannenbaum says her leave from Wharton is open ended, and the team hopes to take ElectNext national in time for the 2012 presidential election.

Source: Keya Dannenbaum, Dave Speers, ElectNext
Writer: Sue Spolan

Speak up: TEDxPhilly 2.0, TEDxSJU on the horizon

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 04, 2011

The Femininjas are coming to TEDxPhilly, along with a whole cast of speakers designed to blow audiences away with their words, ideas and inspiration. The second annual local version of the global TED talks (Technology, Entertainment and Design) will be Tuesday, Nov. 8, all day, starting at 9 a.m. at the Temple Performing Arts Center on North Broad Street.

"The major difference with this venue, besides the location, is that we have the room to accommodate twice as many people," says TEDxPhilly organizer Roz Duffy. "We sold out last year (at the Kimmel Center) and had to deny people tickets leading up to the event due to capacity. This year, there should be more than enough seats for anyone who wants to attend."

The theme is The City, and organizers have invited a compelling group of speakers to define the parameters of the urban landscape. "The City is about all aspects of urban life from people making a difference in Philadelphia and cities across the country to our collective experience of city life from the soundscape of our environment to the way we work, play, eat, live and breathe in the city," says Duffy.

Jennifer Pahlka, Executive Director of Code For America, will tell her tale of a year in city government. Speaker Youngjin Yoo is Director of Temple University's Center for Design+Innovation and Open Access Philly member.

Gregory Corbin, founder of the Philadelphia Youth Poetry Movement, where the Femininjas were born, will speak about creating an urban youth writing workshop that recently won national honors at Brave New Voices 2011 and a Knight Foundation grant. DJ Rich Medina will speak on spinning around the globe; sculptor Janet Echelman describes her art which combines ancient techniques with cutting edge technology; Chris Bartlett, Executive Director of the William Way Center, hosts the event.

"We will probably get close to 20 speakers this year and I’d guess around 800 attendees, but we have room for over 1,000 attendees, so we hope we can really fill the place with passionate, creative and inspiring individuals," says Duffy, who points to one returning guest she's particularly thrilled about. "Stanford Thompson leads a very intense music education program. Stanford’s students’ performance was so moving last year that there was not a dry eye in the house."

A full list of speakers and a link to purchase tickets can be found on the TEDxPhilly website.

By the way, St. Joe's is getting into the TED act with its inaugural TEDxSJU, which takes place on Oct. 13 from 4-7 p.m. at St. Joe's Campus Commons Building and will feature social entrepreneurs from across the country, including Olivia Bouler, who at age 12 created Save The Gulf, and LynnMcConville, whose Power Up Gambia is bringing solar to the African nation. The event is free and open to the public.

Source: Roz Duffy, TEDxPhilly
Writer: Sue Spolan

A Place to Call Home: Urban renewal in Mantua through new Mural Arts multimedia project

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, June 21, 2011

A new hybrid temporary and permanent public art installation has transformed an entire city block in the Mantua section of Philadelphia. A Place to Call Home, a project of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, is a multimedia presentation that culminates at 3828 Melon Street.
Over 200 people showed up for last week's dedication of A Place to Call Home, which addresses the specific issue of homeless youth.

While there are about a thousand children without a permanent address in the city, Mural Arts Executive Director Jane Golden says, "We don't think about these kids, hiding in plain sight. They experience tremendous problems when they're not able to feel a sense of security."

A Place to Call Home is actually divided into three parts: Pathway to The Art House is a series of small murals, executed by Shira Walinsky, adorning neighborhood walls, pointing to the 3800 block of Melon. That entire block has been transformed through a Community Mural by artists Ernel Martinez, Damon Reaves, and dozens of schoolchildren who painted house facades in a rainbow of colors. Finally, The Art House, located at 3828 Melon, is a site specific installation in which each room of a formerly abandoned house holds a different art work. In the front room, walls, table and chairs are adorned with thousands of words derived from youth stories.

Elisabeth Perez-Luna of WHYY created a sound mural for the house. "It was an eye opener for me," says Perez-Luna, who conducted 20 interviews with kids who live in what she terms a parallel world, invisible to many.

Guests are welcome to wander the premises and gaze upon the overgrown back yard from an open doorway in the kitchen. "I like the concept of each room of a house affecting the whole, each family member affecting the whole, and ultimately the whole house being affected by the outside world," says artist Shira Walinsky.

Free to the public, Art House Tours will be held on the afternoons of Friday June 24 and Saturday June 25. At the end of the exhibit, the Art House will be renovated for residential use.

Source: Jane Golden, Shira Walinsky, Mural Arts Program; Elisabeth Perez-Luna, WHYY
Writer: Sue Spolan

A mobile app brings the dead to life at West Laurel Hill Cemetery

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Eternity just got a little longer and a lot more powerful, thanks to a new Android app. West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd has launched an interactive cemetery guide designed to run on the Samsung Galaxy tablet. It's a pilot program designed by WebCemeteries, and the first of its kind in the country. West Laurel Hill and its cross-river predecessor Laurel Hill have always been ahead of the times. Back in the 1800s, founder John Jay Smith envisioned a rural burial ground, away from the city. Before Laurel Hill, the only option for burial was in a churchyard. In 1836 and in 1869, Smith built havens for the heavenly in Laurel Hill and West Laurel Hill, creating verdant spaces that attracted families out for a Sunday picnic. There was even a train that stopped directly at West Laurel Hill for just such visits.

The idea of creating a non-denominational park setting for the dead caught on like wildfire in the 19th century. And then cemeteries pretty much remained the same. The great majority of memorial parks still do business on paper. West Laurel Hill has broken new ground in other ways, creating a scattering garden for loved ones' ashes, a green burial section, and a soon to be opened Jewish section. "We're proud of the fact that West Laurel Hill embraces new trends," says Deborah Cassidy, the cemetery's Marketing Manager. Working with WebCemeteries of Virginville, Berks County, on the mobile app, visitors can access photos, video, text and other information graveside. There is a built in GPS to keep you on track. Additionally, says Cassidy, the app will increase efficiency internally, allowing the office to go paperless.

There are a lot of famous Philadelphians buried at West Laurel Hill. So far, says Cassidy, about 25 of the cemetery's permanent residents are featured on the app. Videos were produced by Gillian Hurt of GH Video Communications, a Bala Cynwyd based production company. Preview some of Hurt's West Laurel Hill videos on architect Horace Trumbauer, hat magnate John B. Stetson, and Dr. John Thompson Dorrance of Campbell's Soup.

For now, visitors to the cemetery can check out one of six tablets running the app; Cassidy says plans are underway to release the smartphone tour as a paid app to the general public in the next six months.

Source: Deborah Cassidy, West Laurel Hill Cemetery
Writer: Sue Spolan