design : Innovation + Job News

In Philadelphia in late November, keeping cool has never been a problem. That is, unless you run the Philadelphia Marathon. The annual race, which took place on Sunday, Nov. 21, attracted a field of over 11,000 runners, all battling for the finish line. When they got there, runners were greeted by the folks at Arctic Ease, a Phoenixville company specializing in cryotherapy wraps and pads proven to reduce swelling and stay cool for hours. The wraps require no time in the freezer and can be attached for more mobility.

A veteran of the health care industry and avid athlete, CEO Carol Forden founded Arctic Ease in 2009 after creating a chemical compound in her garage. Designed to remove heat from injured tissue, Arctic Ease keeps affected areas at a safe 60 degrees, reducing swelling and pain.

"If you are a weekend warrior and you overdo it or you are a runner in a marathon, on Monday, it is going to be a little tough to move around," says Forden. "What this product does is removes that swelling so you don't have that pain on Monday."

Along with offering wraps to runners at the finish line, Arctic Ease added a product sample to each marathoner's registration info and sponsored a massage tent. The company has appeared at marathons across the country and, after hiring four top-level positions in October 2009, is looking to expand into new markets in 2011. Along with expansion into other sports, Forden says the product may soon help osteoarthritis sufferers return mobility to creaky joints. 

"If you have ever twisted an ankle and wound up in the ER, you know that until they reduce the swelling, they can't do much," says Forden. "If you have nerve damage or a sprained ankle, they will tell you to come back three weeks later and they want you icing that whole time. Arctic Ease makes this process a little easier."

Source: Carol Forden, Arctic Ease
Writer: John Steele

The day after Thanksgiving has become as sacred to retailers as any nationally-recognized holiday. The revenue they reap can make up for an entire year of lackluster sales. With another Black Friday approaching, the Enterprise Center's Retail Resource Network (RRN) wants to ensure that Philadelphia's commercial corridors get the most they can out of this holiest of shopping days. This Wednesday (Nov. 17), RRN hosts the Visual Merchandising Workshop, an annual event to help retailers with everything from holiday window displays to store layouts, all in the name of a successful holiday season.

"This workshop touches on the psychology of the shopper," says Retail Resource Network Director Andy Toy. "How you light your storefront, the types of colors you use, the way the aisles are laid out. If done right, it will definitely increase the amount of sales a business can make per shopper and just get people in the store."

The Retail Resource Network is a division of the Enterprise Center that helps retail businesses around the city connect with the resources they need--whether it be funding, consulting or supply chain--to be successful. Toy says that simple things--not having too many stickers on your windows, creating wider aisles--can have a great impact on business. Not only do these workshops seek to help retailers but if the Enterprise Center can target the Black Friday mobs to one store, their hope is that traffic to the rest of the commercial corridor would increase, making it a Happy Holiday for the whole neighborhood.

"If we improve one storefront on a commercial corridor, we will bring more people to that area," says Toy. "That helps improve business for all the stores, makes it safer because there are more people on the street and encourages others to do likewise."

Source: Andy Toy, Retail Resource Network
Writer: John Steele

The word 'geothermal' comes from the Greek term for "heat from the earth." But digging into the earth can be a challenge when it is covered by the concrete jungle of an American city. So Nova Thermal Energy created a geothermal energy system that connects to the sewer infrastructure, using these underground pipes as a geothermal loop. After commercializing in China, Nova Thermal brings a traditionally rural technology to large, urban buildings here in the U.S., and they are starting with the Philadelphia Water Department.

Earlier this month, Mayor Michael Nutter and the City of Philadelphia announced the Greenworks Pilot Energy Technology program that would allow three developing energy technology companies to install at buildings around the city to test the feasibility of different energy-saving measures. Nova Thermal Energy received $150,000 to bring urban geothermal to the Philadelphia Water Department headquarters at 1101 Market St. With this installation, Nova Thermal will monitor consumption, effectiveness and filtration to see if these technologies can be used city-wide to curb heating costs and reduce Philadelphia's carbon footprint.

"We have a project pipeline of about 15 projects in various stages of development throughout the Mid-Atlantic region but no one wants to be the first to demonstrate the technology," says Nova Thermal CEO Elinor Haider. "This will enable us to advance our commercial scale pipeline."

The Philadelphia Water Department has needed a new heating system for some time. This system provides a large-scale system that uses the heat from untreated sewage to heat large buildings, using filtration and a system of heat pumps. Nova Thermal Energy estimates that the 20,000 sq ft. PWD facility will save approximately 40 percent of the building's current heating costs when it is completed in January.

"By using wastewater for our heat pumps, the system is a fraction of the cost but a massive energy efficiency impact on buildings that couldn't use geothermal before," says Haider.

Source: Elinor Haider, Nova Thermal Energy
Writer: John Steele

It isn't very often that you get the best of both worlds, especially in the world of technology mergers and acquisitions. Mark Zuckerberg isn't the only one to lose a couple close friends along the way. But to hear the heads of Berwyn cloud computing firm Boomi tell it, it is possible to get acquired without selling out.

Founded 10 years ago, Boomi created a niche connecting all disparate online applications together in a cloud. Say you have taken on a new client and you want to add them to your finance records. Boomi helps you automatically add the information, without having to create a separate file in a separate program. After raising $4 million to date, worldwide computer manufacturer Dell, which was interested in creating a line of office services, took notice. The deal Dell struck two weeks ago to acquire Boomi will let its newly acquired firm keep all employees and continue all client relationships.

"They kept the team in tact, I still run the team," says former Boomi President and CEO Bob Moul. "I just have a boss for the first time in five years."

After shelling out $3.9 billion acquiring Perot Systems a little over a year ago, Dell created Dell Services, a cost-saving, business solutions arm of the business. With the acquisition of Boomi, Dell hopes to create a full service office suite so that all facets of a business can run through Dell products. For Boomi, the company cloud kings are still innovating, using the Dell name to explore partnerships with new application developers and take on projects that come their way.

"Dell wants us to continue to offer the best cloud integration platform in the world but now we also have the backing of a major, global brand that gives everybody more comfort in adopting Boomi technology," says Moul. "In the first week, I have had at least a half dozen new opportunities that we are very excited about and probably wouldn't have known about otherwise."

Source: Bob Moul, Dell Boomi
Writer: John Steele

For motorcycle enthusiasts, slang phrases describe everything from a type of muffler to a type of accident. One such term passed between riders---'keep the dirty side down and the shiny side up'--has not been lost on RevZilla, the South Philly biker accessory shop-turned-online vendor. With seven-figure sales numbers and a Chamber of Commerce Emerging Business of the Year award under their belt, founders Nick Auger, Anthony Bucci and Matt Kull look to take their business to the next level as they expand staff and marketing this winter.

"We were hobbyists, casually into riding and we were a little bit frustrated with our options buying online from the companies who would become our biggest competitors. We were also hard-core technology guys, all of the founders had worked in the web world, and we thought we could bring something to the motorcycle industry that hadn't been done before," says Bucci. "We aspire to be the Zappos of the motorcycle industry. Everything is about the customer experience, much less about being Wal-Mart and more about being like Barney's."

Started out of an apartment, RevZilla eventually expanded to a small store at 4th and Fitzwater before moving to it's current location, a 4000 sq. ft. retail store at 38 Jackson Street in South Philly. But with their technology backgrounds, an expanded web presence seemed a natural fit for the founders, who have added hi-def video, digital buying guides and sleek social networking functionality that they feel sets them apart in a crowded e-commerce marketplace. Now, as they expand, they are hoping to find kindred spirits who can keep up technologically but who also live what they sell. 

"We are looking to grow the company and our team to spread the RevZilla brand even further," says Bucci. "But we are really looking for people to join the team who love motorcycles, who live and breathe the sport, just like we do."

Source: Anthony Bucci, RevZilla
Writer: John Steele

When Mayor Michael Nutter unveiled 500 Big Belly solar garbage compactors all over the city in April 2009, there was skepticism as to the effectiveness of this new technology. But when this test run was complete and the Philly Throws Green case study was released in June, city officials found the compactors would save over $1.5 million in waste collection man-hours per year. The city hopes its newest garbage-related investment in composting will yield the same results.

In an effort to conduct a real-world test of its effectiveness, the city of Philadelphia has granted $18,700 to Niche Recycling for one of its composting "Bio Bins." By trapping in natural gasses released from food waste using a sealed bin, a recirculating air system and wood chips, Bio Bins break down food waste so that fewer collections are needed.

"With food waste, you typically have three days before you start to get anaerobic conditions and smell," says Niche Recycling founder Maurice Sampson II. "With Bio Bins, you can handle this on-site. There is a tremendous savings to not have to collect every other day and, unlike a typical composting operation, we can use normal garbage trucks."

The grant comes as part of the Greenworks Pilot Energy Technology (G-PET) program, which is funded through the federal Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program. With the exposure of this project and the recent opening of the Wilmington Organic Recycling Center, Sampson hopes to offer a full composting service that will give him a competitive advantage over trash collectors.

"We are very proud to be selected for this grant that is about commercialization, so that we can test it and find out what the criteria are," says Sampson. "Composting is not something we typically think of in America but oh my goodness, it is going to make such a difference."

Source: Maurice Sampson II, Niche Recycling
Writer: John Steele

In Scotland two weeks ago, the Scottish Police Service agreed to European firm ITM Power's Hydrogen On-Site Trials, a test of hydrogen fuel cell technology and fueling stations. The trials, scheduled for early 2011, will also be conducted in England (Sheffield and Southampton). The trials are one of thousands of hydrogen-based projects going on across Europe. And Drexel University-spinoff company AlumiFuel Power--the company responsible for aluminum-powder capsules that, when delivered to water, create valuable hydrogen and steam--plans to be involved. This week, AlumiFuel announced the sale of $7.5 million in common stock of its majority-owned subsidiary, AlumiFuel Power International. The sale, officials say, will allow the company to expand internationally.

"This Memorandum of Understanding is the first step in our goal to broaden our reach outside of North America and provide access to capital for expansion of our product development and marketing activities," says Alumifuel CEO Henry Fong.

While much of the company's business currently focuses on lift-gas for weather balloons and flameless heaters, executives hope to expand the use of these cylinder capsules in back-up and auxiliary power for fuel cells and turbines. But they will have to act fast, as hydrogen is rapidly catching on in key worldwide markets.

"While we must still conduct further due diligence, we believe this can be accomplished in a relatively short time-frame for a deal of this nature," says Fong. "The creation of AlumiFuel International and this funding, if successfully completed, will allow us to expand our reach internationally and raise significant capital to fund our operations."

Source: Henry Fong, AlumiFuel Power
Writer: John Steele

When most guys play pool, they talk about girls, music, sports; but when Drexel University electrical engineering grad students Ryan Buchert and Dr. Michael Balog gathered to shoot stick in their basement in 2003, the conversation was a bit more complex. Just as a stick is used to strike one ball against another into the pocket, the pair posited, what if all our tools could be controlled wirelessly, for simpler device management?

Those late-night pool games became the vision for BuLogics, a green gadget firm allowing for wireless control of everything from lights to smoke detectors. This week, the Greenworks Pilot Energy Technology Program--the first pilot program for the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster--announced an award of $175,000 to help these energy-efficient electricians bring light controls and metering technology to the Navy Yard in South Philly and the Inn at Penn in University City.

"Energy costs keep going up and small businesses are suffering because of that," says BuLogics CEO Mirka Walczak. "Everyone is on the bandwagon of reducing parasitic power and we have a solution in place will offer better control and allow them to really keep an eye on that usage."

For these two commercial institutions, BuLogics starts with the Smart-Grid controller--"the glue that holds it all together" says Walczak--that allows all devices to run through the same command center and be monitored for energy consumption. This, along with metering power strips and wireless transponders, gives office and hotel managers the power to run a more efficient business.

"When you lock up the door for the last time, you can punch in a code that shuts off the power to all the devices and lock the doors and the thermostat gets set back," says Director of Operations Jennifer Doebler. " I think that automation piece that makes energy management so much simpler is what makes our technology a little more comprehensive and a little more desirable, especially in commercial applications like the Navy Yard."

Source: Mirka Walczak, Bulogics
Writer: John Steele


 

Something exciting happened during WHYY's fall pledge drive. And it wasn't a riveting Terry Gross interview. For the third consecutive year, NPR stations saw growth in the 25-to-40 demographic. Welcoming this younger demographic will not be easy for WHYY, Philadelphia's NPR affiliate and home for political discourse and intellectual public programming. So the station created NewsWorks, an online news and commentary site, launching Nov. 15. Enlisting its own journalists and regional content providers, NewsWorks hopes to create a hyperlocal news focus and bring enlightened discussion from the airwaves to the internet.

"The 2008 election was a great thing for NPR stations because a lot of people considered NPR to be the most reliable place to get news on that election so we brought a lot of new people into the tent," says WHYY Director of News and Civic Dialogue Chris Satullo. "Now we are trying to keep them. We are looking for two key demographics we hope will be the early adopters of NewsWorks. One is the younger technologist professional group--the creative class in Philly. And the other is the middle-aged professional who has been an NPR fan for a long time."

One of the goals of NewsWorks is to replicate the open discussion created on air at WHYY and bring it to the internet. Website comment boards are not traditionally known for scintillating conversation so NewsWorks will employ a self-governing rewards system, allowing users to give points to other users for contributing a valuable comment. By changing commenting and by asking the right questions, Satullo believes productive dialogue can occur online.

"We are going to work very hard not to frame things as black and white, left vs. right," says Satullo. "We are trying to get the 360-degree opinions and how people's experiences shape their opinions."

Source: Chris Satullo, WHYY
Writer: John Steele

When CMS Made Simple founder Ted Kulp created the open source website management software in 2004, Wordpress didn't exist and blogging was not yet a way of life. He needed a simpler way of inputting content to websites, so he created one. With designers for the Shops at Liberty Place, the Philadelphia Sun and the African American Chamber of Commerce using the platform, Kulp has spread the simple around, and has been rewarded with users in 219 countries. This month, CMS Made Simple hit its biggest milestone yet, reaching one million downloads.

"After I made it, I just put the code out there to see if other people were interested and it and it has grown so large, and there are so many people who have worked on it, there is no way we could close it now, it's out there for the world to use," says Kulp. "I do things like support and custom development around it so there are a lot of different avenues for everything except the software itself. And it's worked fairly well for me."

As a partner with interactive ad agency Defined Clarity, Kulp has been building websites for years. Today, CMS Made Simple's forum message board allows customers direct access to this CMS and the professional designers who created it, allowing for a fully functional customer experience that Kulp and Defined Clarity partner Bruce Marable hope will continue to grow.

"It's time for all the people who are not using it to know about it," says Marable. "It has been growing organically for the last five or six years. We want to make the project grow and to position it as the number one content management system out there."

Source: Ted Kulp, CMS Made Simple
Writer: John Steele

At construction co-working space NextFab Studio, artists, hobbyists and inventors can work on anything they please, from building a home shelving unit to inventing a toy robot. The only thing they don't want to see is people standing around. So when the studio electronics lab got more spectators than workers, NextFab created a new addition to its class rotation. Enlisting the services of Drexel University co-op student Ryan Barnes as technical supervisor, NextFab's electrical course teaches the science behind electricity and rudimentary skills for building an LED circuit. The second level course teaches soldering and other early projects to turn the watchers into doers.

"From the get-go, NextFab has had an electronics lab and people would always walk by who knew next to nothing about electronics but you could just see them thinking "what could I do in here?" says Barnes.

Opened in January as an extension of the University City Science Center, NextFab offers Philadelphia's innovators, craftsmen and entrepreneurs a workshop complete with hand tools, 3D printers, computer controlled machine tools, software, and electronics workbenches all in a 3,600-sq-ft studio. Since its inception, it has become a popular spot for artists and craftsmen to create profitable home businesses. The classes are geared both towards practical skills and functional assistance, tailoring instruction to each worker's projects.

"Electronics is such a huge field that it is tough to teach everything that we need to know so the way this class is taught is definitely on a craft level," says Barnes. "We have a lot of artists that work here and this is a way to explain electronics and show how they can be used on different projects."

Source: Ryan Barnes, NextFab Studio
Writer: John Steele

Being at an awards dinner with cable giants like Showtime and Starz was a thrill for the self-professed TV junkies at Cherry Hill's t-commerce solution company icueTV. But standing next to them on the podium as finalists for the same award took this gratification to a new level.

At the New Orleans, LA banquet this week, icueTV was announced as a finalist for Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM)'s "Get Interactive" Awards. icueTV creates a sales portal for advertisers to connect directly with TV viewers as they watch. Watching Shark Week on Discovery? You can buy the DVDs right from your remote. icueTV has been steadily expanding, now represented within the six largest cable providers in the nation. But even with great traction, this is still a new technology and icue hopes this award signals recognition from the cable television industry that it's time to make a move.

"For years, people have thought about using the TV remote to buy products," says icueTV VP of Business Development Ralph Nieves. "We feel that this award signals that t-commerce is an idea who's time has come."

Starting out in political polling and other on-screen data tracking applications, icueTV developed a platform that expedites the purchase process, integrating a PayPal account, e-mail connectivity and one-touch purchasing. And while this is still an emerging technology, no one told icueTV. They have already begun hiring engineers tasked with finding new applications and clients as if this platform was old news. The company hopes this award will cement them as an industry leader as its technology becomes standard in digital sales and marketing.

"Our customers know who we are but to become certified and vetted took us four years," says Nieves. "We are not arrogant enough to think competition doesn't exist already but we are confident that no cable labs are examining commerce applications in the way we are."

Source: Ralph Nieves, icueTV
Writer: John Steele

When geek-themed slideshow franchise Ignite came to Philly in 2008, the event could have taken many forms. As only the second city to host an Ignite event, founder Geoff DiMasi (of P'unk Avenue fame) was unsure how to play it at first. So he went to the originators for guidance. Started in Seattle by O'Reilly Media Technology Evangelist Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis of Makerbot.com, Ignite was designed to introduce Seattle to its own tech and entrepreneurial scene, allowing presenters five minutes to talk about, well, pretty much anything.

After meeting Ignite's inner circle at South By Southwest, DiMasi decided he wanted to start Ignite in his hometown and decided that a traditional conference vibe was so not Philly. So he brought it to Fishtown rock club Johnny Brendas, charged five bucks and set the speakers loose. Five sold out events later, Ignite is going strong and No. 6 is set to be the largest event yet.

"Some people run it like a business and have it in an auditorium and people sit very demurely and listen very carefully to everything," says DiMasi. "We have taken the punk rock approach where you pay your five bucks, it's at Johnny Brendas, it's meant to be really fun and spirited so that the speakers feel like rock stars."

The event used to be free but as attendance increased, DiMasi began charging to donate the profits to worthy causes. Philadelphia Food Trust received money as well as all-girl rock summer camp Girls Rock Philly. With the $1,250 they received, Girls Rock Philly was able to offer scholarships to girls who couldn't afford the camp.

"That culture of giving back to the scene in Philadelphia is what inspires me," says DiMasi. "Someone came up, they shared their idea, and we try to find something that will have a real impact on the city. Coming up with that mechanism is something we are really proud of."

Source: Geoff DiMasi, P'unk Avenue
Writer: John Steele

Less than two months since $122 million was announced to create an Energy Innovation Hub at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the project is already taking shape. United Kingdom-based Mark Group, a European home energy efficiency leader, was welcomed on Friday by Gov. Ed Rendell to its new home at the Navy Yard, where it will hire up to 320 workers over the next three years.

Mark Group was founded in 1974 and boasts of improving the energy efficiency of more than 2 million homes, installing more than 6,000 measures every week that help consumers save. The company is in growth mode, having recently established an Australian base of operations.

Led by a Penn State University-headed team, the Clean Energy campus at the Navy Yard is one of three regional clusters nationally that are designed to bring together leading researchers and the private sector to develop energy efficient building designs. Buildings accounty for nearly 40 percent of U.S. energy consumption.

"The creation of alternative energy sources is key to America's economic future," says Mark Group CEO Jeff Bartos. "We are excited to launch our business from Philadelphia and to deliver energy efficiency upgrades to homes throughout the nation."

As part of the move, Mark Group received a $3.28 million financing package from the Governor's Action Team. Bringing the company across the pond was truly a collaborative effort: The state Department of Community and Economic Development's international trade off, the City of Philadelphia, Select Greater Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. and the TeamPA Foundation were all credited.

Source: Jeff Bartos, Mark Group
Writer: Joe Petrucci

Philly Startup Leaders' lecture series Entrepreneurs Unplugged can always be counted on for a great bootstraping, one-man-against-the-world story. But for Mike Rappaport, founder of tech consulting firm Chariot Solutions, going it alone was not an option. Founded in 2002, Chariot has become a million-dollar application consultant company with over 50 employees and has been voted the best place to work amongst small businesses in Philadelphia. So what advice will he have for the struggling entrepreneur when he hits the EU stage on October 20th? There's no I in TEAM.

"The title [of the lecture] is 'Philosophy-Driven Business Growth,' but if I had it to do over again, the title might be better as something like 'The Power of True Team Management,' says Rappaport. "This is not the story of an entrepreneur or a CEO that led his company to greatness, its about a team. Its about how I relied on so many people and really spent my time picking the right people."

Not only is Rappaport a firm believer in a team environment in the workplace, he credits his very existence to delegating, finding quality partners and getting the most out of your business relationships. Once the funding was in place, he chose a team, created a philosophy and was careful to pick people who could share his philosophy. But it all started with those first relationships to get the business off the ground.

"We started with a small level of funding and we go to a point about six months in where we thought we might run out of money," says Rappaport. "Even though the business was going according to plan, we were undercapatolized. One of my mentors really helped us and let us in on other ways to raise money that I was completely unaware of. It was so helpful to know all the resources that were out there."

Source: Mike Rappaport, Chariot Solutions
Writer: John Steele