Innovation & Job News

We may not mess with Texas, but Pennsylvania ranks third in new facilities and expansions – and first in the Northeast – according to the prestigious annual rankings published last week in Site Selection magazine. 
 
The 2012 Governor's Cup went to the Lone Star State, which led the nation with 761 projects in 2012. (The publication counts private-sector projects that meet one or more of these criteria: a minimum $1 million investment, creation of 50 or more new jobs or construction of new space of at least 20,000 square feet. Equipment upgrades, additions and construction jobs don't count.)
 
Ohio was second with 491 projects and Pennsylvania was next with 430 in the national rankings. Ranked by region, the Keystone State's 430 easily beat the number-two state, New York, which came in at 119. In new manufacturing, Pennsylvania had 130 projects, compared to New York's 26; in manufacturing expansion, the Commonwealth's 97 beat the Empire State by 49.
 
Site Selection was also upbeat about Pennsylvania in a January profile assessing the impact of the energy sector on the state's economy. 
 
With such fertile ground for new and expanded commercial ventures, new features on Team PA's SiteSearch website are well timed. The site now includes heat maps that provide a visual representation of demographic statistics. The new business search allows for queries of businesses statewide by geography, type, number of employees and annual revenue.
 
"The enhanced functionalities of PA SiteSearch puts more information at the fingertips of site selectors or company officials looking to locate to, or expand their operations, in PA," says Matt Zeigner of Team PA. 
 
The race is on for 2013.
 
Source: Site Selection magazine
Writer: Elise Vider
 

Energy conservation ranks with motherhood and apple pie, but for many small businesses the upfront costs of renovation and retrofit are daunting.
 
Now the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/SEP)  is offering up to $400,000 in loans to small businesses to retrofit their buildings.
 
The so-called Advanced Energy Retrofit Demonstration Program is intended to promote energy-savings measures in commercial buildings smaller than 250,000 square feet and to accelerate the development and commercialization of promising clean and alternative energy technologies.
 
"This program will encourage the use of advanced energy efficiency products in building renovations, reducing costs and creating jobs," says RoseAnn B. Rosenthal, President & CEO of Ben Franklin.
 
BFTP/SEP is partnering with the Energy Efficient Buildings Hub at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on the program. "The opportunity being offered by Ben Franklin will help accelerate the adoption by the region's building owners of advanced building technologies and complement the EEB Hub's mission to reduce energy use in Greater Philadelphia's building stock by 20% by 2020," says Laurie Actman, the hub's deputy director.
 
Companies with fewer than 500 employees in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties are eligible. Applicants could be building owners, facility managers, tenants, mechanical/electrical/plumbing design firms, energy and design professionals and others with building renovation projects using energy retrofit measures. An email notice of intent to apply is due by noon, Friday, March 15 and the deadline for completed proposals in April 15.
 
Source: BFTP/SEP
Writer: Elise Vider

With the ground rapidly shifting under healthcare, a Wayne startup is finding its footing by developing a data-driven system to score and benchmark healthcare providers and payers.
 
Bill Conlan and Mark McAdoo founded HealthQx last year and are now testing their first product, CareQx, an application that measures healthcare quality and monitors performance. The technology is built on vast clinical and financial databases, including claims representing over 100 million individuals, as well as data on physicians, hospitals, labs and diagnostics. CareQx factors it all into an ongoing analysis and scoring of providers, treatments, health plans and payers. 
 
HealthQx's target market comprises large health plans, insurers, health systems and big, self-insured companies, says Conlan. All are coping with the move from fee-for-service to value-based healthcare, which has shifted risk to providers and demands accountability in outcomes and quality of care. CareQx will provide a definitive way to measure provider performance from cost efficiency and quality-of-outcomes perspectives, and help establish guidelines for building or re-building provider networks. The data is fine-grained enough to recommend physicians, hospitals, even find the right specialty treatment at a convenient location, to individual patients, subscribers or employees.
 
For now, Conlan says HealthQx is focused on analytics and beta testing its prototype. If all goes well, they will launch CareQx in the third quarter as a subscription-based product.
 
The company has attracted angel investors and received $150,000 in recent funding from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania. McAdoo and Conlan are working with two contract IT teams, one for data analytics, one to develop the software and data model, and hope eventually to bring those functions in-house.
 
Source: Bill Conlan, HealthQx
Writer: Elise Vider
 
 
 
 
 

With the recent success of companies like Flyclops, Final Form and Cipher Prime, mobile game-making is carving a niche in the city's creative economy. Now the community needs a home-base -- enter Nathan Solomon, founder of Philadelphia Game Lab, a combination co-working space and incubator.
 
"Over the past ten years, with alternative distribution channels, the industry as a whole is much more interested in actual creative stuff," says Solomon. "Philadelphia's not in a really great position to pull together teams of over a hundred people, but we are in a really good position to pull together people who have technical expertise and creative drive, and want to make their own games."

The Lab will open its doors at 22nd and Walnut Streets in late March, just weeks before Philly's inaugural Grassroots Game Conference. It will admit small "teams" (usually two to six people) and skilled individuals seeking teams. In addition to benefiting from the networking and support that comes with a game-centric community, teams can better access capital via partnering funders. Opportunities for mentoring and a Quality Assurance (QA) Lab for beta testing are also in the works.
 
While shrinking startup costs have made the game app industry more accessible, the market is highly competitive. "You don’t need to find that special backer or special publisher anymore," says Solomon. "At the same time, it's really, really hard to make a good game."
 
The Lab will open with four teams and hopes to serve 12 teams total. Solomon says he’s also planning programs with local universities designed to expose students to game making as a vocation.
 
Source: Nathan Solmon, Philadelphia Game Lab
Writer: Dana Henry

Each week Pop City reports on the latest hiring news in the region.
 
Wexford-based software company Co-eXprise is expanding its team. The company hired 17 in 2012 and currently has three openings for a sales director of the western region, a junior software engineer and a system administrator engineer. The firm provides power sourcing software to manufacturers to facilitate their businesses.
 
CMU spinout Flashgroup, founded by two CMU professors, is exploring ways to facilitate a faster-paced social network. The company is hiring three: Python developer for NLP Analytics; a system administrator and a UI/UX designer. Those adept in IT need apply.
 
Mind Over Media, a Pittsburgh marketing strategy firm, is hiring a facilities technician, a key role that will support video and post-production needs. The firm creates multi-channel products for higher education, college athletics and the corporate sector.
 
Little Earth Productions, the South Side company that makes cool purses and recently landed a big contract for the Terrible Towel, is looking for a marketing associate to assist with marketing and the promotion of licensed sports accessories.
 
ShowClix is on the lookout for a director of marketing. The ideal candidate will provide leadership, training and management to the ShowClix marketing team and be able to juggle multiple projects (in the air) simultaneously.
 
South Side gaming company Etcetera Edutainment is hiring a software engineer/game developer. The company combines game design and learning principles to create solutions for workforce training and company communications, patient education and more. Email the company for more info.
 
The Pittsburgh office of Bombardier is hiring a technical writer/ editor intern to author sections of manuals and smaller documents. The job requires editing and publishing operation and maintenance manuals, illustrated parts catalogs and training documentation as well as assisting in other technical writing duties.

Have hiring news? Email Pop City!
 
Writer: Deb Smit

Two years after selling to the Dachis Group, Gunter Pfau has reacquired Stuzo, the company he founded in 2005 as a Temple senior. Considered one of Facebook's first Preferred Marketing Developers, Stuzo is countering industry trends: While competitors have been acquired by Google, Adobe, Salesforce and Oracle, Stuzo is going independent.
 
Located in Chinatown, the company creates specialized customer engagement solutions and has worked for a slew of corporate brands, including Proctor and Gamble, Coca-Cola, DreamWorks, Intel and Samsung. They have 40 employees (split between Philadelphia and a European office) and plan to hire for positions in customer engagement, accounting, creativity and product delivery.
 
Pfau says he was one of Facebook’s earliest adopters. Shortly after the social network launched in 2007, Stuzo pivoted from servicing student-to-student textbook sales to brand engagement strategy. 

"With the transformation and democratization of social technologies, you have companies and brands engaged in two way conversations," says Pfau. "If my trusted friends on Facebook tell me how well Swiffer picks up dog hairs off hardwood floors, it's much more impactful."

To date, the company has built over 600 custom social media campaigns that integrate social platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. For example, Stuzo doubled the votes cast in the People's Choice Awards (PCA) with an API (Application Programming Interface, software that shares information with multiple websites or applications) that republished the voting activity of PCA's Facebook page to Twitter.

Shortly after iPad was released, Stuzo began focusing their energies on cross-platform mobile solutions, increasing their revenue by 70 percent in 2012. According to a 2012 report by Strategy Analytics, Machine to Machine (M2M) products--where activity is shared across consumer devices without human input -- will increase by over a third this year. Pfau believes that Stuzo's cross platform communications, enabled by APIs, is positioned to meet the demands of the M2M world.

"Mobile is now the key screen that we need to optimize for from a user experience perspective," he says. "Our core technology platform is built to be flexible so that we can integrate new [social] platforms and consumer [devices] with ease. 
 
Source: Gunter Pfau, Stuzo
Writer: Dana Henry

Fueled by its fast-rising international reputation, KieranTimberlake is growing domestically. The acclaimed architecture firm is renovating a long-vacant industrial building in Philadelphia's Northern Liberties neighborhood as its new home.
 
The firm acquired the 60,000-square-foot, former Henry F. Ortlieb Company Bottling House in the fall and expects to move in by early 2014.
 
The streamlined 1948 structure offers critical amenities, says principal Stephen Kieran, including the expansive second floor, an open loft workspace with elbow room for 90-plus design professionals, and a skylight and factory strip windows that flood the building with natural light. Very important, adds Kieran, is the former loading dock that is being converted to shop space to accommodate the full-scale models – some over one-story tall – that the firm uses to test building materials and systems and for other research.
 
The bustling, mixed-use Northern Liberties location is also part of the appeal, says Kieran, as is "the opportunity to take a derelict building in the city and bring it back to life."
 
KieranTimberlake is working to get the building placed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also incorporating sustainable design features, including day lighting and passive mechanical systems, that it hopes will merit LEED certification.
 
KieranTimberlake was founded in 1984 and has especially emerged in recent years as a big-name firm with major awards and high-profile commissions including the new U.S. Embassy in London. "The recession was relatively short for us," says Kieran, who says the firm has been hiring as many as 25 annually. He anticipates a "few more positions" in the foreseeable future.
 
Source: Stephen Kieran, KieranTimberlake
Writer: Elise Vider
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Malvern's BuLogics is growing fast with a new CEO, an imminent move, a shift in strategy and a pilot project that CEO Felicite Moorman promises "will transform us from a boutique firm to a major industry player."
 
Moorman was named CEO in December. Her predecessor, Mirka Walczak remains chairman of the board.
 
Ryan Buchert, Walczak's husband, founded BuLogics in 2003 to design the wireless automation systems that control thermostats, locks, lights, etc. for commercial and residential markets. Without naming names, Moorman says, "we enable Fortune 500 companies to take their ideas to market in a fraction of the time."
 
After developing a number of consumer-oriented products, BuLogics decided to focus exclusively on the commercial market. In May 2011, it spun off its consumer products to a new firm, Zonoff.
 
For the year ahead, Moorman says, BuLogics will focus heavily on a new pilot project aimed at incorporating wireless automation – and increasing efficiency – of heating and cooling of large, multi-family residences, some as big as 10,000 units. Initial tests have resulted in as much as 35% energy savings, bringing a rapid return on investment. With electricity an expensive commodity in some places overseas, the company is working with the state's Office of International Business Development and the China Partnership of Greater Philadelphia to roll out the technology in international markets.
 
BuLogics is anticipating a move to West Philadelphia to be near Drexel University in the immediate future. The company currently employs 11 and expects to make four new hires – including one that Moorman promises will be high profile – by mid-year.
 
Source: Felicite Moorman, BuLogics
Writer: Elise Vider
 
 
 

Like any other industry sector, agriculture is increasingly data-driven and technology-dependent. But the industry has been a late adopter, with much software and technology as siloed as the farming landscape itself.
 
AgIntegrated of State College is a software developer and consultant to the Ag industry. As its name implies, its goal is to integrate technology products and solutions in order to boost food production and efficiency, says Mike Santostefano, the company's director of marketing
 
Founded in 2007, AgIntegrated develops customized agronomic and precision Ag software to meet specific agriculture business needs, everything from tracking GPS-equipped tractors and weather data to crop planning, nutrient management and yield analysis.
 
Its latest product, which attracted a $150,000 investment in mid-2012 from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Central and Northern PA, is FarmLock, a cloud-based mobile and desktop app that assists with file management and communications to and from the field and includes a social networking component that is specific to agriculture.
 
AgIntegrated's target market, says Santostefano, are medium to large farms, 500-acres or more, along with Ag product, service and technology providers – "everyone that touches the farmer."
 
With the agriculture industry playing catch-up on technology, Santostefano says AgIntegrated is in a heavy growth period, with strong demand for its software development and consulting services.  He anticipates further expansion as AgIntegrated continues to fill out its Onsite platform, and launches its sister FarmLock product, which is still in the testing phase.
 
The company currently employs 18 and that number could more than double with as many as 20 new hires over the next 12 months, he says.
 
Source: Mike Santostefano, AgIntegrated
Writer: Elise Vider

Huge advances in biotechnology have led to an array of drugs for once-untreatable diseases. But the $50 billion industry continues to struggle with purification of proteins and vaccines in the manufacture of many life-saving drugs.
 
This one step, says Oleg Shinkazh, founder of ChromaTan in State College, is a bottleneck, creating vast inefficiencies and wasting millions. Over 10 years, Shinkazh, a chemical and biotechnology engineer, kept coming up against the problem, growing increasing frustrated.
 
That frustration led Shinkazh to invent a new technology called Continuous Countercurrent Tangential Chromatography (CCTC) that he claims will revolutionize the industry by providing a scalable, disposable and cost-saving alternative to the prevailing approach.
 
Shinkazh founded ChromaTan in 2009. The company is currently in the late stage of testing its prototype and actively fund raising with the expectation of selling beta-test systems by late 2013-early 2014. A full commercial launch is planned by the end of 2014.
 
Proximity to Penn State has been a significant factor, and the company collaborates with Dr. Andrew Zydney, the head of Penn State's Department of Chemical Engineering, Shinkazh says.
 
ChromaTan has raised significant capital from angel investors, family and friends and a total of $275,000 – including $125,000 in the most recent round – from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Central and Northern Pennsylvania. The company is currently awaiting word on a $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. With those funds, Shinkazh says, "We can really start scaling up."
 
The company currently has three full-time employees, along with an intern and consultants. Shinkazh hopes to add at least two more to the team this year.
 
Source: Oleg Shinkazh, ChromaTan
Writer: Elise Vider
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Think of the office as an ecosystem, where employees who are recognized and appreciated are more productive, boosting their managers and the company, leading in turn to more recognition and appreciation.
 
But, as anyone who has ever sat in a cubicle knows, it doesn't always work that way. Instead, low morale leads to low productivity and potentially, low profitability.
 
Recognition PRO, an Allentown startup, is addressing the problem – a multi-billion-dollar one – with its cloud-based employee recognition and reward system.
 
"Companies are throwing all kinds of money at recognizing employees and keeping them engaged," says Recognition PRO co-founder David Olson. But they don't always provide meaningful recognition. "They give their employees a $3 coffee mug with the company logo on it, which most employees don’t give a rip about – and they may not even drink coffee," he says.
 
Besides teaching how meaningful recognition can boost the bottom line, Recognition PRO offers training and tools for executing and tracking results, right down to the individual employee. The target market, Olson says, comprises mid-size companies with a few hundred employees and very big enterprises with human resources departments that may be spending millions inefficiently.
 
Olson founded the company in 2010, with content developed by Dr. Bob Nelson, a best selling author on management and motivation, and a web platform built by Trifecta Technologies, also of Allentown. In 2012, Recognition PRO received a $20,000 investment from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania to support sales and marketing.
 
The human resources sales cycle is a long one, Olson notes, but he is hopeful that 2013 will show "steady, substantial and organic growth."
 
Source: David Olson, Recognition PRO
Writer: Elise Vider