Innovation & Job News

The Architectural League of NY has named Philadelphia's Digsau as one of its eight "Emerging Voices" for 2013, a pantheon of North American practitioners "with distinct design voices and the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape design and urbanism."
 
Principal Jules Dingle says the honor is especially meaningful since past winners constitute "a who's who of architectural practice."
 
Dingle founded the firm with Jeff Goldstein, Mark Sanderson and Jamie Unkefer in 2007 – just in time for the economic downturn that laid waste to many architectural practices. But Digsau managed to maintain consistent, if slow growth through those years with a portfolio of projects that established the firm as a generalist, able to serve an eclectic range of clients and projects.
 
Among the firm's recently completed works are the Iroko Headquarters at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the Sister Cities Park and Pavilion in Philadelphia and the University of Delaware bookstore complex.
 
Projects on the boards include the Dogfish Brewery in Delaware, an opportunity to apply master planning concepts and design excellence to what is essentially a large industrial facility. "It's a building type not usually spoken in the same sentence as architecture," says Dingle.
 
The firm is currently fitting out 900 square feet of space, once used for storage, to accommodate its growing needs, including a model shop. Digsau employs 13 and Dingle hopes to be able to add another one or two positions by summer. "We've had steady but slow growth," he says, "but the work is there."
 
Source: Jules Dingle, Digsau
Writer: Elise Vider

ShowClix is proud of its in-house cinema, its cereal wall, its pool table, its downtown Pittsburgh location and its extraordinary growth.
 
Founded in 2007 by Joshua Dziabiak and Lynsie Campbell as an online ticketing and live event search engine, ShowClix is today a full-service ticketing platform handling live music, sports, performing arts and other special events for clients including New York's Museum of Modern Art and Pittsburgh's Heinz History Center.  In 2012, ShowClix reported $52 million in gross ticket sales; the 2013 projection is $75 million, says COO Tom Costa.
 
What's more, ShowClix has raised $2.7 million in venture capital, most recently winning a $50,000 investment from Innovation Works. 
 
Costa attributes the company's growth and ability to attract capital to its strong emphasis on customer support and technological innovation. Building on its software platform, introduced in 2008, ShowClix has regularly added features such as "Incentix," a discount for ticket buyers who post the event on social media, mobile ticket purchase and delivery, web-based box office tools, an Apple ticket scanner app to expedite admission at events and more.
 
The most recent Innovation Works investment is targeted to ramping up sales, marketing and lead generation, Costa says, with a larger national sales team.
 
ShowClix already has clients across the country, Australia and Canada and most recently signed with a cricket promoter in India. The company employs 40 – all but three in Pittsburgh – and expects to add 10 more jobs this year, primarily in sales, marketing and customer support.
 
Source: Tom Costa, ShowClix
Writer: Elise Vider

Please don't ask Terry Rufer if ColdEdge Technologies, his Allentown company and a maker of cryogenic equipment, has anything to do with Walt Disney's head. "Storage of stem cells, blood, pharmaceutical products – those are the real applications," he says.
 
Rufer founded the company with four other cool dudes including Ajay Khatri, Jeff Romig and Eric Lecher in 2008 after having worked together in cryogenics since the 1990s.
 
He explains ColdEdge's product like this: what makes your home refrigerator cold is the little motor at the bottom; the part where you store the food is the "interface." ColdEdge gets its motors, generating the frigid temperatures, from Sumitomo Heavy Industries Cryogenics Group – also in Allentown – and "we provide different interfaces to researchers, real scientists, all over the world."
 
ColdEdge's supercold refrigerators approach absolute zero (-459 Fahrenheit or
-273 Centigrade) and are customized for specific materials research and development projects in fields including chemistry, medicine, physics and astronomy. Their customers are government and university laboratories and companies doing R&D.
 
Rufer reports that ColdEdge is growing at a robust 40-to-50 percent a year. With five full-time employees, he anticipates adding as many as three positions this year to provide manufacturing, engineering and clerical help.
 
Another measure of ColdEdge's growth has been its physical expansion at Allentown's Bridgeworks Enterprise Center.  The company doubled its original space about a year and a half ago and is already outgrowing its quarters. Rufer anticipates another expansion in 2014.
 
Source: Terry Rufer, ColdEdge Technologies
Writer: Elise Vider

Taking Uri Geller's spoon-bending trick to a much higher level, a Hermitage startup is developing a technology for forging, bending and extruding metals in a tech-transfer initiative with Penn State.
 
John Roth, a Penn State Erie mechanical engineer, is the father of the technology, which was developed and patented over seven years by Penn State and Ford Global Technologies.
 
Ronald Anderson of Anderal Technologies in Hermitage explains that DC electrical current is applied in a pulsating manner to all kinds of metals, requiring less pressure to form and shape them in a variety of manufacturing processes. And less pressure means easier, more control and less waste.
 
The company is investigating applications for the technology and received $25,000 from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Central and Northern PA  late last year to study its use with dual-phase steel in automotive manufacture. The steel is well suited to making lighter cars, but its hardness and strength also make it more difficult to form using traditional methods, Anderson says.
 
Besides automotive uses, "we believe our immediate focus is medical equipment," he adds. "Small hand tools used in surgery, implants, any type of medical product that uses titanium."
 
Anderal was established last year and currently employs Anderson full-time and three engineers part-time, working out of office and lab space at the eCenter@ LindenPointe technology incubator. 
 
For the next year, Anderson expects the focus to remain on research and development, with commercialization the longer-term goal.
 
Source: Ronald Anderson, Anderal Technologies
Writer: Elise Vider
 
 
 

When it comes to heavy industry, the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors you have at home just don’t cut it. To say nothing of monitoring for toxic gases and environmental contaminants.
 
That's where Pittsburgh's SenSevere  is finding its niche as a manufacturer of specialized sensors that operate in the "severe" environments found in heavy industry, chemical and power plants and the like.
 
Jason Gu and Peter Foller founded the company in 2010, around the time that Gu was finishing his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon in material science engineering. Gu had been working on the technology for several years; Foller brought the industrial experience needed to see the possibilities for commercialization, Gu says.
 
Today the company is in limited production of its hardware – sensors that can monitor hydrogen, hydrocarbons, toxic gases like ammonia, environmental contaminants like bromides and more in hazardous industrial environments.
 
SenSevere recently received $200,000 in funding from Innovation Works to develop and commercialize a new hydrogen sensor. Hydrogen, Gu explains, is an undesirable byproduct of certain chemical processes that can cause explosions. But most sensors corrode fast in these harsh environments. SenSevere is pilot testing its sturdy sensor at a West Virginia chemical plant with the expectation of moving to a larger beta test in the spring and a third-quarter commercial release.
 
Several other new products are in the pipeline: a sensor for detecting bromide – a dangerous carcinogen – in water supplies for treatment plants and a new hydrogen sensor for energy generation facilities.
 
With three fulltime employees, the company is shorthanded and expects to add three or four positions within the year, Gu says.
 
Source: Jason Gu, SenSevere
Writer: Elise Vider

Students can make great entrepreneurs, but VenturePact—founded by Penn students Randy Rayess and Pratham Mittal—is proving they can also be wise investors. The emerging firm is releasing its first class of startups.
 
A few months ago, First Round Capital launched student investors with The Dorm Room Fund (featured in a December issue of Flying Kite), entrusting $500,000 worth of capital to undergrads. VenturePact, on the other hand, didn’t begin with major cash. The group invests technical handiwork -- building out the startup’s product -- in exchange for a fee and partial equity.
 
Development can be outsourced, but it’s tough for non-techies to evaluate quality: A product riddled with bugs can still look great on a screen. VenturePact’s "partnership" model changes the incentives.
 
"Now that we have equity stakes, we want to build the best possible businesses," explains Rayess. "We want to keep them and nurture them."
 
VenturePact received over fifty applications at inception, but accepted only three: Accompliss, an app that helps hotels connect with guests; AirCare, a video-based professional coordination app tailored to the healthcare industry; and Boupp, an app that helps the fashion industry consult with customers on emerging trends.
 
The new platforms will be maintained by Penn students, who will receive school credit through VenturePact’s fellowship program. Rayess expects to eventually offer incubation services to startups, connecting them to mentors, publicists and venture capitalists.
 
VenturePact received a significant publicity boost in September 2012, when First Round Capital CEO Josh Kopelman tweeted about them. They’ve since connected with the venture arms of IBM and General Electric, who expressed interest in sending incubated companies their way.

Source: Randy Rayess, VenturePact
Writer: Dana Henry

In 2007, Mark Crouthamel, founder of Lakeville's Sculpted Ice Works, launched Crystal Cabin Fever, with its ice log cabin and ice-carving demonstrations, as a self-preservation tool to carry his company through its winter doldrums.
 
Since then, the February event has grown into a community-wide tourist happening that drew 12,000 visitors last year and helps fill nearby restaurants and hotels. "Businesses have winter blues, too, especially in the tourism sector," says Crouthamel. "It's more than cabin fever, it's more like cabin bubonic plague." 
 
Where once Sculpted Ice Works had to shut down production and lay off staff in winter, Crouthamel now more than doubles his permanent workforce of 16 to keep up with Cabin Fever and other February happenings such as the Clarks Summit and Stroudsburg ice festivals.
 
A former chef, Crouthamel was introduced to ice carving in culinary school. He founded his company in 2000, selling ice sculptures for wedding and events and blocks of ice to other carvers. The business has steadily grown, and innovated, ever since.
 
Recognizing the tourism potential of his craft, Crouthamel opened his plant year-round to factory tours and added attractions like the onsite museum interpreting the Poconos' pre-refrigeration, ice-harvesting industry. On the production side, Crouthamel went green, reclaiming heat from the huge compressors and instituting a slow-feed water system.
 
Sculpted Ice Works is now nearing settlement on its 4.5-acre, seven-building facility, a former lumberyard, is looking at adding solar panels and is planning purchase of new equipment that will boost boost production by 30% and add three more positions in the next six to 12 months.
 
Crystal Cabin Fever runs from February 8-24.
 
Source: Mark Crouthamel, Sculpted Ice Works
Writer: Elise Vider

Here's the latest company and hiring news out of Pittsburgh:
 
Lunametrics has three openings for a digital analytics manager, a PPC (paid search) manager and sales manager for digital consulting services. All are full-time positions at the firm's South Side office. Lunametrics claims to be the the only Google Analytics Certified Partner in the region and one of three companies that do the GA Seminars for Success training in the US.

The Pittsburgh Magazine, the region’s flashy monthly publication with offices on Washington’s Landing, is looking for a new Editor In Chief. The ideal candidate will have a journalism degree or related field and a minimum of 10 years of experience in publication editing and management. The pub, founded by WQED, was acquired by Denver-based Wiesnermedia in 2009.
 
The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership (PDP) is hiring a vice president of special events and development, a position that requires the dedication necessary to ensure that Pittsburgh remains a vibrant destination for employees, residents and visitors. The successful candidate will have a strong background in event production and sponsorship development and carry on successful traditions such as Light Up Night, Project Pop-Up Night Market and the Holiday Market in Market Square.

Schell Games is seeking an exceptionally skilled online community manager to guide our current team working on projects that range from the creation of online worlds and handheld games to themed interactive attractions. The ideal candidate possesses outstanding communication, organization and passion for video game development.
 
Chatham University is looking for a qualified candidate to serve as director of corporate, foundation and government relations. The ideal candidate will be responsible for developing and following a strategic fundraising plan and all that goes with it. He or she will also lead the effort to expand government funding opportunities. A Bachelor’s and Advanced degree is preferred, as well as a demonstrated ability to raise funds from corporations and foundations.
 
Dick’s Sporting Goods is hiring a graphic designer responsible for collaborating with the creative manager to develop graphic communications. Must have a strong eye for design and experience in integrating photography, typography and copy to enhance the DSG brand.
 
Moon-based global energy company Eaton is hiring a marketing communications manager. The successful candidate will lead all aspects of the Residential Products Division and work closely with business unit personnel.
 
American Eagle is looking for an aggressive and passionate person to work as an assistant online buyer, someone who possesses a keen sense of fashion exhibited through personal taste. The ability to assist the buyer in analyzing, merchandising and making communication decisions to develop online strategies is key.

Having hiring news? Email Pop City and include the links.
 
Writer: Deb Smit

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Here's a 21st century riddle: Why, in an age of endless instant media, are coffee shop corkboards and telephone poles still cluttered with printed flyers?

According to HootBoard founder Satyajeet Shahade, the answer is our ever-shrinking attention spans. Everyday, a torrent of Twitter headlines, Pinterest pictures and Facebook updates stand between timely messages and their target audience. HootBoard, which operates out of the University City Science Center’s Quorum, pushes messages to the front of the line with a virtual "flyer" combining social media channels and design elements. The company completed Novotorium’s business launch program and will release the beta version of its product this week.

Back in 2011, Shahade was working on Raspee, a platform for scholarly work. In a broad attempt to reach students and professors, he spent hundreds of dollars and endless hours covering local campuses with pieces of paper. "It was painful," says Shahade. "And worst part was that we didn’t even know if anyone was looking at these flyers."

The flyer needed a 21st century makeover. HootBoard takes advantage of recent advancements in front end web design technology to integrate multiple channels -- including videos, music, maps and meetup invites -- into a fully customizable posting. HootBoard also provides private bulletin boards for communities that share a physical address, school or workplace.  

"Everyone has a need to announce or promote something," says Shahade.

Source: Satyajeet Shahade, HootBoard
Writer: Dana Henry