Howard Lubert on the Keiretsu Forum and the “ridiculous deals” in Philadelphia

When Technically Philly asks Howard Lubert about his background, he begins by apologizing.

“I’m old,” he says before rattling off a long resume that reads like a rough timeline of the Philadelphia technology industry. After a “very short career” as an administrator at Penn, Lubert worked at IBM, sold Apple II computers and then eventually began several of his own businesses which ranged from a Novell consultancy to SafeHatch, a company that specializes in due diligence.

Now, however, Lubert is one of the two leaders of the Keiretsu Forum Philadelphia chapter, the newly created local branch of the worlds largest investment group with$287 million in deals worldwide. The group, founded in San Francisco, rigorously screens deals for its membership and likes to remain very hands on until its companies sell or reach an IPO.

Lubert, whose brother Ira manages over $11 billion in investments, says that the Philadelphia chapter purchased rights to Pittsburgh and Washington DC chapters as well and will work to build an online “deal room” where Philadelphia presentations are automatically sent to members across the globe.

We talked with Lubert about comparing the Keiretsu Forum with Open Angel Forum, how Philly’s angel community stacks up and how he plans on making Philaelphia lead the charge to revolutionize the Forum.

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Thanks to our weekly sponsors

Technically Philly is made possible by advertisers and sponsors that are important to Philadelphia’s technology community. This week we’d like to thank:

Splat Productions — Splat Productions provides smart, brand-centric website design and internet marketing services to privileged clients in the Philadelphia region and beyond.

Caffeine Fish – Caffeine Fish develops the Trainboard iPhone app and offers iPhone development consulting in the Philadelphia area.

ACLU of Pennsylvania — The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania will be hosting an event about Internet privacy on May 4 at the Center for Architecture. Be sure to check out Internet privacy, You’ve Got Friends You Never Requested: How Corporations and the Government Are Invading Your Privacy Online for more details.

Alteva — Reduce your total cost of telecom ownership and improve employee efficiency and customer satisfaction with Alteva’s cloud-based Voice over IP phone systems and services.

The University City Science Center — The Science Center will open Quorum, a central gathering space to enable the entrepreneurship and innovation communities to meet, share and learn in May.

Interested in joining these organizations and individuals in supporting Technically Philly? Check out our ad packages and contact our Ad Sales Manager. Can’t find something that fits? We’ll customize a package for you.

SEPTA subway iPhone app launches

Patrick Cassidy, the developer behind phillysubway, has a theory about mass transit iPhone applications.

“Transit systems have quirks and you need to be user of the system to write an app for it,” he says.

A SEPTA rider and the lone employee at Caffeine Fish, Cassidy followed up regional rail scheduling application Trainboard with phillysubway, an iPhone app that provides up-to-the-minute subway schedules. Users can hold their iPhone normally for the North/South Broad Street Line, or turn their phone sideways for the (mostly) East/West Market Frankford Line.

A functionality that, Cassidy says, had him fearful that Apple would reject the application form its App Store.

[Disclosure: Caffeine Fish is a Technically Philly advertiser. This post is not part of any advertising package.]

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OPA Data Liberator: the hackathon project that fills in where city property records leave off [VIDEO]

Hackathon team OPA Data Liberator

Coders and journalists need to hang out more. It’s becoming something of a mission here at Technically Philly.

On Saturday, at the Open Gov Hackathon presented by Tropo, as a part of the third annual BarCamp NewsInnovation, former Inquirer City Hall reporter and current freelancer Patrick Kerkstra walked into the TV Studio at Temple University’s Annenberg Hall.

In the chilly, cement-floored room, Kerkstra presented a simple problem to a handful of developers there early for the hackathon. On the website of the city’s Office of Property Assessment (the reconstituted Board of Revision of Taxes), the search function is limited to specific address and doesn’t extend to names.

So, say, a small-time property developer wanted neighborhood approval for a zoning variance at a newly purchased property. Until Kerkstra inspired a pack of hackers, there was no easy, online way for concerned neighbors to find out other properties that property developer owned.

Now there is. Visit the OPA Data Liberator.

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Comcast launching 24-hour TV news in California, Texas, Florida: Roundup

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscri ption for our Comcast news updates.

• Comcast outlines plan to turn around NBCU [Inquirer] — NBCUniversal is investing $200 million more into developing hit NBC prime-time shows in 2011 than it did in 2010 to pull the broadcast network out of the ratings cellar”
• Net Incomes Rise Solidly for CBS and Comcast [NY Times]
• Comcast investors advised to calm down [Philadelphia Business Journal] — “…all the attention paid to NBC Universal ‘will obscure a very strong quarterly result for [Comcast’s] cable business,’ which provided $9.1 billion of the company’s $12.13 billion in revenue in the quarter and grew 5.8 percent, beating consensus estimates of 5.1 percent, from $8.58 billion in the first quarter of last year.”
• Consumers give FCC an earful on AT&T bid to buy T-Mobile [Post Tech: Washington Post] — “A look at the docket for the $39 billion proposed union shows few lawmakers weighing in on the merger. In contrast, Comcast’s deal to merge with NBC Universal drew early support and opposition from dozens of lawmakers and state regulators.”
• NBC launching local news channels in 3 states; watchdog criticizes efforts so far [Company Town: LA Times] — In California, Texas and Florida “Comcast committed to producing an additional 1,000 hours of local news on its NBC stations and another 1,000 hours for its Telemundo stations. The channels will launch this week.”
• Comcast adding some ABC, Fox shows to on-demand lineup [Philadelphia Business Journal]
• Just Another Day At Comcast [Comcast blog] — Near Seattle, two Comcast technicians apprehended an escaped criminal.
• Couric Bows Out as CBS’s Anchor [Wall Street Journal] — Katie Couric could be going to Comcast for an NBC show
• On eve of his departing, Comcast’s Brodsky looks back at the many wins [Inquirer] — Julian Brodsky, one of two fellow Comcast founders with Ralph Roberts is retiring from the Comcast board at 77 H/T PTN
• Comcast Announces Changes to State Government Affairs Team [Tech Daily Dose: National Journal] — “Comcast announced some personnel changes Thursday, including snagging a former Federal Communications Commission member to help lead its government affairs shop in California.” Including FCC member Rachelle Chong and a promotion for Bret Perkins
• The Comcast blog celebrates the 10th anniversary of Comcast Cares Day by talking to CEO Brian Roberts about having some 62,000 Comcast employees volunteer across the country on one day.
  

How do we retain technology startups in Philadelphia? [VIDEO]

Strangers become coworkers at Indy Hall, a coworking space located in Old City. Co-founder Alex Hillman says building community is the best way to retain talent and business. Photo by Sarah Schu.

The argument of whether Philadelphia’s technology community is growing doesn’t seem to be the live one much anymore. The collection of 65 events celebrating Philly Tech Week last month was surely a small answer to that.

Rather, the questions left seem to revolve around the magnitude of that growth and if Philly, like other hopeful regions across the country, can have a significant share of the investment, jobs, revenue, reputation and cache that often follow leaders in that space. Philadelphia missed it’s shot 50 years ago at being Silicon Valley but is there room to be a serious player?

A Philly startup can get investment, something seen weekly. A Philly company can become a top-dollar acquisition, like the $2.4 billion eBay buyout of GSI Commerce, Dell taking Boomi or Eli Lilly snatching Avid Radiopharmaceuticals. Those examples from the last year can help shape the narrative around entrepreneurship and technology in Philadelphia, but, in the end, that just creates a lot more middle managers, not c-level leaders — see Tastykake’s submission to Flower Foods. Recent reports show brain drain here has largely been stemmed, but the tech community has still lost its fair share of stars who could be building the job drivers of the future.

So what’s next for retaining startup talent, sustaining their growth and, dare we suggest, keeping them around long into their future?

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First of dozens of city computer centers opens in Center City

Mayor Michael Nutter logged on last week at the launch of a new computer center built for Philadelphia FIGHT, at 13th and Spruce streets.

This article is part of Broadband2035, a series in partnership with PlanPhilly funded by an award from J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism to explore broadband issues to impact Philadelphia’s developing comprehensive plan.

Last week, Mayor Nutter and Congressman Bob Brady opened the first of a series of new public computer centers aimed at reaching the estimated 41 percent of city residents who do not have access to the Internet.

On Tuesday, during Philly Tech Week, the Mayor logged on at the new center at Philadelphia FIGHT, an HIV/AIDS support organization — at 13th and Spruce streets, kicking off the federal grant-funded program. FIGHT has for more than a decade provided internet resources for people affected by HIV in the city.

“You should be able to get the information you need, access to services and programs all over the place,” Mayor Nutter said. “This is the future of this city, and it’s from a technology perspective.”

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Startup Roundup: One week to apply for local $5,000 startup competition

Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup parses out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. Follow along with the Startup Roundup’s dedicated newsletter or RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

MUST READS

Monetate launched an open source development competition last week for Philadelphia that includes $5,000 in gear, including a MacBook Pro and 27-inch Cinema Display. Deadline is May 11th, so use that inertia to launch your next startup.

Philly’s Mid-Atlantic Angel Group has joined the federal government’s Startup America program to provide mentoring to startup entrepreneurs, as CityBizList reports.

The second Startup Weekend, also a Startup America partner, will take place on October 7 at the University of the Arts. Oh, and if you’re into game development, Philly Game Jam takes place this weekend and GameLoop Philly is coming on May 21.

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Stylitics wins the Wharton Business Plan competition

Welcome to the VC Round-up, where we’ll parse through venture capital news related to Philadelphia-based private equity firms and the companies they fund. Subscribe to the roundup as an email newsletter. If you have any VC-related news to pass along to us, please drop us a line.

DEFINITE READS

Mike Armstrong of the Philadelphia Inquirer has a review of the Wharton Business Plan competition where 15 student companies competed for $116,000 in cash and services. The winner Stylitics, is a consumer insights company that targets clothing companies.

TechCocktail has named DreamIt Ventures the 9th best startup incubator in the nation.

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Mural Guide application finds, details Philly’s ample outdoor art, built with OpenDataPhilly

An iPhone rendering of the Philly Mural Guide, which can be visited on any smart phone or web browser. Click to visit.

OpenDataPhilly.org was unveiled with a roar last Monday as part of Philly Tech Week. But while a catalog of regional data, APIs and applications is a treasure trove to some, it’s a brick wall to many others.

Data, thou art inscrutable.

As a better example of why releasing data is important, two Code for America fellows with help from a third developed and launched the Philadelphia Mural Guide app. Aaron Ogle and John Mertens, with Mjumbe Poe, used the MuralFarm collection of locations, images and other information on the city’s expansive outdoor art, to develop the project. The app received enough attention that Web 2.0 star Tim O’Reilly tweeted its grandeur.

“It’s a web-based application that can be viewed from a mobile device or desktop browser,” says Jeff Friedman, recently named Mayor Nutter’s Manager of Civic Innovation and Participation, noting it also shares details and images of included pieces. “It will locate your position on a map and your proximity to mural artwork in Philadelphia.”

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