OpenDataPhilly.org source code released

Philadelphia’s open municipal data portal is, transparently enough, now available as an open source download.

GIS firm Azavea announced this morning that it has made available the source code for OpenDataPhilly.org on Github.

The organization is providing the code, written in Django, Python and PostgreSQL, and has renamed the source more generally as the Open Data Catalog, to empower other municipal organizations to create their own central locations for data, according to a press release.

OpenDataPhilly.org launched in April during Philly Tech Week, one of the week’s signature events. It currently houses more than 100 datasets from around the region, and exists as an open catalog of information that anyone can submit to. See our full coverage of the open data initiative. [Full Disclosure: Technically Philly is an OpenDataPhilly partner organization.]

According to a statement from Azavea founder Robert Cheetham, the company wants to “encourage organizations or municipalities to build their own catalogs in order to enable technology communities throughout the world to transform rows of text, numbers and shapes into applications and visualizations.”

Add that to Azavea’s other open source projects which are available, including OpenTreeMap.

Philly was never in play for Wharton’s Coursekit

This is Exit Interview, an occasional interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

The Wharton School of Business is something of a mixed blessing for Philadelphia technology community. One one hand it has produced some of the region’s most successful startup companies such as Invite Media and Ticketleap.

However, most Wharton grads end up taking their business elsewhere. Invite Media largely relocated to New York. Diapers.com split for New Jersey. Now, Philadelphia can add Coursekit to the ever-expanding list of Wharton startup brain drain.

Coursekit, founded by three Penn students aims to replace BlackBoard and the standard for educational collaboration in higher education. After their school year was over, the company relocated to New York City, the hometown of founder Joseph Cohen. After raising $1 million from a highly-respected venture funds in a seed round , the company has no plans of returning.

We interviewed Coursekit CEO and Co-Founder Joseph Cohen just before his funding round was announced about Wharton brain drain and asked what Philadelphia could do to better keep its Wharton startups.

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Startup Roundup: Where’s the talent?

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 a weekly email newsletter by clicking here and selecting the Startup Roundup button or follow Startup Roundup’sRSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

MUST READS

Where’s the talent? The Inky’s Joe DiStefano asks a question we’ve been hearing a lot lately from the startup community: if you’re able to nab an investment or come up with a sensible solution to bootstrap, are there enough talented engineers in Philadelphia to keep the enterprise afloat? Monetate‘s CEO David Brussin says coders “are not looking for jobs, they have jobs.” First Round‘s Josh Kopelman calls it Philadelphia’s biggest challenge. And on that note: JoeD says Monetate hopes to grow from 50 to 100 employees a year from now.

All this is even after Monetate announced that RxShortages, a mobile application that helps customers find out if prescription medication is available locally, has won its $5,000 Open Source Prize. The contest was clearly an attempt to try to identify some of that talent. We’ll be following-up to see if any of those leads were solid.

It’s not helping that a report issued from the ISTE education technology conference currently at the Pennsylvania Convention Center says that a survey of 1,000 high school students, faculty and IT staff indicates that 39% don’t think that technology expectations are being met in the classroom.

Even if it’s a tough climb, all we ask is that you, dear founder, is that you don’t give up.

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Philly Merge to unite hackers and entrepreneurs at Wharton

Starting a business is hard. Starting a business in Philadelphia can be even harder.

Luckily for technology entrepreneurs, the Philly Merge conference aims to bridge the gaps between hacker and entrepreneurs with a focus on getting your business up and running in Philadelphia with practical advices from local entrepreneurs, accountants and developers.

“By putting the geeks and business people in the same space, both can learn what the other side does,” says co-organizer Steve Rittler.

(Disclosure: Technically Philly is a media sponsor of the event)

The schedule is still being developed, but Philly Merge is focusing on a slate of all-local speakers such a Ticketleap co-founder Chris Stanchak and attorney Frank Taney (aka Scary Lawyer). Plans for more panel topics are in the works.

Early bird registration is $29 and tickets are available now.

Yikes Inc. to open its new LEED-certified Fishtown offices Aug. 1, seeks tenant

Before, during and after photos of the front of the Girard Avenue LEED-certified building of Yikes Inc.

Come Aug. 1, the co-founders of web development firm Yikes Inc. will unveil their biggest yet, and it doesn’t have anything to do with a website.

Tracy and Mia Levesque, who started doing pro bono web work in 1994, are close to seeing the completion of the complete LEED-certified, rehabilitation of 204-206 East Girard Avenue in Fishtown.

Currently, Yikes is seeking a company to lease 206 Girard, next to 204, which will be the web shop’s headquarters.

“The majority of building materials will be reclaimed or recycled including 90 percent reclaimed interior doors, 100 percent reclaimed flooring materials, 90 percent reclaimed framing materials and 100 percent recycled drywall. Waste removal is considered an important part of the strategy, so the majority of all construction waste is being recycled or repurposed,” according to a press release.

Coursekit raises $1 million, Where did turntable.fm come from?

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

DEFINITE READS
Where the heck did turntable.fm come from? It is actually a pivoted Stickybits, which is a First Round Capital company. Check Quora if you don’t believe us.

Switch Philly presenting company Coursekit has raised an impressive $1 million seed round and moved to New York City. Coursekit aims to replace Blackboard as the software used by college classes to post assignments and communicate. We’ll have an Exit Interview with founder Joseph Cohen later this week. See Cohen’s presentation (and the rest of Switch Philly)  here.

Fresh off of our Q and A with Donald Caldwell, both Philly.com and Philly Tech News have additional details on the Cross Atlantic Capital’s new fund and recent investment in Rootstock. Speaking of Caldwell, he has been replaced as chairman of the Pennsylvania Academey of Fine Arts.

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International Society for Technology in Education debuts ‘Say Hey (I Love School)’ music video that is actually pretty good

The jam-packed annual International Society for Technology in Education conference and exposition is currently taking over the Convention Center, having launched this weekend.

Technically Philly will have more coverage this week, but we loved this music video, featuring Temple University’s Broad Street Line and Alliance for Progress Charter School’s 4th grade class, inspired by Michael Frante’s pop hit ‘Say Hey (I Love You).’

The summer of the scavenger hunt

It is not lost on us that Scavenger Hunt with Friends — a new mobile application developed by a group of Ocean City, New Jersey buddies — is the second app from the region that hopes to entertain users with the classic game.

Or is it the third?

SCVNGR, a DreamIt grad, has grown into Groupon-esque deals provider and opened an office here in Philly after raising $4 million in funding. Users can check-in to retail outlets and receive increasingly better deals each time that they do.

And only a few weeks after Scavenger Hunt with Friends issued a press release about its app, Stray Boots, a New York-based company recently launched its “Scavenger Hunt: A Tour,” app in Philadelphia.

Focus on Scavenger Hunt With Friends, made by a company that’s still headquartered locally, and as it turns out, has ties to a former Philadelphia mayor.

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Nominate Philly’s ‘Creative Connectors:’ Leadership Philadelphia, WHYY [AUDIO]

Leadership Philadelphia is a 50-year-old nonprofit charged with finding, training and elevating tomorrow’s leaders.

The group’s executive director Liz Dow has launched the Connectors project, hoping to highlight the trusted, lesser known leaders of the region. Now, in a partnership with WHYY, Leadership and Dow are seeking out Creative Connectors. Ought not the technology community play a role in such a list? The deadline for nominations is this Friday, July 1.

Nominate a Philadelphia Creative Connector.

The nominee can be active in art, music, theater, design, writing, cooking, digital media or any other creative endeavor.

Listen to Dow speak about the project with WHYY’s Dave Heller on NewsWorks Tonight.

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Event Highlights: June 27th – July 3rd, 2011

It’s a great time to be in the city: the weather is fantastic and the city has begun its 11-day celebration of Independence Day.

Before you prep the grill for this week, we have a handful of awesome technology events, two of them featuring the University City Science Center’s Quorum.

This week: learn about tech and education, hear from the latest Philly startups and get schooled on term sheets.

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