Web Start Women launches web development classes tonight, marks growth in community

Tonight will mark at least the third recent, focused initiative to bring women closer to the forefront of the technology community here in Philadelphia.

Web Start Women, a group dedicated to teaching basic elements of web design and encouraging and fostering startups, will host its first paid CSS class in South Philly, the first of four weekly classes dedicated to the subject.

Founded by University of Pennsylvania web design lecturer Susan Buck and psychology scholar Nicole Noll, the group launched informally in April, and is already building traction alongside and with local groups like Geek Girl Dinners and TechGirlz.

Susan Buck

Buck teaches a web development course in Penn’s fine arts program, and has a background in multimedia arts and science, including a masters from New York University’s interactive telecommunications program. She also works full-time at Photojojo.com, a unique photography gadget shopping website based in San Francisco.

“I’ve been at this for a while, interacting with mostly men in the field. I often have the experience where I get an e-mail from someone, and they assume I’m not the developer on the project. They often ask me to pass the message on to the developer,” she says, noting the disparity between men and women in the technology field.

What gave Buck the edge to get into an industry lacking women?

Read more

Mobile Monday looks to Wednesday for all-day conference on mobile infrastructure

Mobile Monday is looking at other days of the week for its popular mobile networking and seminar events.

No, it’s not changing its name, or the philosophy — helping to connect the Mid-Atlantic region’s mobile community, here, in Philadelphia. Often, on Monday evenings. But the group is looking at broader partnerships to strengthen its foothold in Philadelphia and expand the region’s reach across the national mobile industry.

“There are a number of events where we’re tying into someone else’s event schedule. We’re leveraging the power of our team, the power of our network, and our mindshare, to help other events,” says Mobile Monday President and Chair Chuck Sacco.

On Wednesday, the group will embark on one of the first events formulated by this approach, and the last event of the season for the group, with wireless industry publication RCR Wireless and the Pennsylvania Wireless Association.

As opposed to Mobile Monday’s usual, “functionally-focused, specific vertical,” programming, the event, RCR Mobile Broadband Philadelphia: Applications & Infrastructure Conference, will focus on infrastructure and carriers.

“This is the hardware side of things, the guys that put up the towers, the bandwidth. It’s a critical part of the process,” Sacco says.

The all-day conference, being held at the Sheraton University City, will be broadcast live, free of cost, and is otherwise available for an affordable $25 admission fee. Folks in the operator/service provider business, or working with a “large enterprise or vertical market institution,” can apply to attend for free.

Read more

Comcast Ventures expands to San Fran

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
Comcast Ventures, formerly Comcast Interactive Capital is expanding its presence in San Francisco. The firm has no plans to abandon its Philadelphia headquarters.

Martin Lehr of Osage Ventures writes a detailed blog post about current medical technology investment trends including the proliferation of “built to flip” medical technology companies.

Read more

High school students develop official app for Friends Select and get paid doing it

High school student Arman Dezfuli-Arjomandi launches the Falco Initiative's official Friends Select event in front of the student body. Photo credit: Tina Dougherty

At Friends Select School, two ambitious high school computer science students have cut their teeth with a real-world application that has led to a fledgling business and a promising future in app development.

The two students, Arman Dezfuli-Arjomandi and Haydn Dufrene, have created the second version of a useful, sharp-looking iPhone application for fellow students to track theirs’ and teacher’s schedules at the private Quaker school in Center City.

The school is based on a six-day schedule that rotates each day, so it’s an easy way for a student to find out where he or she is supposed to be. When a student is ready to add an assignment to their homework list, the app automatically detects which class they are in and categorizes it. Students can even tap into iSepta within the app to find out Regional Rail schedules.

The first iteration of the app, which the two students launched last year while taking Friends Select Director of Technology Jim Brubaker’s object-oriented programming class, had basic scheduling integration, and really started as a chance for the two students to get their feet wet with the iPhone’s native programming language.

“We had to come up with something to build to get class credit, so we thought, ‘wouldn’t it be the coolest thing if we could build an app for the school,’” says senior Arman Dezfuli-Arjomandi, who worked with Friends Select graduate Dufrene on the application.

The students built the application on top of the administration’s scheduling and resource management software, provided by Blackbaud, a nonprofit software provider. By exporting the data in CSV format, which contained schedules and student and teacher listings, the students were able to import that data into Cocoa to design the iPhone app.

“It was pretty exciting to have developers from our student body provide a useful app for students. They’ll be able to immediately see where a teacher is and find out when a teacher is available,” Brubaker says.

Read more

City of Philadelphia sets sights on “the most comprehensive network of green infrastructure” in country [VIDEO]

From Treehugger:

Philadelphia is taking some pretty major steps to reduce water pollution and green its streets and public spaces: The city’s water department has signed an ambitious deal with state environmental officials to deploy a series of infrastructure innovations like green roofs, absorptive pavement, and expanded park space that will contain overflow and halt the spread of pollution. The plan will also have the distinct benefit of cleaning up Philadelphia’s water, and generally making the city a more pleasant place to live, as the above video attests. It’s being hailed as “the most comprehensive network of green infrastructure found in any U.S. city.”

MORE

The Water Department has also recently announced plans to adopt water infrastructure capital planning software.

Event Highlights: June 6th – 12th, 2011

Good morning event-goers. Don’t forget that you can now get these highlights delivered to your inbox every Monday at noon, making for perfect lunch time reading.

While your thoughts may be drifting to water parks and baseball, here at Technically Philly, we’re still all business. This week: find that co-founder you have been looking for and geg the most out of that meeting with your perspective investors.

But if business isn’t your thing, Creative Philadelphia will be discussing the arts and technology.

Read more

Breadboard Director Dan Schimmel hosts gallery exhibit for First Friday

As a grade schooler living in Lower Merion township, Dan Schimmel remembers a freedom seldom realized by children.

He was allowed to draw on the walls of his childhood playroom.

“Whatever we wanted to do was for us to do,” he says of he and his siblings. “It wasn’t monitored or controlled.”

It sounds like fate, or perhaps coincidence, then, that 46-year-old Schimmel is the Director of Breadboard, the University City Science Center‘s arts and technology program, which operates the science- and technology-focused Esther Klein Gallery and is the landlord of NextFab Studio, all based on the West corridor of Market Street.

There, he leads a program of seemingly unlikely gallery exhibits, partnerships and programming for a once straight-laced and historic business incubator, focused on the intersection where art meets technology.

Call it drawing on the walls of a serious research park.

Breadboard is an evolution of the Science Center’s Klein Gallery, as its known, which had a founding focus on arts, science and technology. But since Schimmel took over the program in 2000, bringing, along with an art degree from Berkeley and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa, the gallery’s first computer, one from the “beige era,” as he puts it. He’s since pushed the program forward, with an increased focus on public outreach and education, and has expanded the program to include interest in and dedication to the DIY maker community, with initiatives like NextFab.

Now, after a four-year hiatus focusing on the Breadboard programs and on raising a young daughter with his partner, back in Lower Merion, Schimmel is showing a collection of his own paintings at LGTripp Gallery‘s First Friday exhibition, tonight, in Old City, and through July 9.

We caught up with Schimmel to hear more about his work at Breadboard and the influence technology and science has had on his work through the years. More, after the jump.

Read more

Philadelphia Game Development meetup group hosts small May meetup, serves as ‘beginning’

Drexel student and aspiring game developer Tom Rodriguez discusses game development with other attendees of Mays meeting of the Philadelphia Game Development Meetup group.

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods Program, the capstone class for the Temple Journalism Department.

The Philadelphia Game Development meetup group held their monthly meeting Saturday at Cosi on 9^th and Chestnut streets.

The group, which was established in 2003, is an informal network of professional and amateur game developers from the Philadelphia region. The group has 200 members, according to its site, ranging from established developers to hobbyists.

There is no strict attendance policy, as members can RSVP for the meetups at the group’s website or just show up. The informality leads to fluctuating attendance numbers and topic discussions. Saturdays meeting covered topics ranging from 3D modeling applications to animation programs among only three attendees, though the group has had dozens at other events.

Read more

Penn, Chinese academics collaborate in neuroimaging: Links

• Penn, Chinese working on brain mapping [Philadelphia Business Journal] — The University of Pennsylvania signs an agreement with the “Chinese Academy of Sciences to develop a joint center of excellence in brain mapping, through which the two organizations will conduct research and education in neuroimaging.”
• Philadelphia, meet your taxes [It's Our Money: Daily News] — All the taxes in the city and how they could be raised.
• In Case you’re wondering: Why Phila.’s not in key index [Philadelphia Business Journal] — “The reason why the Philadelphia metropolitan area is excluded on the S&P/Case-Shiller [HomePrice Index], but other cities including Detroit, Las Vegas and Tampa are included, is simple and frustrating. The S&P/Case-Shiller indexes use data from filings in county tax offices for property tax purposes…” and Philadelphia’s data isn’t share timely enough.
• Chamber questions Council candidates [Chamber blog] — Giving more recommendations for November’s elections
• Geek of the Week: Randy Schmidt of Forge38 [Geekadelphia] — Of iSEPTA and Lose it or Lose it fame
• A penny saved may be what some majors earn [PhillyInc: Inquirer] — If you’re a math, sciences or engineering graduate, your lifetime earnings should be plentiful, if you’re not, you’re screwed.
• Student-started USM fetches $255M from Emcor [PhillyInc: Inquirer] Two West Chester graduates cash out on USM Services Holdings, a Norristown-based commercial cleaning business.

‘Blogger tax:’ bill creating business privilege license exemption for ‘hobbies’ faces City Council vote [VIDEO]

Mike Lyons, who runs the blog West Philly Local, sits on a bench at Locust and 40th streets.

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods Program, the capstone class for the Temple Journalism Department.

Mike Lyons and his wife run West Philly Local, a blog that covers news in West Philadelphia.

His site has been up for just three months and gets a modest 800 to 900 unique visitors a day. Although Lyons hopes to monetize the site in the future, it has yet to make any profit.

For bloggers like Lyons, the year-long dispute concerning the city’s so-called ‘blogger tax’ has caused a great deal of confusion.

But new legislation introduced by Councilman Bill Green could keep Lyons and other hobbyists, including bloggers, from being required to apply and pay for a city business privilege license.

Read more