Happy Monday, Philadelphia.
We hope you enjoyed our unusally cool weekend here in the city. If you went to the shore, sorry about all that rain, but hopefully these technology events can make up for your lost sunshine.
This week: UX gets like grade school, Build Guild gets drinks and Web Analytics Wednesday gets sponsored.
Nopone, a company based in Chattanooga that aims to connect contractors to suppliers through an online bidding platform, has been accepted into DreamIt’s Fall 2011 class in Philadelphia, Technically Philly has learned.
“The entire Nopone crew is very excited to be part of DreamIt Ventures fall class,” wrote founder Nathan Derrick in an email to Technically Philly. “We are moving from Chattanooga, TN & can not wait to experience the Awesome City of Philadelphia!”
Derrick received press donating supplies to storm victims earlier this year and once won $10,000 in a startup contest.
Earlier this week, Technically Philly was able to confirm three of the 15 companies slated to move in to the University City Science Center for the Fall class of DreamIt Ventures.
The City of Philadelphia has a new chief of IT.
As reported first by Technically Philly Thursday, Adel Ebeid, the former New Jersey state CTO, will be announced as Philadelphia’s first ever Chief Innovation Officer at a press conference this afternoon.
Described as “the perfect immigrant story” by the city’s Managing Director Rich Negrin, Ebeid, who was born in Egypt but raised in Jersey City after losing as a teenager his father to skin cancer, rose through the ranks of New Jersey state government to become among the only cabinet level leaders that fiery Governor Chris Christie kept on.
Now, after ‘flatly’ turning down the offer, the soft spoken and succinct Ebeid is preparing to move his wife and new daughter to a city he admits he doesn’t know well to help inject innovation into the City of Philadelphia. Answering directly to Negrin, himself an immigrant story who lost his father young and grew up in a smaller North Jersey city, Ebeid joins Mayor Nutter’s cabinet in a role that is meant to “bring the most impact at the least cost,” he says.
Below, Ebeid talks to Technically Philly, before he even knows what neighborhood he’ll call home, about his priorities, his childhood and if he’s going to join Nutter and Negrin on Twitter.
As we reported last month, Skillshare has now launched in Philadelphia:
Skillshare allows anyone to create a class or enroll in someone else’s, essentially creating a DIY education marketplace on a local level. The company suggests that its classes could be a potential business channel for companies or freelancers, and could be a revenue stream in and of itself. In New York, where the site has already launched, the site recommends that teachers set an average admission price of $25.
With announcements on Facebook and Twitter, TEDxPhilly has declared that it will hold its latest iteration at the Temple University Performing Arts Center (formerly the Baptist Temple) on Tuesday, November 8th. Tickets are not yet available, however you can sign up for TEDxPhilly’s mailing list to be notified when they do.
TEDx is the independent version of the annual exclusive TED conference often held in California where dozens of notable speakers are given an 18-minute speaking slot.
TED – short for Technology, Entertainment, Design – licenses TEDx brands for communities to independently organize their own TED events. Last year, the first TEDxPhilly was held at the Kimmel Center, see our coverage here. Videos from last year’s event are available on YouTube.
In another tweet, TEDxPhilly announced that the theme of the event would be “The City”
November 8th is also election day in Philadelphia, with mayor Michael Nutter among those seeking office.
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.
Your Local Security — Providing affordable home security systems in Philadelphia. Top of the line equipment and monitoring services from ADT keep your home and family safe.
Caffeine Fish — Caffeine Fish develops iOS apps including Trainboard and PhillySubway and offers consulting in the Philadelphia area.
MOGO Media — MOGO Media provides best-of-class training for designers and developers through world-wide conferences and seminars. The organization will host a CSS seminar on August 11 in Philadelphia.
Newsworks — NewsWorks is the online home of WHYY News and its growing network of journalism partners. This public media service covers the Philadelphia region, Delaware and South Jersey, with a focus on regional issues, neighborhoods, health and science, and arts.
Morgan Lewis — Morgan Lewis provides comprehensive transactional, litigation, labor and employment, regulatory, and intellectual property legal services to clients of all sizes—from global Fortune 100 companies to just-conceived startups—across all major industries.
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.
Reed Technology — Reed Technology’s Web Archiving Service is a litigation protection, web compliance and e-discovery solution for all your online assets.
The University City Science Center — The Science Center has officially opened Quorum, a central gathering space to enable the entrepreneurship and innovation communities to meet, share and learn.
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.
The City of Philadelphia’s first ever Chief Innovation Officer will be Adel Ebeid, poaching the top IT chief from the state of New Jersey, Technically Philly has learned first.
To be clarified by a coming executive order, his role will consume the traditional CTO role with a focus on innovation, Ebeid, 47, said. Among the only cabinet members who New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie kept upon coming into office, he starts formally with the Division of Technology on Monday, Aug. 22.
He takes over IT in Philadelphia two years after consolidation of those services in the city began and amidst an ongoing prioritization battle of hundreds of IT requests from nearly all city agencies.
Q&A with Adel Ebeid
Read the first incoming interview with Philadelphia’s first ever Chief Innovation Officer here.
Ebeid will likely either lead the progressive rise of a now consolidated department that is still seen internally largely as a punching bag for other agencies or he’ll remain a quiet bureaucrat in a role that typically is only high profile in cities with the most vibrant technology communities, say some city officials and those close to city IT.
That’s what we’re about to find out.
From the Wired Epicenter blog:
This September, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine will launch the MyHeartMap Challenge, a contest to track down hundreds of automated external defibrillators (AED’s) throughout the city. These lifesaving devices automatically diagnose a person having a heart attack, and if necessary, deliver an electric shock to get the heart beating normally again. AED’s are all over the place: the local gym, gas station, or hotel. But most people don’t know exactly where they are.
And the article goes on:
The idea is to “create the first comprehensive log of AEDs all over Philly,” according to the Penn Medicine news blog. That map would then be available in an emergency – if you called 911 they could tell you exactly where to find the nearest device, or you could look it up immediately on your cell phone.
For as limiting as the cliche can be, a social web outpost for cheesesteaks is long overdue.
While we’ve seen reviews and aggregations, lists and the like before, the new Philly Steakout project from the Center City marketing and design shop Neiman Group is a new height. Since April, the team has been tracking Foursquare checkins for the 25 cheesesteak joints that were called the best by Inquirer food critic Craig Laban’s landmark 2002 Cheesesteak Project.
Supplemented by the Yelp API and check-in breakdowns split between tourists and locals, who live within 20 miles of a given steak shop, Philly Steakout ranks the legends by registered visits.
Pat’s, Geno’s and Jim’s predictably top the list, but give it a look for more.
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