Philadelphia comic book artist Box Brown is being commissioned as one of a rotating cast of artists that will be filing strips for Engadget: The Comic, published by the popular consumer electronics news site. We wrote about Brown, who relies on social media and a blog to get his message and work out, back in January.
The weekly comic strip focuses on developing tech news and the funny stories therein. See the comic here.
Two and a half weeks before Election Day, freshman Councilwoman Maria Quiñones Sanchez has effectively already earned a second term.
After soundly beating challenger Dan Savage, who held the seat and lost it to Sanchez, in an at times bitter primary, the Inquirer-endorsed Sanchez is running unopposed in the general campaign for the seventh council district.
So now she can focus a bit more on her legislative work.
Representing largely poor and blighted neighborhoods like Kensington and portions of North Philadelphia up to Frankford at the foothills of the Northeast, Quiñones Sanchez has taken an interest in digital divide issues and tax reform policy to try to retain what manufacturing remains in the broken heart of the Workshop of the World.
The first Latina on council, Quiñones Sanchez, 42, was born in Puerto Rico but raised in Hunting Park and now lives in Norris Square with her husband and two sons. A Mastbaum High School and Lincoln University alumnae, she worked for council members, including former at-large Councilman Angel Ortiz, and is credited with having brought life back to Latino education-advocacy group Aspira, along with leading other Hispanic-focused community organizations.
In 1999, she lost to incumbent City Councilman Rick Mariano but after he went to federal prison in 2006 and Savage was chosen by ward leaders to replace him, she beat him in the 2007 primary. Full bio here [.doc].
Below, Technically Philly speaks to Quiñones Sanchez about taxes, computer literacy and how city data helped clean up her district.
Technically Philly is made possible by advertisers and sponsors that are important to Philadelphia’s technology community. This week we’d like to thank:
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 Dreamweaver seminar on December 15 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.
Reed Technology — Reed Technology’s Web Archiving Service is a litigation protection, web compliance and e-discovery solution for all your online assets.
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.
After a failed bid for the House of Representatives (PA-6), Steve Welch announced last week he is running for Senate to challenge U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D). The DreamIt Ventures managing partner and founder of The Mitos Group withdrew from his last bid for congress to pave the way for Jim Gerlach.
From the announcement emailed to supporters:
I started a business with hardly a cent to my name and grew it into a world class manufacturing company in the biotech industry….It’s time for a new direction that grows our economy instead of putting us further into catastrophic debt.
Already, the analysts at POLITICO have weighed in.
See our coverage of Welch’s pervious bid for Congress here and here.
Welch is also an active angel investor and has attended Open Angel Forums in the past.
Matthew Baron shows off the Woofer dog coat with speakers
Matthew Baron has a somewhat different take than others on his entrepreneurial aspirations.
“My plan for the future is simple: a Santa Claus outfit for dogs so that you can play your Christmas music,” he said.
An admirable goal, indeed, but how did Baron get into selling The Woofer, a dog coat with pockets for mp3 players and featuring built-in speakers with developed technology to optimize sound?
“When I had the idea for The Woofer, I thought that I could find a company that sells coats for dogs, I could offer to put speakers in them, and then we would split the profits,” said Baron, 33, wearing a thick beard and a quirky sensibility at a recent meetup. “This plan was flawed when nobody that made dog coats wanted to team up with me.”
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 email subscription for our weekly Comcast roundup or other news updates.
This weekend at BarCamp Philly, a group of individuals will be encouraging participants to take a swab test that will be submitted to the national registry of bone marrow donors in an effort to save a friend in San Francisco.
BarCamp Philly
When: Sat, Oct 22 2011, 8:00a.m. – 6:00p.m.
Where: Huntsman Hall at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Price: $15
It’s a story of the power and persuasiveness of social media and of an entrepreneur and friend that has strong, tangential and real ties to Philadelphia.
When Amit Gupta, the founder of Photojojo, a marketplace for photography gifts and accessories, was diagnosed with Acute Leukemia this summer, it was tough on Susan Buck, who freelances for the small company from Philadelphia, and is helping plan the BarCamp drive.
“Amit has been my mentor these past 5 years. He’s touched my life and so many others,” Buck says. “It was a shock to the company because he is the backbone of it.”
What’s worse is that though odds for finding a matching bone marrow donor for caucasians are as high as 8 in 10, it’s more difficult for minorities like Gupta, who is of South Asian descent, to find a match.
He faces a one in 20,000 chance of finding a bone marrow donor.
That in mind, a community has coalesced around Gupta to encourage anyone to submit to bone marrow testing, to help increase Gupta’s chance for success and to support the national registry for anyone seeking a donor.
So far, the message has reached far and wide, but there’s more that can be done.
Read more
This event coverage was written by Liz Cies, a spokeswoman for Huntingdon Valley-based email marketing firm AWeber, and edited by Technically Philly.
For the second year in a row, the staff at AWeber Communications put down the keyboards and picked up the gamepads to participate in the nationwide Extra Life video game marathon.
This past Saturday at 12 p.m., the AWeber game changers team locked themselves in AWeber’s game room to play video games in support of kids at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
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’s RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.
Update, Oct. 10, 2011, 1:33 p.m.: Fixed the spelling of Bluecadet’s brand name. It is not “Blue Cadet” as previously listed, it is one word.
MUST READS
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that investment capital for early-stage startups is drying up in the Valley as more companies chase dollars, causing investors to become more picky about the startups they choose and the amount of money they decide to invest. Not so fast says well-known venture capitalist Fred Wilson. He backs up stories like VentureBeat’s report that shows VCs are having trouble raising cash for early-stage. But the more startups the better, Wilson says, as long as investors make better decisions where they place their bets. On the other side of things, some reports show that venture capital could be on pace to to break records reminiscent of the late 90s tech boom, GeekWire reports.
All the back-and-forth leaves us wanting to tell an antidote about a recent e-mail Technically Philly received. Pitched by a startup for a news story, we followed-up: “What’s the revenue model?” The response came dry: “What do you mean?” We wonder if startups are spending enough time focusing on the business basics to create a solid offering that transcends trends.
So, how is Philly’s startup community faring? The Business Journal has a report on Philly Startup Leaders regrouping process, and The Phenomlist writes on Philly’s technology community in its Emerging Tech Cities series. Are we moving forward?
Read more
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