City of Philadelphia CIO Adel Ebeid part of 7-city ‘Super Friends’ for open data

Philadelphia Chief Innovation Officer Adel Ebeid has joined a group of seven municipal government CIOs from across the country working together to enhance open data initiatives across major U.S. cities.

The group, which refers to itself as the G7, plans to build a website that will make it easier for cities to share standardized data and the applications made based on that data as well as organize multi-city hackathons, as Governing reported last week.

The website is still in its conceptual design stage, Ebeid told Technically Philly, so it’s unclear when to expect a launch.

This latest effort by Ebeid continues to broaden the city’s open data efforts, which includes a recent Executive Order signed by Mayor Michael Nutter and its partnership with Code for America that has brought fellows to the city two years in a row.

Considering that OpenDataPhilly platform is open source and used in multiple cities and that an array of groups already organize efforts across regional borders, the hope may be that Ebeid and his group members are following closely enough to what is already happening on the ground in local technology communities the country over.

Text Blast: text alert app for community organizations launches

If you have a civic group, and you’re looking for a new way to remind your members of an upcoming meeting, a new tool has launched with you in mind.

The hobbyist hacker turned Philly 311 project manager Tim Wisniewski launched his side-project Text Blast, a mass SMS tool for civic groups, at the BarCamp NewsInnovation hackathon during Philly Tech Week at the end of April.

[Full Disclosure: Technically Philly helped organize the BarCamp NewsInnovation hackathon.]

The idea for Text Blast was born out of necessity, Wisniewski told Technically Philly, and he’s been using earlier versions of the application to help organize community meetings in Kensington, where he is president of the Police District Advisory Council int he 24th District. He’s been working on the project for months.

Try out the tool by visiting the TextBlast site here.

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Philadelphia Game Lab: video game coworking ‘in a few months’ at 2212 Walnut St., replaces expanding Springboard Media

Game developers now have their very own coworking space. Or at least, they can look at it.

Philadelphia Game Lab, founded by the very involved Nathan Solomon, has already hosted its own week-long gamification conference during Philly Tech Week, but the coalescing game development hub reports that it just acquired a bonafide new residence last week, according to a post on its blog.

That space — 2216 Walnut Street — has been for 12 years the flagship location for longtime Apple retailer Springboard Media, which also has storefronts in the Gayborhood and Exton. Still hosting the delicate dance with the Rittenhouse Apple Store, Springboard is again growing, backed by its focus on training, preowned Apple hardware and other differentiators, says President Everett Katzen.

“Next month Springboard Media is moving just a few doors down to 2206 Walnut Street,” said Katzen. “The new facility is a dramatic upgrade for us, and we will celebrate our grand opening in July 2012.”

More details below.

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Indy Hall expansion update: photos of construction progress for Old City coworking staple

Coworking staple Indy Hall announced in March it was expanding into the street-level storefront of its Old City building. Just over a month later, it looks like they’ve made quick work of changes to the original second-floor coworking space.

In addition to other alterations, primarily co-founders Alex Hillman and Geoff Di Masi are leading the addition of a staircase from its current space to the first-floor.

Hillman and Di Masi signed the lease at a playground Foursquare game last month.

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Geeks on a Train to stop in Philadelphia on May 24 en route to Boston

Geeks on a Train from a different era and of a different stripe. Photo courtesy of the Greater Baltimore Tech Council.

If Samuel Morse could see Geeks on a Train, a roving attempt to connect technologists in cities across the Northeast corridor, from D.C. to Boston, he’d likely be impressed at how far our communication tools have come.

Geeks on a Train celebrates the communication icon’s first telegraph message sent between D.C. and Baltimore, on May 24, 1844, by collecting technologists across the northeast on a single Amtrak train en route to Boston to participate in a roving “tweetup.”

This May 24, 2012 the Amtrak 172 Northeast Regional will pick up participants in DC and Baltimore then head for 30th Street Station, arriving at 9:18 am. To register for Geeks on a Train click here.

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RezScore: algorithm-based resume grade services to roll out new service to connect emloyers with candidates

[Update 11:50 am: If you're interested in trying out RezScore new Match service, use this link for a free search.]

RezScore, the algorithm-based resume grading service first introduced here last fall, plans to roll out a new matching system to better connect employers with qualified candidates.

Match is designed to help employers generate leads, automatically sending them candidate matches in real time based on RezScore’s matching algorithms. The employer doesn’t even have to run a search — a seeming differentiation from, say, LinkedIn.

RezScore launched at the end of 2010 and now reports just shy of 500,000 users, cofounder and Chief Operating Officer Sean Weinberg told Technically Philly.

Technically Philly’s previous coverage of RezScore is here.

If all goes according to plan, Weinberg says RezScore plans to demo the new Match service during this month’s Philly Tech Meetup.

SnipSnap: new couponing app makes iTunes top 100 free apps, 70,000 downloads

When you’re sharing iTunes front page space with Google Search and Bejeweled Blitz, you know you’re getting noticed.

And SnipSnap app is certainly getting noticed. The new couponing app is #54 on the iTunes free apps top 100 list (as of publication) and was briefly ranked first in the iTunes Lifestyle category.

Since launching, the app has been downloaded to more than 70,000 devices, founder Ted Mann told Technically Philly. He says nearly 300,000 coupons have been “snipped” so far.

Mann says he saw the app ranked as high as #41 on iTunes free apps list.

SnipSnap launched at Switch Philly during Philly Tech Week and recently announced funding from Ben Franklin Technology Partners, as Technically Philly reported.

Altair Prep: SAT test prep for high achievers to launch Philly classes this summer, new online tutoring system

In a world where there are so-called ‘tiger moms,’ it seems that there are tiger SAT test-takers, too.

That’s the demographic SAT test prep startup Altair Prep is catering to when they bring their online Stream SAT tutoring technology and in-person classes to Philadelphia area high school students this summer.

Or as cofounder Darwish Gani refers to the customers he’s looking to target “high achievers.”

“We don’t want to segregate and prevent admission because if you looked at my original SAT score, you might not think I was a good fit for Altair Prep. When in reality, I was the perfect fit,” Gani said. “We just need kids who are willing to work harder than their peers and are very motivated.”

Visit the service here.

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Zokos: dinner party “friend funding” site opens to public, has Philly roots

The Zokos founders (from left to right) Chris Kieran, Andrew Hapke, Brad Baer, and Roger Vandervort in front of the Loblolly House in Maryland, built buy Kieran's father's Philly-based architecture firm.

There’s a good reason why people imagine ritzy dining room spreads and sparkling chandeliers when they hear the words “dinner party” — buying and cooking food for a lot of people is expensive.

But Brad Baer, Chris Kieran and Andrew Hapke thought dinner parties could be less of a burden for a host of more modest means if there was a way to make sure guests pitch in. So they cofounded Zokos, a web application which crowdsources — friendsources, as they might say — funding for dinner parties from invited guests. Last spring, they brought on Roger Vandervort as a fourth cofounder and CTO.

Visit the site here.

The idea, Baer told Technically Philly, is to make dinner parties as equitable as potlucks, but with fewer trips to the grocery store for everyone and more food options than the cliched chips and guacamole.

It’s been called the Kickstarter for dinner parties by Mashable.

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CharityGiftMarket: e-commerce marketplace for nonprofits supports mothers through Mother’s Day sales

Andrew and Lindsey Markelz think that if you are going to buy a gift for your mom this Mother’s Day, then it should do more than just support a company’s bottom line.

(And remember Mother’s Day is this weekend.)

The two Camden residents are founders of a new e-commerce marketplace for nonprofits called CharityGiftMarket, that offers a central platform for nonprofits to sell products that benefit their constituents. They’re holding a “Mother’s Day Challenge” in partnership with women’s justice nonprofit Eternal Threads to raise awareness about their products, as well as other products being sold by or in support of mothers throughout the site.

Check out the site here.

“Because a lot of our partnering charities work with mothers, we thought it would be neat to highlight those organizations and their products for Mother’s Day,” said Andrew. “We wanted to create a relevant link between buying something for your mother that also supports a mother.”

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