SnipSnap wins Switch 3 startup demo competition: download free mobile couponing iPhone app

At Switch Philly 3: investor Ellen Weber, Mayor Michael Nutter, SnipSnap Founder Ted Mann, SnipSnap VP of Product Kyle Martin, Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital and SnipSnap CTO Kostas Nasis.

SnipSnap, an iOS application to digitize coupons, won out Switch Philly 3, the startup demo event, Wednesday night. An Android version of the app is coming, Mann has said.

Presented by founder Ted Mann, who won Mobile Monday to earn the spot, was eager to add a piece of news to his Switch presentation, having pitched his app publicly before. And he did. SnipSnap is now live in the App Store.

Download the app here.

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Women in Science: panel of female science leaders explain pathways to success [VIDEO]

The panelists (left to right): Susan Rohrer, Gwendolyn Binder-Scholl, Jane Hollingswoth, Deborah Crawford.

It’s not always easy to be a women in field traditionally dominated by men, but four female leaders in science industry gathered at Quorum yesterday to offer their perspective on how to be successful in the field.

Merck senior director of licensing and external research Susan Rohrer, Adaptimmune vice president Gwendolyn Binder-Scholl, NuPathe CEO Jane Hollingswoth, and Drexel University senior vice provost for research Deborah Crawford joined moderator Sandy Pfeffer, a director at Deloitte & Touche, to participate in the Smart Talk Q&A as part of Philly Tech Week and the Philadelphia Science Festival events.

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5 business lessons from Startup 101: investment, IP, outsourcing [VIDEO]

Skyline view from the Pyramid Club where Startup 101 was held during Philly Tech Week. Photo by Sean Blanda.

Ever wanted to found your own startup? There’s a lot more to it then just a great idea.

Startup 101, organized in conjunction with Philly Tech Week, introduced about 50 participants to the need-to-know business basics of venture capital, intellectual property law, telecommunications, IT and marketing.

Afterward, the panelists — Meidlinger Partners co-founder and Managing Principal Kevin Brophy, Volpe and Koenig IP lawyer Joe McNamara, Ecomm consultant Don Campbell, PFIT, Inc. CEO Fred Bender, and Dreamscape Marketing president Dan Gemp — fielded questions about everything from SEO to whether or not to found your business in Philadelphia or Delaware.

The Pyramid Club hosted the event and offered a sky-high — 52 stories high — setting to learn exactly what it takes to start a business these days.

After the jump see video of each panelists’ introductory remarks and five specific takeaways from the event.

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Grassroots Game Conference: companies to spend more than $2.5 billion on gamification, says Gabe Zichermann [VIDEO]

Gamification, says expert, author and editor Gabe Zichermann, is all about “changing human behavior.”

And Zichermann says companies are willing to shell out big money in order to bend human behavior to their bottom line, Zichermann explained in his keynote, citing a Gartner Group report that said companies will spend more than $2.5 billion on gamification a year.

Zichermann’s keynote for the Gamification for Nonprofits Day of the Grassroots Game Conference offered a comprehensive explanation of gamification to an audience of more than 50 game developers and nonprofit workers gathered at Univeristy of the Arts’ Hamilton Hall.

The day was organized by Nathan Solomon, founder of the Philadelphia Game Lab and hosted by the Corzo Center for the Creative Economy in conjunction with Philly Tech Week, presented by AT&T.

Watch Zichermann define what gamification is — “a constant ongoing process” — and what it isn’t in the video below.

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Philly arts bloggers talk roots, reasons and JFDI at PhilaMOCA

Local arts coverage in mainstream outlets is struggling to adapt to changes in a new media landscape.

It’s estimated that since 2006, half of 5,000 arts beats have been cut from American newspapers, according to study by the Knight Foundation. Just last week, the grant-maker announced that the Philadelphia Daily News, in partnership with Drexel University, was awarded one of three arts journalism grants for its “Art Attack” project.

Those newsroom losses are also actively being supplemented by independent media locally, if the active community at last night’s Philly Tech Week event on arts blogging has a say in the matter.

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Philly tech community documentary name, trailer to be unveiled during Philly Tech Week Signature Event

The documentary project focusing on the growth of a technology community in Philadelphia will have a name and a released trailer before the second annual Philly Tech Week presented by AT&T is finished.

During the Friday night Philly Tech Week Signature Event, documentarians David Dylan Thomas and Maurice Gaston will debut a short two-minute preview of their web series that aims to capture how an innovation community of creatives took root in what has been seen as a violent post-industrial city of decline.

The title of the full series, due out in the fall, will be included in the trailer.

Wednesday: Free PlanPhilly and Philadelphia Inquirer tax delinquency demo and discussion

Tax delinquency is an issue in Philadelphia many of us are witness to nearly every day, yet we may not even know it.

Inquirer columnist and PlanPhilly freelance reporter Patrick Kerkstra has been closer to the issue than any of us can claim: he’s covered the issue in-depth for some time, most notably in his award-winning Deluge of Deatbeats series, a partnership between the two above news organizations.

Philadelphia’s delinquency issue is an epidemic, he wrote in the series, with nearly 111,000 delinquent properties, or about 19 percent of all parcels. To put it in Kerkstra’s words, vacant property is “an old problem with serious consequences for the City of Philadelphia.”

At 12pm on Wednesday, April 25, at WHYY as part of Philly Tech Week’s ongoing FREE lunchtime series, Kerkstra will demo a public tool created in partnership between PlanPhilly and the Inquirer to help shed light on the issue.

He’ll also join a panel of delinquency and news technology experts to discuss the issue, how the tool came to be, how it was used in Kerkstra’s reporting and what’s next.

RSVP for the free event HERE.

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Philly Robotics Expo hosts more than 700 students, teachers at second annual Tech Week event

On Monday afternoon, more than 700 students and teachers attended Central High School’s Philly Robotics Expo at Drexel University’s College of Engineering hub, the Bossone Center.

At the event, focused on programming related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (known as STEM) and Philadelphia’s rich public education robotics community, students attended workshops across all skill levels, competed in mini-tournaments, and in general, had a chance to play with a variety of autonomous robots made by Philly teams.

The event was organized on conjunction with Philly Tech Week 2012 Presented by AT&T and the Philadelphia Science Festival.

WATCH VIDEO OF THE EVENT FROM NEWSWORKS

The event was keynoted by Penn Engineering professor Daniel Lee, who spoke about the history and future of robotics.

For more on local STEM education issues, see our ongoing coverage.

OpenAccess Philly Showcase: 8 lightning talks on public-private partnerships [VIDEO]

Software developer Mjumbe Poe gives a lightning presentation during the OpenAccess Philly Lunchtime Series at WHYY.

The first Philly Tech Week lunchtime series was the OpenAccessPhilly Showcase, an hour of lightning presentations on important public-private projects that impact Philadelphia.

Each of the eight presenters had five minutes to present a slide deck about their particular initiative and close with a six-word summary of their work. It was a tighter format of the day-long OAP event last fall.

After a brief introduction from Comcast Director of Local Media Development Paul Wright and Jeff Friedman, Manager of Civic Innovation and Participation in the Office of the Philadelphia Mayor, the presenters approached the podium rapid fire over the course of the lunch hour at WHYY in Old City.

Check out video of each presenter and his or her six-word summary after the jump.

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Open Gov ‘News’ Hackathon to feature $3,000 in prizes Saturday

The stakes just got a tad higher for this Saturday’s Open Gov ‘News’ Hackathon presented by Tropo.

The hackathon, dedicated to building tools that help inform local communities, will take place for the second year during the fourth annual BarCamp NewsInnovation presented by the Center for Public Interest Journalism.

REGISTER HERE.

The new Temple University-housed CPIJ has taken an interest in encouraging a focus on mobile tools, which can impact low-income communities more as mobile proliferates where broadband doesn’t.

To do so, the Center will put $3,000 worth of prizes, including gift cards, swag, gadgets and the like toward the best projects this Saturday.

Meet the judges and judging criteria here. Check the schedule of the day here. See some early project pitch ideas here.