CloudMine

“In the middle of all this, I recalled a conversation I had with Derek [Kleinow] about the hiring of our first two engineers. We were speaking about the strategic value of hiring engineers before we were “ready” financially. Essentially, this was a conversation about calculated risk. I remember he told me: “Let me be clear: I like how you think about this strategically. If the round takes too long, I won’t let you guys get in trouble.” Derek was opening the door for a later conversation, but at the time I didn’t take him too seriously because, of course, we didn’t think we’d need help.

Fast-forward a bit, and we were in desperate need of help. How serious was Derek? Would he actually front money from a round that hadn’t closed with no guarantee attached? I put off the call because I didn’t know how to ask for what we needed. I didn’t want him to say ‘no.’ I wasn’t ready for rejection but I really had no other viable options. With dread in the pit of my stomach, I called him and started: “We’re in trouble…”

As Philly Tech Week matures, Technically Philly is often faced with issues that we never even fathomed when creating the event. This year’s Philly Tech Week doubled the total amount of attendees from last year, and with a bigger tent comes a more diverse community. For the first time, Philly Tech Week fielded requests for sign language interpretation across several events, over 34 hours total across the week.

These requests were unexpected and with the help of the community we ended up being able to provide assistance at every event requested, a feat only made possible by some generous community members that we’d like to thank.

• Philadelphia Game Lab - With only a few days notice, the folks at PGL pitched in to cover partial costs of an interpreter at its day-long “Gamification for Non-Profits” conference.
• PlanPhilly and PennPraxis – The design and development news site covered the cost of interpretation at their Lunchtime Series event.
• AppRenaissance – The Old City development firm graciously supported 14 hours of total interpretation across the week.
• Thanks to interpreter Brandi Chittum for helping us coordinate.

In tech, we commonly use the word “accessibility” when discussing issues of the digital divide. However, true accessibility means everyone has access to the resources and people in this wonderful technology community. Thanks to all the event organizers that worked with PTW organizers to fulfill often last-munite interpretation requests.

A special thanks to Bob Moul for graciously volunteering AppRenaissance’s resources to ensure that everyone could enjoy the second annual Philly Tech Week. If you’d like to sponsor ASL-certified interpreters for the 2013 Philly Tech Week, please let us know.

Lecturer Aaron Wunsch shows a map detailing the extent of the PECO system by 1961, at The Wagner Free Institute of Science.

Everyone in the Philadelphia technology community relies on it for their livelihood, but few think much about Philadelphia’s electrification system except for when it fails or it comes time to pay bills.

For The Wagner Free Institute of Science, though, electricity is on the mind. The museum, near Temple University’s North Philadelphia main campus, plans to revamp it’s ancient electrical system, but before they do, they brought Aaron Wunsch, a lecturer in Penn’s Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, in on Wednesday to explain how Philadelphia, beginning in the 1880s, got electricity in the first place.

Below we’ll take you on an abbreviated version of Wunsch’s photo tour of Philadelphia as it was becoming electrified.

An Edison Electric Light direct current power plant. Before PECO rose to dominance in the 1890s and implemented alternating current power plants, these direct current power plants were privately owned and could provide power within a few-block radius, Wunsch said.

An old postcard of City Hall lit up. At the time, City Hall had its own isolated generation system, according to Wunsch.

A few of PECO's central stations. All of the Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO) central stations built in the early 1900s were designed by John Windrim, the son of the man who designed the Ben Franklin Parkway, Wunsch said. The"grand" or "bombastic" neoclassical style of each of the buildings was an intentional attempt to create a clear corporate image, according to Wunsch.

The Industrial Parade, headed into the Sesquicentennial fairgrounds, June 4 1926. This enormous Liberty Bell replica display is encrusted in lightbulbs, according to Wunsch.

• DuckDuckGo Cooks Google’s Goose: Analyst [CNBC] “Weinberg is founder and CEO of DuckDuckGo, the itty bitty, Valley Forge, Pa.-based search engine that is becoming the business and finance search tool of choice. That, by the way, rewrites entirely the rules of what constitutes a threat to an online business.”
• Fred Wilson: We invested in DuckDuckGo for the Reddit, Hacker News anarchists [VentureBeat]
• Mapping Vacant Properties to Make Quicker Sales [Atlantic Cities] “Now the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (PRA) has come up with a package of tools it hopes will make the long, involved process of buying vacant properties easier for developers and residents. They recently enacted a series of policies with the goal of making the sale of publicly owned vacant properties easier. As part of the initiative, they created an online map (above) of city-owned vacant properties which includes a way to get the buying process started more quickly.”
• Philly Ranks a Low 41 on Forbes List of Best Cities for Tech Jobs [Citybizlist] “Cities that significantly lost their luster, falling to “roughly the national average,” included Philadelphia, which slipped to No. 41, and New York, which ranked No. 33.”

• University City Science Center program to award $200K  [Philadelphia Business Journal] “The University City Science Center    opened applications Monday for the fifth round of its QED Proof-of-Concept Program…The QED Program will award up to $200,000 to up to four projects. In addition, 16 projects will receive guidance from market insiders and business advisers. To date, QED has committed $2.4 million in awards since 2009 to a total of 12 projects that have leveraged the Science Center support into nearly $9 million in private follow-on technology investments. Five of the projects to date have resulted in technology options or licenses.”
• InstaMed raises another $14 million [Philly Tech News] “InstaMed, the heavily UPenn connected (I mean its management & investors, not the school) healthcare payments processing platform based in Philadelphia, has just announced it has raised another $14 million. The press release did not name any investors, but only said that “the new capital included funding from five funds, including one new fund, and angels” and that more than 90% of previous investors participated.”
• PHLocal.com [PHLocal vis EventsFilter] This new film and visual art events calendar has come to our attention.
• A Hall Monitor salute to our budding City Council archivers (and a quiet rebuke of the city for the fact that we need them to) [Citypaper]
• PhillyTechNews’ Tom Paine [Philly Deals]
• Janssen Healthcare Innovation Announces Discharge Decision Support System (D2S2) Winner of the Janssen Connected Care Challenge [Janssen]
• Philly Inc: USA Technologies faces second proxy fight in three years [Philly.com]
• Pennsylvania firm pioneers rapid medical tests [Inquirer]
• ToonUps Launches a Video Update: “A Dream for a Better World” [ToonUps]

If you’ve always wanted your very own 3D printer, but were hesitant to shell out the cash, maybe you’d rather pay to make one yourself.

For roughly the same $2,000 price tag as a retail version of the MendelMax 3D printer or just a bit more than buying your own kit and trying at home, NextFab Studios will to help you build your own and provide you with the 3D modeling software license you need to get printing, even if you just want to print another printer. That’s right the printer can supposedly self-replicate (we’ve never seen this happen so we can’t confirm).

“It’s not something you can do on your own without any knowledge or experience,” NextFab’s Community Service Specialist Itsuki Ogihara said. “You need to know some tricks.”

The 3D prototyping community workspace currently located at 37th and Market in the University City Science Center will be hosting the two-day, seven-person “Build-Your-Own 3D Printer” workshops three times throughout the summer.

To register for a workshop click here.

There’s a certain element of sticker shock to a $2,000 registration fee, but those in the NextFab community may eventually get used to it.

Ogihara says that NextFab currently derives no revenue from running these types of big ticket workshops (due to the cost of materials), but that is likely to change once the studio expands to its new space at 20th and Washington, which is currently under construction.

“We’ve been doing this more as a community service and PR,” Ogihara said, referring to events like the Build-Your-Own 3D printer workshop. “But in new space, we are going to have much bigger classrooms, where we can hold substantial workshops. There, we intend to bring in revenue through them.”

NextFab’s model of using classes and workshops to reach out to the community and attract more members is not unique. TechShop, a similar membership-based workshop in Menlo Park, CA, also holds classes and events, but Ogihara says they don’t have full time staff. NextFab has 16 full time staff members.

At the moment, the studio derives half of its revenue from memberships — they have 160 full-timers — and half from contract work it does for clients seeking custom fabrication, Ogihara told Technically Philly.

We’ll have to wait until the new space is up and running to see how more space, membership, and programming interact to fuel their bottom line.

To find out more about building your own 3D printer click here, or get glimpse of what to expect by watching the time-lapse video of a MendelMax being built:

And a quick video of a finished printer starting a job:

Now, thanks to Seed Philly and Novotorium, they also both go to summer camp.

The two recently-launched incubators are partnering to put on a six-week Entrepreneur Summer Camp. The idea is to keep entrepreneurs engaged, networking and learning over the summer months that tend to be quiet for many non-seasonal businesses.

“If you’re building a startup company, passion and commitment shouldn’t slow down in June, so we wanted to create events and programming to motivate entrepreneurs to keep moving forward,” said Seed Philly cofounder and Entrepreneur Summer Camp co-organizer Brad Denenberg.

The camp has two components and two price points.

At minimum, each week the organizers, Mike Krupit, Chuck Hall and Denenberg, have arranged for a signature event that costs $25 to attend.

The first such event will feature a well-known cast of Philadelphians in the technology community who all once were involved in Infonautics.

To register click here.

Beyond that, Denenberg says the schedule of signature events should be finalized by the end of the month.

For entrepreneurs who want a bit more out of summer camp, an upgrade is available. For $75 per week you can attend the signature event, cowork at either Seed Philly or Novotorium, receive mentoring from the week’s signature event speakers, and participate in any other special events scheduled that week.

The camp won’t exactly be a moneymaker for either incubator, Denenberg says, who sees the camp as an investment.

“Our goal is to build a better pipeline of startups and entrepreneurs that will help each of our institutions succeed longer term,” he said.

It seems odd to see two incubators working together to attract the same potential market, but Denenberg says that’s exactly the misconception he, Hall and Krupit are trying to clear up.

“By collaborating instead of competing, we can offer better quality and quantity of programming. We’ll get to meet more entrepreneurs, and be in a better position to help them,” Denenberg said. “We hope that this becomes a model for cooperation that extends to other such organizations throughout our region.”

To learn more about what’s planned for Entrepreneur Summer Camp and register click here.

You’re a seasoned entrepreneur. You’re heavily involved in the Philadelphia tech community. You’ve given plenty of business pitches in high stakes situations. You think you’ve seen or done it all.

But have you ever let someone pitch your business to a panel of judges for you?

That’s the premise behind PitchSwap, a new business pitching event being organized by Brad Oyler, founder of W3Portals, organizer of Philadelphia Startup Weekend (PHLSW) and early contributor to Center City incubator Seed Philly. Oyler said some of the crew from PHLSW are helping him with this new, experimental event as well as acting as sponsors.

“I know that may sound silly, but this event is all about spontaneity and having fun with ideas,” Oyler said.

To register to participate or spectate click here.

Here are the ground rules, according to Oyler:

1. Bring an idea to pitch or observe.
2. You CAN’T pitch your own idea. You have to find someone to
PitchSwap with.
3. A panel of judges vote on the winner

Here are the event details:

• When: June 14, 2012, 5:30pm-7:30pm
• Where: McGillan’s Old Ale House
• Who: 40 PitchSwappers, 5 judges
• Cost: $5 registration fee, includes entrance, open bar, food buffet

Oyler says he came up with the idea for PitchSwap while thinking about how to create a fun pre-event for Startup Weekend.

If this first attempt is a success, he’ll attempt to organize PitchSwap events quarterly, Oyler told Technically Philly. As of publication, 3 judges and 18 entrepreneurs were committed to attending.

To register or learn more click here.

Five of the nation’s largest cable companies — Comcast Corp., Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable — are creating a seamless national WiFi network to enable cable broadband subscribers to stream data or access the Internet through smart phones, tablets or laptop computers, the companies said Monday. The initial network consists of 50,000 WiFi hot spots, most of them currently in the Philadelphia-to-New York corridor. [INQUIRER]

Read about why these companies are banding together in this report from Marketplace Tech.

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.

• Cable companies offer free Wi-Fi — what’s the catch?
• TV Everywhere’s Counting Problem [All Things Digital] — “Witness Comcast’s announcement yesterday, made at the cable industry’s annual convention in Boston, that it has been working with Nielsen on a plan to count viewers when they watched video on an iPad*, using Comcast’s Xfinity app. For various technical reasons, this is much harder than you’d think, and the two companies have already been beavering away at this for 18 months.”
• Extra lane: how Comcast assures that Xfinity TV on Xbox 360 works well [Ars Technica]
• New Comcast services threaten wireless text and data revenue [Cnet]
• Comcast CEO Roberts not attending The Cable Show [FierceCable]

• The Cable Show 2012: Verizon, Comcast Unveil ‘viewdini’ Mobile Search Product Signs on XFinity [Multichannel News]
• Comcast service would connect home phone line to smartphones [LA Times]
• Cable firms warn against heavy government oversight of Web [LA Times]
• Comcast Asks FCC to Revoke Boston’s New License to Reregulate Rates FCC’s Media Bureau had recertified the city in April [Broadcasting & Cable]
• Cable Show 2012: Comcast To Take X1 Guide To Some Existing Set-Tops, Too CTO Werner Says MSO to Deploy Cloud-Based Interface to RNG 150 Boxes [Multichannel News]
• Comcast: An Impressive 9-Month Run Has Sent The Stock Up To Very High Levels [Seeking Alpha]
• Comcast Ventures Join $12M Round for BodyMedia [Citybizlist]
• Comcast Spotlight Forms Advanced-Ad Unit, Teams With SMGx ‘CM 360′ to Focus on Targeting, Interactivity and Measurement [Multichannel News]
• Adobe Names Three New Members to Its Board of Directors [Business Wire] — Including Amy Banse, the managing director and head of funds for Comcast Ventures.
• Fake Comcast workers flee after home invasion [Houston Chronicle]

The Langhorne-based incubator announced last week that it has taken on its third company, TravelCare International, according to a press release. The converted warehouse space boasted an empty fitness center and a subdued office when Technically Philly was last on the premises, but now TravelCare joins Zuppler and Inhabi in creating a small crowd in the Novotorium office space.

TravelCare International, cofounded by David Marks and David Haas, sells software that helps make location-specific medical safety information more easily accessible to medical professionals and travelers. For example, you’ll be traveling in Honduras and want to know if there are recommendations for immunization and where vetted healthcare is provided there. (Just to be clear, that’s not the David Haas who is a vice chairman of the William Penn Foundation.)

“Their model isn’t a pure tech play, but leverages technology to deliver services in a way that scales organically,” Krupit said of the company. “We also think that the market for international travel health and safety is underserved, creating tremendous potential for TravelCare to become dominant in the space.”

Krupit says he became aware of TravelCare through a mutual acquaintance who connected the two.

“After a brief conversation I had with David [Marks], it was clear they were at a stage and in a space where we thought incubation made sense and encouraged him to apply,” said Krupit.

Krupit says Marks, 50, began working out of the Novotorium space last week.

In the excitement of adding to its midst, Krupit says the two other Novotorium companies have been achieving notable goals, as well.

“Zuppler recently achieved their first three month goals with Novotorium and has signed significant partners and grew revenues,” Krupit said. “They continue to work with us and we’ve started discussions about Novotorium making a capital investment to grow their team and their growth.”

Apartment hunting disrupter Inhabi, which began working with Novotorium in April, is now about half-way through the three-month trial period Novotorium includes as part of a deal before discussing a capital investment with the company.

“It’s been fantastic to work with them and see the path to success become more clear,” Krupit said. “Now they’d like to add to their team and are hoping to engage smart local people to help Inhabi grow.”

In addition to incubating old and new companies, Novotorium has partnered with Seed Philly to kick off its Entrepreneur Summer Camp this June with a panel of former Infonautics employees.

To register click here.