Rick Rasansky

Imagine sitting in front of an audience, entertaining a litany of personal and professional questions. Then imagine you don’t know whose asking each question because the audience members are submitting them anonymously using a software product you created.

Great. Now you have an idea of what it was like to be seven-time entrepreneur Rick Rasansky last night as he jovially participated in an hour-long Q&A session at Venturef0rth that was scandalously entitled “7 Startups, 4 wives, 1 entrepreneur.”

Using his own realtime feedback application Yorn, an audience of about 40 people, many of them also entrepreneurs, anonymously shot questions at Rasansky as he perched on a director’s chair and awaited the moderation of the coworking space’s cofounder Jesse Kramer.

Rasansky answered questions ranging from how to choose engineers and advisers to how to balance a startup and a family. He also — sort of — answered questions about his handful of ex-wives.

Rasansky, who is currently married, likens his marital history to launching a startup.

“You might say that if you were to compare it to a startup. A startup goes through a lot of different stages and pivots a lot and ends up finding the right direction,” Rasansky said. “And I definitely did.”

Check out video of Rasansky explaining how pitching to potential investors is different in Philadelphia than it is in places like New York City or Silicon Valley.

Over the course of his career, Rasansky has started a variety of high-powered businesses that range in focus from food services to technology, including China Grill Management, Millennium Media Group, eCal, Intronics Corporation, Sapphire Mobile Systems, the Network Acquisition Company and, as of 2010, Yorn.

He is also known for his role in the acquisition of Wireless Philadelphia from Earthlink, though he expressed regret that since he sold the 4200-node WiFi network back to the City of Philadelphia, nothing had been done to deploy it.

Venturef0rth is the relatively new coworking space in Callowhill. Kramer and cofounder Elliot Menschik regularly hold events in the space that all tend to start off with free Philly brews and networking. This Q&A event was no exception.

To learn more about Venturef0rth’s event programming click here.

Panelists taking questions on "Innovation with New Information" (from left to right) Lisa Locke, Steve Spiker, Jason Kiesel, Mjumbe Poe.

Mjumbe Poe is not one of the Avengers, he’s an open source software developer.

But speaking at the Reinventing Older Communities: Building Resilient Cities conference, the Open Plans software developer and former Code for America fellow — who said he’d recently been inspired by the new blockbuster movie — drew a connection between the Avengers’ world saving abilities and civic engagement software.

“The core of civic engagement software is really around two things, inspiration and empowerment,” he said.

Inspiration and empowerment, that is, for everyday people to fix their little piece of a city whose problems otherwise seem too big to solve. Poe explained that everyday life is “disempowering in several ways,” and outlined three barriers to solving civic problems that can be addressed through civic engagement software:

1. Problems are often posed on an inhuman scale, but software brings problems to a human scale
2. Heroes are often not visible, but software can improve visibility for unsung heroes.
3. Even when people who are making change are visible, they are not visible in a tangible way. But civic engagement software can make the path to problem solving more tangible.

He offered Change by Us, which he and the other Code for America fellows built in 2011, as an example of software that accomplishes these goals.

Poe was speaking on the “Innovation with New Information” Wednesday afternoon panel in front about 40 people participating in the three-day conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

Here is video of Poe explaining how civic engagement software can help citizens overcome what he referred to as the dis-empowerment of everyday problems.

Poe shared the mic with Steve Spiker, the Director of Research & Technology at the Urban Strategies Council in Oakland and Jason Kiesel, founder and CEO of CitySourced, a realtime mobile civic engagement tool. The panel was moderate by Lisa Locke, a community development specialist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Kiesel discussed the products CitySourced builds to help city governments engage with their citizens more directly, offering a practical example of how companies can help cities make use of the vast amounts of data they collect.

The conference brought urban policy makers and researchers to the Hyatt Regency Philadelphia at Penn’s Landing for wide ranging discussions about how to improve and modernize cities across the country.

As Poe suggested in his talk, if you’re looking for The Avengers to solve problems in your city, you may be out of luck, but if you’re look for inspiration to help your city “aspire to greatness” you might want to start by watching the movie.

Huntingdon Valley-based email marketing company AWeber Communications aimed to put on display its 40 person development team during the second annual Philly Tech Week presented by AT&T.

As a member of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, Aweber staff took root in a Chamber conference room on South Broad Street to host two conversations on its work, followed by a Happy Hour at Center Ciy microbrewery Nodding Head. Fortunately, the firm filmed both presentations.

[Full Disclosure: Aweber was also a Philly Tech Week sponsor.]

First, above, marketing manager Nick Moore talks to 20 attendees about how AWeber has focused on ‘return on integration,’ or funding its application development. Next, below, Ethan McCreadie and Philip Cristiano discuss with 35 attendees AWeber’s use of Japanese project management system Kanban.

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.

• Comcast reports jump in profits, revenues [Inquirer] — “Helped by Super Bowl advertising and still-surging demand for Internet services, Comcast Corp. reported a 30 percent jump in profits to $1.2 billion and a 22.7 percent boost in revenue to $14.9 billion during the first quarter”
• For Comcast, data equals big dollars [Gigaom] — “During the first quarter of 2012 (ending March 31), the company added 439,000 net new high-speed Internet customers to bring the final tally to 18.58 million”
• Comcast Falls After Reporting Video-Subscriber Decline [Bloomberg]
• Comcast’s losses in cable subscribers continue [San Francisco Chronicle] — “37,000: That’s how many cable TV subscribers Comcast lost in the first quarter.”
• Comcast Must Put Bloomberg TV Among News Channels, FCC Says [Bloomberg] — “Comcast (CMCSA) Corp. must carry Bloomberg Television near other news channels on cable systems in the 35 largest U.S. media markets, the Federal Communications Commission said today. “
• Comcast Cares Day 2012: A Day in Photos [Comcast Voices] — “67,000 Comcast employees, their families and their friends offered their time and elbow grease to nearly 650 projects in 39 states and Washington, D.C. Comcast and NBCUniversal volunteers painted schools; planted trees and gardens; cleaned up parks and trails; and beautified community centers.”

• Comcast Awards $173,000 in scholarships to Pennsylvania high school seniors [Sacramento Bee]
• On the Call: Comcast executive on Xfinity iPad app [CBS Money Watch] — With Neil Smit
• NBC Universal’s Style Network and DailyCandy Team Up for StyleCandy [Ad Age]
• Comcast CEO Roberts says deal will close in 2012 [Philadelphia Business Journal] — “Comcast Corp. Chairman, CEO and President Brian Roberts said he expects the controversial deal in which a joint venture between Comcast and two other cable-television firms would sell its 122 Advanced Wireless Services spectrum licenses to Verizon Wireless for $3.6 billion to close in the latter part of the year.”
• Summary Box: Comcast 1Q net rises 30 pct [Fox 6 Alabama]
• Comcast Business Class Services Recruits VARs For The Cloud [CRN]
• Hoping for FiOS, some cities now feel abandoned by Verizon [Inquirer] — “Years after Verizon Communications Inc. wired the suburbs of Boston, Buffalo, and Baltimore with superfast Internet, more than one million residents in the poorer urban neighborhoods of those metro areas are still waiting for FiOS.”
• More Comcast Cares coverage and the below wrap up video here.

Michael Maher, a Naval Lieutenant and corporate coworking aspirant, is focusing his entrepreneurial efforts elsewhere.

Maher, who has started a handful of small businesses, won the Greater Philadelphia Veterans Network‘s “Shark Tank” business pitch competition last week to add another to his name, as ABC 6 reported. Maher beat out a field of five veterans-turned-entrepreneurs pitching business ideas to a panel of five judges, according to a release.

Maher is also one of three cofounders of the forthcoming Rittenhouse coworking space, Benjamin’s Desk, as Technically Philly reported. Though planned for an April launch, the corporate-focused effort’s launch is pushed back to June.

The winning pitch was for Real Comps, a planned online site for realtors to post home sales as they happen. Maher netted a $5,000 cash prize as well as $20,000 in services to help jump start the business, which he plans to launch out of Benjamin’s Desk when it opens.

“The website and mobile application are being built as we speak,” said Benjamin’s Desk vice president, general counsel and his wife Jennifer Maher. “From that point, the focus will be on sales and marketing and then, hopefully, move into the VC stage once we have more things in order.”

Maher was able to accept the award without giving up equity stake in the startup, Jennifer says.

More than $2.75 million was pledged to 35 organizations at the second annual Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia unveiling Monday, including a handful of technology-driven projects.

See all the projects listed here. Watch video of the winners above. The funds range from $10,000 to a high of $400,000, which was dedicated to the Center City District for art work on a renovated Dilworth Plaza adjacent to City Hall.

Some of the technology community examples:

• Project: Little Berlin Fairgrounds
• Recipient: Little Berlin
• Award: $10,000

• Project: Animated Architecture: 3D Video Mapping Projections on Historic Sites
• Recipient: Sean Stoops
• Award: $20,000

• Project: Corps of Interactive Artist Teachers
• Recipient: The Hacktory
• Award: $40,000

The unveiling event was held at the Art Museum and featured remarks by Mayor Nutter.

You’ve probably seen TV shows and news broadcasts attempt to incorporate Facebook and other forms of social media into their content in all sorts of ways — some successfully, some not so much.

But NBC Philadelphia and social media agency Bradford Media Group, which has regional offices in West Chester, are trying a new way to bring social media to television.

The pair premiered Life Around Home, a new project to create television programming entirely driven by the conversations taking place on the show’s Facebook page last week, according to a press release. The show aired on Philadelphia NBC Nonstop, the station’s 24-hour cable channel, which features some original programing on loop.

The new show is hosted by TV personality and home expert Marie Louise Ludwig. Content is geared toward women and will feature a slew of lifestyle experts who will focus on organic living, DIY Projects, cooking, life celebrations, fitness, fashion and parenting, according to a release.

Here’s a video introduction to the new show:

Technically Philly co-founder demoes Connect Philly, a tool he led to create that maps free wireless access points, in Conservation Hall in City Hall Thursday.

Digital literacy needs to follow digital access, which followed digital awareness.

If that’s the pipeline for ensuring that the web ensnares each Philadelphian into its powerful grasp, we’re somewhere in step two, but it’s important to keep an eye on step three.

“We need to make sure that we’re making Philadelphians not just digital aware but digital savvy,” said Bret Perkins, vice president for external and government affairs for Comcast, at the launch event for Connect Philly, a tool built by Technically Philly to map and access free wireless Internet hotspots.

See it at ph.ly/connect too.

Following a demo, Perkins was part of a panel discussion that also featured Siobhan Reardon, President and Director of the Free Library of Philadelphia; Brigitte Daniel, Executive Vice President, at Wilco Electronic Systems, Charles Kaylor, visiting Assistant Professor at Temple University and Bryan Mercer of the Media Mobilizing Project.

Broadly, the group acknowledged work left to be done on broadband and mobile adoption — Kaylor revisited the numbers that show somewhere between 40 percent and 55 percent of Philadelphia households aren’t connected — but already there is a sense of urgency to not lose focus on that while access to the web is good, understanding how to use it is better.

Put another way, getting online is an important hurdle — and Connect Philly can be a small help in that — but what Philadelphians do when they get online is the ultimate challenge. (The Connect Philly project was led by Technically Philly’s Brian James Kirk and the tool was built by local developer Jim Smiley.)

“We run the risk of entrenching a digital underclass,” said Kaylor, whose research focuses on web adoption.

The Knight Foundation, which helped support the event and project, was represented by Philadelphia Program Director Donna Frisby-Greenwood, who spoke of her interest in technology impact on community. Also at the event, held in the beautifully adorned Conservation Hall in City Hall, Mayor Nutter spoke about his administration’s interest in the topic.

“As technology becomes more critical in our lives, our city will be held back by those without access,” said Nutter in brief remarks near the close of the event, which drew more than 60 attendees.

During the panel discussion, moderated by this reporter, two recent questions on the scale of digital access efforts in Philadelphia were given some clarity.

Perkins of Comcast addressed the dismal early number of local Internet Essentials accounts — 500 here compared to 5,000 in Chicago, a total he called “okay to so-so” — by saying there were stronger school district partners elsewhere. He specifically named a suburban Atlanta superintendent who drummed up support, suggesting it wasn’t the case here during the ouster of former Philadelphia superintendent Arlene Ackerman.

Also, Reardon pushed back on a recent Pew report that suggested the Free Library system has fewer available web-enabled computers per resident than other cities by reminding attendees that when compared to other larger peer cities — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago — the numbers were more comparable than to newer systems, like Pittsburgh and Seattle. She said more workstations will be added but education and the adoption of mobile technology is more important.

“We have to solve this problem in a variety of ways,” she said.

Seth Perkins hasn’t seen every episode of AMC’s hit zombie series “The Walking Dead,” but he’s been on the zombie shoot ‘em up bandwagon since at least 2009, he says, when he started planning to make a video game called, “IH8Zombies.”

With three years of zombie drawings, specs, and Unity 3D coding under his belt, Perkins launched a Kickstarter to raise the money he’d need to call in some help — to finish building the game, not fight off zombies.

The game, says Perkins on his Kickstarter page, revolves around a character named, Hero, who was born into a family of zombie killers. Only when the game starts, Hero’s family is dead and the game player is the only “person” he can rely on for protection and moral support.

On the Kickstarter page Perkins sums the game up this way, “Survival-Horror + Ren & Stimpy + Adventure = FUN,” but Perkins says the really unique aspect of the game is the artificial intelligence.

“I’ve never seen a game where the playable character can pause the game and tell the Player (in mime) “Hey Buddy!  There’s a guy creeping up behind us that needs to be addressed!” said Perkins.

Here’s a demo of the game from the Kickstarter page:

Perkins, 32, who moved from Rittenhouse to Bryn Mawr about a year ago, is not the only local game developer to try crowdsourcing the funds to build his dream video game. Cipher Prime, a game development shop based in Old City, has a Kickstarter open until the end of the month to raise money to build, “Auditorium 2: Duet,” the sequel to its first hit game, “Auditorium,” as Technically Philly reported.

For the last year, Perkins has been refining the story line, outsourcing artwork pieces, and creating the Unity demo above, but IH8ZOmbies isn’t his full time job. Perkins is a senior systems architect at Chaikin Stock Research, on 4th and South Street.

Having put what he estimates to be 10,000+ hours into the game, Perkins is at a point where he could use some outside development help, which he’s hoping the Kickstarter will help him pay for so he can finish a project he’s passionate about.

“The game strikes a strong balance between action/violence and humor,” said Perkins. “In the end, the game is about getting your heart rate up while giving you ample opportunity to emit maniacal laughter.”

To learn more about IH8Zombies and check out some examples of Perkins’s early drawings visit the Kickstarter here.

• Hack: A Technology Based Design & Art Exhibition, Seeking Funding on Kickstarter [Geekadelphia] “Andrew Zahn Cameron and his team are seeking “a range of works: From 2D to 3D works, applications, wearables, installation, objects, and performances.” Cameron is seeking submissions now through April 6th.
• Penn celebrate 66th anniversary of world’s first computer [Daily Pennsylvanian] “Created in 1946, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, better known as ENIAC, was the first-ever general-purpose electronic computer.” Last year, for its 65th birthday, we covered the computer extensively.
• Quewey: Turn Business Knowledge into Bucks [Geekadelphia] “Utilizing the LinkedIn API as a method to verify professional standing, Quewey aims to create a business-oriented community that will connect knowledge keepers with knowledge seekers.” Philly Tech News covered the launch, too.

• Yahoo’s Patent Suit Against Facebook Is A ‘Crock Of Shit’ (Plus, It Pulled This Move On Pre-IPO Google) [TechCrunch] Center City lawyer Lenny Kravets makes a clarification about the number of Facebook patents.
• Riding SEPTA? Watch out for your cellphone [Philadelphia Daily News] “Most of last year’s 415 thefts and robberies committed on the Broad Street Line and the Market Frankford El involved smart- phones, e-readers and laptops…”
• Penn Biotech Spinout Receives Support From Science Center New Ventures Program, Takes Office and Lab Space at Port Business Incubator [GlobeNewsWire]
• Workforce growth in Philly? It’s a question of acquisitions [Philly.com]
• Beerjobber Gets Its Irish on for St. Patrick’s Day! [Beerjobber blog] – The online craft beer marketplace is celebrating St. Patrick’s Day
• Maiden Media Selected as Digital Agency for La Yogurt Probiotic [citybizlist]
• Trenton Computer Festival, the early days of computing, and me [ZDNet Blogs via Philly Tech News]
• Fed Up With Your Business Phone System? Alteva Answers the Call with a 35-Seat Communications Makeover in its “My Phone Stinks” Contest [Alteva]
• StarCite, Part of Active Network, and Worldhotels Announce New Partnership [PRNewsWire]
• Councilman W. Wilson Goode, Jr. Discusses Opportunity Legislation [GPCC News]