Innovation & Job News

Disasters like Japan's cataclysmic earthquake and nuclear crisis last year can be too dangerous and too big for human responders. Yet "with all our robotics, we're really not prepared for that kind of an event," says Jorgen Pedersen, founder of Pittsburgh's RE2. 
 
Now the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), the military's "primary innovation engine," has selected RE2 to participate in its Robotics Challenge. The goal: to develop software to control robots in the most catastrophic disasters.
 
Working with Soar Technology in Ann Arbor, Michigan and the University of Texas in Arlington, the RE2 team is one of 11 groups chosen to develop software that will allow a humanoid, bi-pedal robot to perform complex tasks such as walking across and clearing rubble, opening a door, climbing a ladder, turning a valve and, most challenging according to Pedersen, get into, turn on and drive a utility vehicle.
 
All of the teams will compete in June to determine the top six entries, who will receive additional funding and a walking robot to further develop and test their software.
 
Pedersen founded RE2 (pronounced RE Squared) in 2001 under Carnegie Mellon's National Robotics Engineering Center. Since then, the company has become a leading developer of robotic arms for tasks such as bomb removal. Two hundred fifty of RE2's "intelligent, modular manipulation systems" are currently at work in Afghanistan, Pedersen says.
 
The company has grown from 20 employees in 2010 to almost 60 today. The military and public safety (police, fire, etc.) are the largest markets, Pedersen says, and the company is now looking to diversify into agriculture, healthcare and materials handling.
 
Source: Jorgen Pedersen, RE2
Writer: Elise Vider
 

Since the dawn of humankind, the mating ritual has included the awkward declaration of feelings to someone who may not share them.
 
Now a Bucknell University junior is developing a social media site that promises to revolutionize romance with a risk-free way to both declare and determine if the attraction is mutual. Bryan Richman and his partner, family friend JJ Augenbraun, are at work on SharedSpark,  billed as "a unique relationship platform that allows college students to escape the friend zone."
 
The site got a recent boost as first-place winner at the Bucknell Pitch Competition, garnering a $1,500 prize, a year of desk space at the Bucknell Entrepreneurs Incubator and guidance from the Bucknell University Small Business Development Center.  The partners are spending their prize money developing a prototype; a beta site is planned to launch at Bucknell next summer.
 
Conventional dating websites focus on meeting someone new; SharedSpark allows participants to explore romance with friends and acquaintances. Richman won't share too many specifics yet about how the site will work, but does say participants will use their real names. And he cites his recent survey of 235 Bucknell students. Ninety percent said they feel uncomfortable telling someone they are interested, 99% said they would prefer to know if their feelings were mutual and 53% said they would consider using a free website to tell them so.
 
"Everyone who goes to college has friends they find attractive, but they're not willing to reveal those feelings because they worry it will impair their relationship," says Richman.
 
Source: Bryan Richman, SharedSpark
Writer: Elise Vider

A Lancaster tech agency with a penchant for sustainability and innovation, and a taste for fresh, seasonal food, is preparing to launch an app that will serve as a virtual farmers market.
 
"Fresh" carried Williams Forrest , in partnership with kbs+, a New York agency, to a win at last month's Sustainability Hackathon sponsored by BMW i. Now Williams Forrest is taking Fresh to market in March as a mobile app, website and through social media, says Louise Barr, the company's chief marketing officer.
 
Fresh will allow small farms, farm stands and other producers to post what is fresh and available and consumers to post where they found the juiciest tomatoes or the freshest eggs. The initial launch will focus on Lancaster County's bounteous agriculture, and Williams Forrest hopes in time to expand the concept to a larger geography.
 
Fresh is the first app to be developed by Williams Forrest, which was founded in 2007 and offers web design and development, quality assurance and other digital marketing services. Underlying all their work, Barr emphasizes, is a company ethos of sustainability.
 
With clients including BMW North America, Hewlett Packard and Puma, Williams Forrest has outgrown its space and is moving to larger quarters in Lancaster in the spring. The company has 17 employees and anticipates adding three to five new positions in the next six months. Besides releasing Fresh in the New Year, the company is also gearing up for a launch of an internal app for Hewlett Packard using Microsoft's SharePoint application, a new specialty area.
 
 
Source: Louise Barr, Williams Forrest
Writer: Elise Vider
 
 
 

Mobile technology presents a marketing conundrum: Personal devices gather valuable specifics about the viewer, including location and activity, but render web advertisements distorted and invasive. Malvern-based TapCLIQ is changing all that.

After 14 years directing software development and strategic partnership at SAP AG,  founder and CEO Chirantan Bhatt created a "customer engagement platform" that responds to user-generated feedback in real time. The company recently graduated from Project Liberty Digital Incubator and is hiring data scientists, software engineers, and marketing and sales directors.

Bhatt says he’s always the first to try a new gadget, but finds "an abundance of annoying and unrelated advertisement constantly appearing on mobile applications." When his four-year-old daughter came to him with a file downloading over the game app she was playing Bhatt realized the problem was urgent. 

"Advertising completely interrupts the user," says Bhatt. "[Mobile devices] can’t have ads like a web page."

According to a 2012 study by Azullo, 80 percent of smartphone users have already forgotten all the mobile ads they’ve seen in the past 6 months. Yet internationally, spending on mobile advertisement is predicted to reach $28 billion by 2016 (based on reports from International Data Corp.).

Big ad companies—including Google, Real Media 24/7 and Flurry—are still stuck on display ads, explains Bhatt. TapCLIQ, conversely, doesn't asks users to leave their app and offers related purchases and commenting options for their current activity. Now in private beta, the company has created 1 million interactions with over 20,000 mobile users.

"We have an intense focus on user experience," says Bhatt. "That means better ads, coming at the right time, with more relevance to the customer."

Source: Chirantan Bhatt, TapCLIQ
Writer: Dana Henry

Like the young tech companies it serves, the Innovation Partnership (IPart)  did some creative problem solving earlier this year when its state funding evaporated. With a new membership funding model and a recently acquired $80,000 federal grant, IPart now says it "can assure Pennsylvania's small technology companies that its programs will continue to assist them in generating winning, fundable federal SBIR and STTR proposals."
 
To the uninitiated, the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs make highly coveted federal grants to small businesses to conduct research and development and to commercialize their innovations. IPart's role is to assist Pennsylvania's emerging, technology-based companies in the Commonwealth in making their submissions. Since its founding in 2003 by the PA Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED), IPart has provided 489 technical reviews to Pennsylvania companies; 90 companies have been awarded over $25 million in federal grants.
 
Among IPart's success stories are ChromaTan in State College, RE2 in Pittsburgh and Y-Carbon in Bristol. 
 
Director Kelly Wylam credits increased support from IPart's members around the state -- Ben Franklin Technology Partners, University City Science Center, Life Sciences Greenhouse of Central PA, Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, Pennsylvania Small Business Development Center, Pennsylvania State University, Drexel University and Temple University – for keeping IPart up and running and able to further leverage federal funds like the $80,000 Federal State and Technology Partnership grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration.
 
Pennsylvania, she adds, consistently ranks as a top-10 state for SBIR and STTR funds: "We're a contender."
 
Source: Kelly Wylam, IPart
Writer: Elise Vider
 
 
 
 
 
 

When Hurricane Sandy devastated northeastern coastal communities, one Easton company took particular notice. Eco Swim by Aqua Green  is a maker of swimwear made of recycled plastics. Sustainability is "important to our company," says Caroline Shaw, "but beyond that there is an environmental message and awareness that we want to promote. Sustainability is not just about the product, but about the actions behind the brand."
 
So in Sandy's wake, Aqua Green has pledged to host a minimum of 13 beach cleanups in 2013. Partnering with its retailers and United By Blue, a Philadelphia maker of sustainable apparel, Aqua Green has removed tons of trash since 2011 in locations as varied as the Delaware River in Easton, the Gulf coast in Tampa, lakes in Seattle and Minnesota, the Arkansas River in Little Rock and the Atlantic coast in South Myrtle Beach.
 
"When our great grandfather started this company 72 years ago, the oceans and beaches were cleaner places. Four generations later, in a world with polluted water and dirty beaches, Eco Swim by Aqua Green is answering a call to restore our oceans' health. By making our swimsuits in the U.S. and using fabrics made from recycled materials, we are reducing our carbon footprint in the sand so that our beaches can be enjoyed by the next four generations," say the owners of Eco Swim's parent company, Mainstream Swimsuits.
 
For 2013, the company is expanding with a new line of beach cover-ups made from S.Cafe,  a fabric made from recycled coffee grounds, which offers UVA and UVB protection and odor control.
 
Source: Caroline Shaw, Aqua Green
Writer: Elise Vider

K-Fab Inc.,  a Berwick-based manufacturer, is purchasing a new facility and creating at least 50 jobs to support its new product line: machining, assembling and painting pumps for the natural gas industry.

The state Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) announced that K-Fab will invest more than $2.4 million in renovations, infrastructure improvements, new equipment and employee training. The state also said that K-Fab has committed to creating at least 50 new jobs within the next three years while retaining its 266-member workforce.

Founded in 1969, K-Fab is a sole source manufacturer of material processing, fabrication, machine assembly and paint. Besides pumps used in the Marcellus Shale industry, K-Fab serves the automotive sector and makes parts for bearings, pumps, valves and pipelines. "[Our] capabilities range from parts you can hold in your hand to parts weighing tons," the company says.

K-Fab's expansion will be funded, in part, with financing from DCED that includes $100,000 in Job Creation Tax Credits, a $100,000 Pennsylvania First grant, $22,500 in guaranteed free training and a $750,000 loan from the Machine and Equipment Loan Fund.  The Governor's Action Team, working with the Berwick Industrial Development Association, coordinated the package. 
 
Source: Department of Community and Economic Development
Writer: Elise Vider

Birchmere Labs, the $10 million studio seed fund created by Birchmere Ventures to support digital media startups, plans to fund two Pittsburgh-based companies in the near future.
 
While the announcement is not yet official, Birchmere Partner Sean Sebastian confirmed that two local startups will be among the first to receive studio funding. 
 
One of the companies is a digital media technology developed by a professor at Carnegie Mellon. Sebastian declined to provide details on the second, but said both companies would be developed in house initially through Birchmere Lab.
 
“A CMU professor came to us with an interesting idea that has never been done, but he didn’t want to run the company,” says Sebastian. “We struck an agreement and plan to build a company from scratch around the idea.”
 
Birchmere Labs operates as a seed studio fund, a novel approach that allows Birchmere to fund established startups through seed monies and support and build new companies through the studio funding. 
 
“We saw all the internet, media and web 2.0 activity coming, which really didn’t fit into Birchmere IV,” says Sebastian. “It was like putting a square peg into a round hole.”
 
Birchmere Lab was formed with the help of Sean Ammirati, who joined as a principal partner last August. Ammirati has a national reputation in digital media and mobile technologies. He was formerly the COO of tech blog ReadWriteWeb (now ReadWrite) and CEO of mSpoke, which sold to LinkedIn in 2010.
 
Last August Birchmere announced a $40 million venture capital fund, Birchmere IV. The fund has invested in eight companies so far, two local companies among them. Uptown-based NoWait received $2 million and Ross Township-based The Resumator received $2.1 million. Both were Innovation Works’ Alpha Lab companies.
 
While Birchmere continues to invest in the best companies it can find, regardless of geographic location, the recent activity does suggest that local startups might have an advantage.
 
“While there’s no official edict, the closer we are to an earlier stage company, the less heavy lifting is required,” says Sebastian.
 
Source: Sean Sebastian, Birchmere Ventures 
Writer: Debra Smit

In November 2010, police in rural Escondido, California discovered a house with over nine pounds of explosives and several industrial chemicals. It was a challenging situation: Authorities needed to obtain evidence while guaranteeing the safety of the neighbors and their own personnel.

The presence of such materials, along with radiological and biological hazards, constitutes an “unconventional threat” for homeland security. The Research, Development, Test and Evaluation Program (RDTEP) of Gettysburg-based Tripwire Operations Group are experts in products and training methods used to navigate this complex terrain. They’ve moved to the Science Center and plan to hire entry-level positions—including field work logicians, labratory technicians and scientists—in early 2013.

"Most of our focus is on helping first responders and war fighters safely identify and handle those other materials that are dangerous but aren’t typical," explains Jesse Taylor, lead chemist for Tripwire RDTEP.

According to Taylor, homeland security doesn’t just protect us from the "underwear bomber," the man who caused a 2009 plane fire while carrying explosives inside his pants. Public safety officials at sporting events and political rallies do "sweeps" of personal belongings using the same products and services. A natural disaster can pose threats similar to an intentional attack. Those involved in preserving public safety—including firefighters, local police and medical technicians—need to handle unconventional threats safely.

Currently, Tripwire’s RDTEP is working on independent sensor verification tools and Render Safe Procedures [RSP], including remote handling of materials. Their move to University City provides better access to client agencies including the Federal Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, as well as municipal police and firefighter divisions.

"After 9/11, [homeland security] has become much more of a public issue," says Taylor. “It’s more prominent in the public eye and in popular culture. Beyond what we provide to war fighters, there are a lot of similar issues that come up for state, local and regional emergency response teams. There certainly is a bigger picture to homeland security than terrorism."

Source: Jesse Taylor, Tripwire
Writer: Dana Henry

The way Don Dagen sees it, robotics is about to have its Macintosh moment, with the new affordable and versatile Baxter robot. "There is almost giddiness in the robotics industry," says Dagen, business development manager for ONExia Inc. in West Chester. 
 
ONExia is one of nine exclusive distributors for Baxter, made by Rethink Robotics in Boston and headed by Rodney Brooks, a co-creator of the popular Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner.
 
Baxter is a game changer, says Dagen, because, unlike most robotics that serves heavy industry, it is suitable for discrete part handling, loading/unloading lines, machine tending and light assembly operations. Think small and medium-sized operations such as injection molding, print and silkscreen shops. It sells for only about $30,000 and like the Mac, it can be up and running in an hour.
 
Baxter will enable ONExia to "serve a customer base we don't have right now," says Dagen, who anticipates that the new line could be their top seller within a year. It also offers the potential for ONExia to create custom automation, which could be sold nationally.
 
Dagen anticipates that Baxter will result in four new sales positions at ONExia, which has about 33 in its workforce, including mechanical and electrical engineers, programmers, technicians and salespeople.
 
Besides serving as a manufacturers' representative for robots and robotic components, ONExia also services and programs the products it sells and has a integration group that does contract manufacturing, substituting for full in-house engineering departments, which fewer companies maintain anymore.
 
The company was founded in 1984 and changed its name to ONExia in 2001.
 
Source: Don Dagen, ONExia
Writer: Elise Vider
 
 

Penn State's National Nanotechnology Applications and Career Knowledge Network (NACK Network) has demonstrated its knack for developing partnerships between research universities and community colleges to teach the core skills needed for a nanotechnology workforce. Now the program has received a $4.2 million National Science Foundation (NSF) to continue its work.
 
Since 2008, NACK has set up partnerships in seven states and Puerto Rico. More than 800 have graduated from the classes offered by the NACK hubs, there have been more than 20,000 web downloads of NACK educational materials and 957 educators have completed professional development workshops.
 
With the new grant, says Robert Ehrmann, NACK's managing director, comes an imperative to establish more such network hubs across the country. And, he adds, "It is critical for us to train [high school] educators because most do not know what nano is, even science educators."
 
NACK grew out of a state-funded effort launched in 1998 that comprised 30 Pennsylvania schools; since then, 105 Pennsylvania companies have hired many of the 729 graduates. The program went national in 2008.
 
The market value of U.S. products incorporating nanotechnology will total $1 trillion by 2020, according to an NSF report, and nano's share of the gross domestic product will be 5%. In 2020, the nation will require two million people in the primary workforce engaged in nanotechnology production.
 
"Jobs in nanotechnology demand advanced skills and critical thinking," said NACK director Stephen Fonash. " NACK's objective is to create and sustain … resources and to develop pathways from high school to skilled manufacturing careers across the country."
 
Source: Robert Ehrmann, NACK Network
Writer: Elise Vider