Y-Carbon, Inc., a nanotechnology startup developing an innovative method of making and tailoring novel, nanostructured carbon materials with applications in energy storage, medical products, life science research, filtration and purification systems, announced today that Edward L. Erickson has been appointed CEO and a Director.
Mr. Erickson has served as president, CEO or director of a dozen such companies, four of which successfully completed IPOs during his tenure. He has raised more than $500M in equity and debt capital in both the private and public capital markets. Ed will serve Y-Carbon initially on a part-time basis pending completion of certain other entrepreneurial projects.
Y-Carbon, founded in 2004, is a materials science company with an initial focus in energy applications. Y-Carbon has obtained broad and exclusive rights to intellectual property in the field of carbide derived carbon (CDC), which is an innovative “tuneable” nano-porous, high specific surface area material invented by Prof. Gogotsi’s team in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University. The company is currently based in the Philadelphia Keystone Innovation Zone (KIZ) and is a spin off from the A.J. Drexel Nanotechnology Institute. Y-Carbon is also a portfolio company of the Pennsylvania NanoMaterials Commercialization Center and The Nanotechnology Institute of Ben Franklin Technology Partners Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Dave Speers is an online marketing consultant and blogger that has worked with a wide variety of Philadelphia Start-Ups . Dave spends most his time annoying really smart people at Indy Hall co-working collaborative.
Anyone who has ever been in charge of organizing and managing ticket sales for anything larger than a 4th grade trumpet recital can tell you it’s a confusing pain in the arse. Now, move that process online, multiply the ticket buyers by a hundred and add in some government privacy protection laws and you’ve got a hot mess on your hands. Enter Ticketleap.com, the simple app for selling tickets online. Philly’s own Ticketleap.com has been making the ticket selling process easier for a couple years now and has recently expanded their services to the hugely popular social network website Facebook.com . I interview Chris Stanchak, founder of Ticketleap.com, to get an update on the Facebook App, why he started a company in Philly and how they’ll take on the ticketing giant Ticketmaster.
When you have a chance, check out Chris’s Top Ten Ways to sell more tickets.
or this other uppity profile on Chris with it’s fancy-dancy lights and ‘impressive’ equipment: (We prefer to keep it real here in Philly )
Dave Speers is an online marketing consultant and blogger that has worked with a wide variety of Philadelphia Start-Ups . Dave spends most his time annoying really smart people at Indy Hall co-working collaborative.
Here’s my favorite example from Excuse #3: I Have No Capital
Another poor man who captured the world’s imagination was Benjamin Franklin, American statesman, writer and inventor. He was the youngest child in the brood of 16. Though his parents owned a candle shop in Boston, Massachusetts, the mean income could not support comfortably with the whole family. Young Benjamin did not think much of food and what to eat because he had been told not to do so, he hardly eat delicious food. His older siblings had large appetite and would jam the table even before Ben could occupy his chair. When he realized that his father could no longer afford to send him to school, he decided to work in his brother’s printing shop. Much of his earnings went to books. He adored poetry and short stories. Amidst poverty, young Ben dreamed big things; he practiced writing, though he did not know the very basic of that profession. Then his brother started beating him cruelly, this prompted Ben to run away, with little bucks left in his pocket, he stole down to Boston harbor and went to New York City. Ben had nothing except clean t-shirt and the pants he wore. In New York, he was not accepted for any work, so he went to Philadelphia, because he had no money to pay for the transportation, he endured the long miles walking the rocky roads and sleeping at the fields at night, by the time he reached Philadelphia he was tired, dirty and hungry.
Benjamin accepted odd jobs and work day and night until he earned enough money to support his schooling. Later in his colorful journey, he founded his own printing shop, invented the first gas stove, published stories and became America’s most celebrated statesman.(trivia: When Benjamin owned a company, he noticed a young man, 14 years his junior, who was prone to failures despite his aggressiveness in work, though this young man armed with undisputed talent, intellect and strengths, he was easily intimidated and discouraged with slightest mistakes. Benjamin decided to train this man and making his own struggles in life as example, he taught him how to conquer odds, the result was remarkable, this man became an asset of the company which later on made him a successful professional, he later on quit his job and joined politics, but the great lesson Benjamin Franklin taught him never fade in his mind and he used it as his springboard as he soared high in his career. That young man was none other than James Madison, who became the fourth US President. It’s amazing to know that his great teacher in life was a poor stow away boy from Boston who once endured walking a rocky road, tired and dirty just to reach his dreams.
Dave Speers is an online marketing consultant and blogger that has worked with a wide variety of Philadelphia Start-Ups . Dave spends most his time annoying really smart people at Indy Hall co-working collaborative.
“I intuitively know that there are business oppurtunities around [collaboration] but I’m also just interested in the Humanity of it, the Spirit of it.” - GD
If his fundamental roles as the co-founder of Indy Hall co-working collaborative, core member of Vox Populi gallery collaborative, re-inventor of Junto ‘club of mutual improvement’, assistant professor at the University Arts, principle founder of Punk Ave design studio and champion of June 11th’s (tomorrow as of the posting of this post) collaborative experiment, Ignite Philly, aren’t enough to don Geoff DiMasi the Godfather of Creative Collaboration then maybe his strong Italian heritage and South Philly address might seal the deal.
Despite the business of preparing for Ignite Philly, I was able to score a couple minutes to sit down with this mild mannered dynamo to talk about his inspiration and why collaboration is essential for entrepreneurs to survive and thrive.
Dave Speers is an online marketing consultant and blogger that has worked with a wide variety of Philadelphia Start-Ups . Dave spends most his time annoying really smart people at Indy Hall co-working collaborative.
In case you haven’t gotten enough of the little mobile app that could,iSepta, here’s one of the few (maybe only?) video interviews with two of the three creators. In this interview conducted by the online Apple TV station The Digital Lifestyle outside a Northern Liberties coffee shop, the iSepta team is once again very transparent with the behind-the-scenes action that’s whirling around them since launch three weeks ago. There is even talk about possible plans to work with Google and their open transit system. Ok ok, we realize we might have a little crush on iSepta over here at Phillypreneurs.com, but it’s just so much fun watching a small Philly start up get so much great attention. Here’s wishing them all the best.
Dave Speers is an online marketing consultant and blogger that has worked with a wide variety of Philadelphia Start-Ups . Dave spends most his time annoying really smart people at Indy Hall co-working collaborative.
Ignite is a series of speakers talking about inspiring projects for 5 minutes. The presentations can be serious, funny, or somewhere in between.
Speakers include: The iSepta guys, Kristin Thompson, of the Future of Music Coalition, NO CARRIER, 100K house, Pete Tridish of the Prometheus Radio Project, Alex Hillman of Indy Hall, and several more. The speakers are all doing exciting and inspiring things in Philadelphia.
Here is a taste of what you can expect courtesy of Ignite Seattle:
1. How to buy a car
2. Make Art, Not Content:
You can check out a whole bunch more Ignite videos on Youtube here.
The coordinators of Ignite Philly are Geoff DiMasi & Alex Gilbert of P’unk Avenue and the JuntoVanja Buvac & Far McKon of The Hacktory and Make:Philly.
Dave Speers is an online marketing consultant and blogger that has worked with a wide variety of Philadelphia Start-Ups . Dave spends most his time annoying really smart people at Indy Hall co-working collaborative.
Girlfriends
3502 Scotts Lane, Bldg #16
Philadelphia PA 19129
You are a smart, savvy woman who believes she can have it all and is willing to do what it takes to get it. Here’s your chance to meet other women who love to get together to talk about business and success.
In addition to networking, this upscale experience will include signature cocktails and incredible hors d’oeuvres. You will also have your choice of a luxurious chair massage or a funtastic belly dance class. You don’t want to miss this event.
Cost:
$50 for Gold level members of the Wealth Success & Women VIP Girls Club
$60 for non-members
Dave Speers is an online marketing consultant and blogger that has worked with a wide variety of Philadelphia Start-Ups . Dave spends most his time annoying really smart people at Indy Hall co-working collaborative.
If you have ever tried to buy a Franklin Mint Sundae on any given evening between Memorial Day and Labor Day you have a good idea of how ridiculously popular the Phoodiepreneurs of Franklin Fountain ice cream parlor have become since opening their doors in 2004. By the length of the line wrapping around the Old City block you’d think they had pioneered the process for infusing crack into their ice cream. But seriously, I think there’s crack in it. To add to the great tasting treats, The Franklin Fountain has brought back the almost extinct style of the old school Soda Jerk, an old-as-new move that has paid off big time. Word has spread and now it’s not just blog writers whose office is around the corner that are giving The Fountain well deserved praise:
“The Franklin Fountain made the front cover of Frozen Dessert Magazine with a great article and lots of color photographs. See the article @ www.frozendessertmagazine.com. An article in gourmand magazine SAVEUR featured the Fountain as one of the top ice cream spots in the North, with Jenkins, Max and Ryan were photographed eating their favorite flavors.” - from The Franklin Fountain’s blog The Scoop
Dave Speers is an online marketing consultant and blogger that has worked with a wide variety of Philadelphia Start-Ups . Dave spends most his time annoying really smart people at Indy Hall co-working collaborative.
Have an itch? Scratch it. This is the commonsense logic that fuels innovators and entrepreneurs. For example, let’s say a regional public transit system failed to create simple and easy-to-use schedules for navigating their system. When a true entrepreneur experiences the lacking system it would get under their skin until that had no choice but to scratch it like mad. That’s exactly what happened when Randy Schmidt got frustrated with the ridiculously complicated schedules that Septa provides for Regional Rails and created his own mobile app called iSepta.org. To hear Randy talk about the need to scratch that initial itch, how he would love to work with Septa to make transit better and what the future holds for Umlatte, his web dev start up, click on the play button above.
Highlights:
iSepta had gotten 30,000 hits in a week with 5,000 trips planned
iSepta wasn’t even a thought until March 28th (that’s March 28th, 2008)
iSepta is hoping to work with Septa to make the whole transit system more user friendly Umlatte, Randy’s web dev startup, has some more tricks up it’s sleeves that are ’secret’ for now.
Dave Speers is an online marketing consultant and blogger that has worked with a wide variety of Philadelphia Start-Ups . Dave spends most his time annoying really smart people at Indy Hall co-working collaborative.
“PDP is the city’s sole provider of microloans, a concept pioneered by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. Yunus’ Grameen Bank, founded in 1976, has loaned about $6.5 billion in U.S. dollars to some of the world’s poorest people, and boasts a repayment rate of 98 percent (your bank’s rate is closer to 70).
This success has turned conventional wisdom about banking on its head — it was once believed that people in poverty couldn’t be given loans — and has made people think hard about the meaning of charity. Yunus believes that a loan provides the borrower with more than money: By successfully paying one off, a borrower gains not only capital and improved credit, but pride, strength and confidence in her abilities. It also makes the lending program self-sustaining: The Grameen Bank hasn’t accepted donor money since 1995.
And yet, PDP, which was founded in 1989, hasn’t embraced the Grameen model — only 20 percent of the nonprofit’s clients end up choosing to take a loan. Instead, PDP invests in development services — technical assistance, computer space, accounting, — which it provided to 400 clients last year. And it is almost completely reliant on donors. It’s a classic charity.”
Dave Speers is an online marketing consultant and blogger that has worked with a wide variety of Philadelphia Start-Ups . Dave spends most his time annoying really smart people at Indy Hall co-working collaborative.