Annual Lion Cage pitch competition set for Nov. 10 at PSU Great Valley, includes $5,000 in prizes

Student presenting business idea to panel of judges in auditorium
The second annual Lion Cage pitch competition will be held on Nov. 10 for both the Penn State community and the public to present business ideas and compete for $5,000 in prizes.
Image: Elizabeth Palmer
Student presenting business idea to panel of judges in auditorium
The second annual Lion Cage pitch competition will be held on Nov. 10 for both the Penn State community and the public to present business ideas and compete for $5,000 in prizes.
Image: Elizabeth Palmer

Annual Lion Cage pitch competition set for Nov. 10, includes $5,000 in prizes

October 3, 2018
MALVERN, Pa. — Penn State Great Valley will hold the second annual Lion Cage pitch competition from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 10.
Designed for early-stage entrepreneurs, Lion Cage creates an opportunity to pitch business products or ideas to a judging panel of startup and business experts, receive valuable feedback, and compete for prizes. A total of $5,000 will awarded this year, and the contest is open to both the Penn State community and the public.
The event is held through the campus’ REV-UP Center for Entrepreneurship, which was established in May 2016 through a grant from the Invent Penn State Initiative. Operating in partnership with the Chester County Economic Development Council, REV-UP aims to engage and encourage Penn State students, faculty and community members to generate innovative, commercially-viable solutions to address existing and emerging business and social needs, and to support their entrepreneurial efforts as they serve the Philadelphia region.
In its first year, Lion Cage saw 10 pitches from students, alumni and community members. Their ideas ranged from an Esports strategy app, to an on-demand child care center, to a community-centered coffee shop. Speakers included Michael Dermer, founder and author of the Lonely Entrepreneur, and Anthony Gold, co-founder of ROAR for Good.
“Last year's inaugural event was a great success,” said Doug Schumer, faculty director for the REV-UP center. “Participants and attendees came together to celebrate entrepreneurship. This year we will build on that success, featuring a pitch contest with bigger awards and a keynote address by the entrepreneur and author Wayne Kimmel.”
Wayne Kimmel, managing partner of SeventySix Capital
Wayne Kimmel, managing partner of SeventySix Capital, will deliver the keynote address at Lion Cage.
Image: Wayne Kimmel
A sports tech venture capitalist and philanthropist, Wayne Kimmel has been named a top innovator by Philadelphia Magazine and is included on Philadelphia Business Journal's Power 100 list. He is the managing partner of SeventySix Capital, a venture capital company that invests in startup consumer facing tech companies in the sports, health and retail industries. Other partners include Jon Powell, CEO of Kravco Company LLC, a leading real estate company that developed the King of Prussia Mall, and Ryan Howard, former National League MVP and 2008 World Series champion with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Competitors for this year’s event will be preselected through an application process. Interested individuals must complete the online application by Friday, Oct. 19. Lion Cage is open to the public, but advance online registration is required. The event is sponsored by American Crane. More information is available at greatvalley.psu.edu/lioncage.
October 3, 2018
MALVERN, Pa. — Penn State Great Valley will hold the second annual Lion Cage pitch competition from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 10.
Designed for early-stage entrepreneurs, Lion Cage creates an opportunity to pitch business products or ideas to a judging panel of startup and business experts, receive valuable feedback, and compete for prizes. A total of $5,000 will awarded this year, and the contest is open to both the Penn State community and the public.
The event is held through the campus’ REV-UP Center for Entrepreneurship, which was established in May 2016 through a grant from the Invent Penn State Initiative. Operating in partnership with the Chester County Economic Development Council, REV-UP aims to engage and encourage Penn State students, faculty and community members to generate innovative, commercially-viable solutions to address existing and emerging business and social needs, and to support their entrepreneurial efforts as they serve the Philadelphia region.
In its first year, Lion Cage saw 10 pitches from students, alumni and community members. Their ideas ranged from an Esports strategy app, to an on-demand child care center, to a community-centered coffee shop. Speakers included Michael Dermer, founder and author of the Lonely Entrepreneur, and Anthony Gold, co-founder of ROAR for Good.
“Last year's inaugural event was a great success,” said Doug Schumer, faculty director for the REV-UP center. “Participants and attendees came together to celebrate entrepreneurship. This year we will build on that success, featuring a pitch contest with bigger awards and a keynote address by the entrepreneur and author Wayne Kimmel.”
Wayne Kimmel, managing partner of SeventySix Capital
Wayne Kimmel, managing partner of SeventySix Capital, will deliver the keynote address at Lion Cage.
Image: Wayne Kimmel
A sports tech venture capitalist and philanthropist, Wayne Kimmel has been named a top innovator by Philadelphia Magazine and is included on Philadelphia Business Journal's Power 100 list. He is the managing partner of SeventySix Capital, a venture capital company that invests in startup consumer facing tech companies in the sports, health and retail industries. Other partners include Jon Powell, CEO of Kravco Company LLC, a leading real estate company that developed the King of Prussia Mall, and Ryan Howard, former National League MVP and 2008 World Series champion with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Competitors for this year’s event will be preselected through an application process. Interested individuals must complete the online application by Friday, Oct. 19. Lion Cage is open to the public, but advance online registration is required. The event is sponsored by American Crane. More information is available at greatvalley.psu.edu/lioncage.


at 4:19 PM 0 comments

An HQ2 hopeful down I-95 hopes

Tom Paine




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Speculation is encircling the DC area, as it has for awhile, building towards a perhaps premature conclusion that the Capitol region - most likely Northern Virginia - will be Amazon's choice for HQ2.

Jeff Bezos and Amazon's entire board is in town today. And the clincher for some - Amazon this week joined the DC Chamber of Commerce.

Northern Virginia has been Amazon's largest computing region since the company's beginnigs. A Maryland-based real estate firm has just purchased a big block of land near the Fairfax County / Loudon County border for Amazon, with the expressed aim of building more Amazon data centers. Amazon was already planning to build a campus-like facility in Northern Virginia in addition to data centers.

But some say Amazon is looking at Arlington's Crystal City, a high rise development that has never really taken off, as the site for HQ2. Crystal City is just a hop and a skip across the Potomac from DC.

The streets of Crystal City


Bezos is speaking at The Economic Club of Washington Thursday evening. Other talks are planned for next week at the Air Force Association conference in National Harbor and during a visit to the Bezos-owned Washington Post.

Amazon said Bezos is not planning to make any HQ2 announcements during this trip.


Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos create $2 billion fund to fight homelessness (CNN)

In his DC speech, he expanded upon the morning's release:

Amazon's Bezos Will Hire a Team to Run Nonprofit Preschools
(Bloomberg)

It has been months. Here's what Jeff Bezos finally had to say about HQ2. . (Washington Business Journal)



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Amazon angry over leaks of conversations with Northern VA about HQ2, ironically published by the Post

Tom Paine




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A Washington Post report that Amazon is in advanced talks with a Northern Virginia suburb about being the location for its second headquarters has raised Amazon's ire.

And Amazon's Mike Grella tweeted this afternoon addressing “the genius leaking info,” saying: “You’re not doing Crystal City, VA any favors".
.



But I take this as an acknowledgement that such talks are ongoing....


But its nothing new; I wrote this article back in September:

An HQ2 hopeful down I-95 hopes

Speculation is encircling the DC area, as it has for awhile, building towards a perhaps premature conclusion that the Capitol region - most likely Northern Virginia - will be Amazon's choice for HQ2.

Jeff Bezos and Amazon's entire board is in town today. And the clincher for some - Amazon this week joined the DC Chamber of Commerce.

Northern Virginia has been Amazon's largest computing region since the company's beginnigs. A Maryland-based real estate firm has just purchased a big block of land near the Fairfax County / Loudon County border for Amazon, with the expressed aim of building more Amazon data centers. Amazon was already planning to build a campus-like facility in Northern Virginia in addition to data centers.

But some say Amazon is looking at Arlington's Crystal City, a high rise development that has never really taken off, as the site for HQ2. Crystal City is just a hop and a skip across the Potomac from DC.


The streets of Crystal City


at 3:31 PM 0 comments

PhillyTech People News 11/3/2018: Changes at SAP, Oracle; InsPro Technologies names. new CEO





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Philly Enterprise Tech Daily Roundup 11/2: Cerner, SAP, BlackLine, Apple, Biotelemetry


Tom Paine




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I can't judge the accuracy of it, but ProPublica teed off against the VA's $10 billion contract with Cerner to implement a new medical records system. According to ProPublica the decision to push the contract to Cerner was heavily influenced by some senior members of Trump's inner circle. ProPublica says the project is running behind schedule and off course.

Cerner, which I recently wrote about, has a large Malvern campus.




I'd noticed that SAP customers were frequently working with BlackLine's accounting software. So perhaps it was no surprise that BlackLine (Nasdaq: BL), a leading provider of financial automation solutions that enable Continuous Accounting, yesterday announced it has entered into a reseller agreement with SAP . SAP will have the ability to resell BlackLine's cloud-based finance and accounting solutions to businesses around the world.

BlackLine, which was founded by a former SunGard exec and went public last year, is now worth $2.3 million.Its realtime approach to keeping the books may fit well with SAP HANA's capabilities. Who knows, in the future BlackLine might become an SAP acquisition target.


Apple Watch's heart study , being done in conjunction with Stanford's medical center, revealed it had gathered 400,000 participants, a remarkable number for this kind of study. Malvern-based BioTelemetry is contributing technology and expertise to the study, which certainly helped to raise its global visibility.

But BioTelemetry's patent problem persist. A federal court said in mid-October that BioTelemetry's CardioNet LLC cardiac monitoring system patents are invalid because they didn’t claim an inventive concept. Cardionet claimed infringements, but the court said it couldn't rule on the alleged infringements because the patents weren't valid to begin with.




Apple is reportedly considering buying a stake in bankrupt radio group iHeart Media , FT reports. Its main reason for doing so would be to support Apple's music business.

In that vein, Comcast might do interesting things with Bala Cynwyd-based Entercom. Although it would be tiny compared to Comcast, it would provide another distribution channel for content, such as broadcasting live sporting events, a strength of Entercom's.







at 2:49 PM 0 comments

Philly EnterpriseTech Daily Roundup 11/1: EPAM, JD.com, LLR Partners, WeWork


Tom Paine




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Newtown-based EPAM Systems' shares jumped 5.5% yesterday, as third quarter revenue grew 24% to $468 million. It now has a marketcap of almost $7 billion.

EPAM, which has an almost unique position among major SIs, continues to find innovative ways to improve its business mix, margins and growth. Just recently, it completed the acquisition of UK digital creative agency Th_nk (The Brits really can't spell), one of several agencies it has bought.

In July, EPAM expanded its partnership with Google as an Advanced Solutions Lab System Integrator Partner. As one of only six ASL System Integrator Partners and a Google Cloud Premier Partner, EPAM will accelerate Google-built machine learning solutions for enterprise customers and deliver end-to-end solutions on Google Cloud Platform.





Chinese retail giant JD.com will open a blockchain research lab , in partnership with the Ying Wu College of Computing at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), and the Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISCAS).

The new blockchain lab will be geared towards solving efficiency, stability, and scalability problems the technology currently faces and examining new applications for it. Among other areas this will include multi-year collaborative research efforts into fundamental consensus protocols, privacy protection, and security in decentralized applications, or dApps.




LLR Partners has invested in Edmunds & Associates , a long-time Atlantic County (NJ) software vendor to local governments. Reading through the PR, it sounds as if Edmunds may need to move more fully into the Cloud.



If you're a WeWork tenant. the shared office giant is rolling out a system that tracks how much alcohol you drink there and puts limits on it.


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Philly Enterprise Tech Daily Roundup 10/31: Foxconn, Honeywell, Biotelemetry, Dell Boomi


Tom Paine




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The Verge suggests that Foxconn may not deliver on what it committed to in Wisconsin, where Governor Walker promised a $3 billion subsidy in return for 13,000 new jobs at a new $10 billion plant.

But Pennsylvania tried, and Foxconn's mixed track record in living up to commitments is well established.






Honeywell completed its spinoff of its home automation tech business, now named Resideo, on Monday. on the NYSE. Honeywell also announced it was moving the headquarters for Resideo to Austin.





Malvern-based BioTelemetry (NASDAQ: BEAT) beat Wall Street expectations for both revenue and earnings . BioTelemetry shares have climbed 70 percent since the beginning of the year. It specializes in wireless cardio monitoring.

After struggling through periods when insurance carriers wouldn't reimburse for its expenses, the former Cardionet has rebounded, further spurred by an agreement last year with Appple to test monitoring heart activity through Apple Watch. BioTelemetry is at a $400 million annual revenue run rate, and its market cap is nearly $2 billion.





Dell Boomi announced that its 'new & improved" Boomi community site is now live.

Built on the Salesforce Community Cloud platform, the new Community will continue to offer Boomi customers all of the helpful content and programs they have come to expect, plus much more, says Boomi.




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IBM acquiring Red Hat: How will it shake out?


Tom Paine




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Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President, and CEO of IBM, at right, 
and James M. Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat, left
( From Press Release)










IBM should be nominated for being the most wasteful spender of capital in modern American business history.

GE would be in close competition.

Where has all the cash flow gone, just over the past 20 years?

Add up its M&A, R&D, CAPEX, and stock buybacks (I went through this exercise once), and its hard to see how what it has done has materially aided its overall, rapidly sliding marketcap, which is the real bottom line.

And the concern is history repeating itself. The real entrepreneurs will escape as soon as they're able to, IBM will eventually want to manipulate the organizational structure, people who have excelled under Red Hat will be buried under know-nothing IBM bosses, and the acquisition's energy will begin to atrophy. True, Red Hat's a more considerable asset than past acquisitions, and certainly IBM has smartened up and is effective in Linux / Open Source, but the track record is still there.

This acquisition doesn't give IBM domination over the cloud market. Certainly it will make it a bigger factor in the hybrid cloud market against Dell, maybe HP and some of the big consultancies. And IBM's position in public clouds may also improve to an extent, if nothing else from a spillover effect.

But Red Hat is such a big bet simply because IBM probably can't afford other acquisitions approaching that scale.

I've gathered the most compelling (and sometimes funny) online analyses of the deal that I've seen.

































































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