High Tech : Innovation + Job News

Last month Trinity Health, the fourth largest Catholic healthcare system in the country, hired Explorys to manage its healthcare data analytics in its hospitals, outpatient facilities and other facilities. Trinity will implement Explorys’ suite of cloud-based big data analytics solutions to manage the company’s clinical data.

The deal puts industry leader Explorys on top in the clinical data market. Explorys has been rapidly growing since its inception nearly four years ago, and continues to grow. “We’re excited about Trinity,” says Charlie Lougheed, Explorys president and chief strategy officer. “We’ve seen a lot of growth in the past year alone, as well as the last three and a half years. The whole healthcare industry is in the midst of this transformation and big data is in the middle of that.”
 
Explorys’ big data solutions allow hospitals to better manage their data and therefore improve patient care. Trinity is the latest addition to more than a dozen healthcare companies that use Explorys’ solutions. “Trinity recognized they needed to select a platform that is going to expand into the future rather than solve a problem right now,” explains Lougheed. “They were looking for a platform that would grow and develop within their network, and Explorys met that need for them.”
 
Explorys continues to grow in its Cleveland offices. The company has close to 100 employees right now and has new-employee orientations every other month. “We plan to continue to hire people over time,” says Lougheed. “By the end of the year I expect, conservatively, to be at 120 people.”

 
Source: Charlie Lougheed
Writer: Karin Connelly

TOA Technologies announced that Madrid, Spain-based Telefonica has chosen TOA's mobile workforce management software to manage its worldwide field technicians. Telefonica, which is one of the largest telecom companies in the world, chose TOA for its cloud-based ETADirect technology and its ability to ramp up operations quickly in multiple locations.
 
“It was a fairly long selection process,” says TOA vice president of worldwide marketing John Opdycke. “Telefonica originally thought it would be an on-premise solution, but then they realized the cloud-based solution would allow them to go one country at a time.”
 
TOA will implement its products first in Brazil, followed by Spain, Argentina, Chile, Columbia and Peru. Eventually, TOA will be in 24 countries with Telefonica. “There’s nothing anyone needs except access to a browser,” explains Opdycke of why TOA was attractive to Telefonica. “They can be non-standard, browser agnostic and platform agnostic. Telefonica needed that flexibility.”
 
Telefonica is TOA’s largest customer to date in terms of size. More important, Opdycke says, is Cleveland’s increasingly strong presence in the global technology marketplace. “We’re proud to represent the Cleveland technology market and the international market,” he says. “TOA is one of the leading companies in the Cleveland market that is really doing international business.”
 
TOA employs 56 people in its Cleveland headquarters, and another 454 worldwide. The Telefonica deal will add employees to TOA in Spain and Brazil, and perhaps Cleveland. Telefonica’s CTO and other team members are planning a visit to Cleveland.
 
In the meantime, TOA is in the midst of expanding its headquarters from 8,200 square feet to 17,000 square feet. The company was also recently named as a finalist as Tech Company of the Year in the 2013 NEOSA Tech Week Best of Tech Awards.

 
Source: John Opdycke
Writer: Karin Connelly

3D printing is fast becoming an accessible, affordable way to create products, pieces and prototypes. Machine parts, toys and even jewelry can be printed quickly and with precision using 3D printing.

A new Cincinnati company is leading in the industry—3DLT—an online marketplace where users can purchase and download 3D printer templates. Using home printers or 3DLT's printer network, users can print pre-designed products in a variety of materials—from plastic to metal and even leather.

"We work with industrial designers across the world," says 3DLT's founder, Pablo Arellano, Jr. "They love to design, and we have them build these templates."

Arellano launched 3DLT at TechCrunch Disrupt NY in early May. The Cincinnati native is working with a team of co-founders to get the company off the ground. Arellano has founded several other startups, and is a former Procter & Gamble brand manager.

Arellano described the company as the iStockphoto of 3D printing.

"I'm a big fan of iStockphoto," he says. "I thought the next thing you can potentially download is 3D templates, and I wanted to be in that space. I've been working on this full-time for the past four months."

3DLT templates include bracelets, rings, mesh lampshades, eyeglass frames, shoes and iPhone 4S protectors.

The self-funded company is beginning to seek investors. 3DLT already has gotten national attention, and has been featured in TechCrunch, Wired, The Verge, Fast Company, Venture Beat and Popular Science. It's also a winner of the 2012 X-LAB competition, and has moved into the new Cintrifuse incubator.

Arellano believes most of the companies initial users will be commercial, but as 3D printer prices drop, more consumers will begin to print their own products.

"The prices are dropping very quickly," he says. "It's already happening."

By Feoshia H. Davis
Follow Feoshia on Twitter

The fourth Blackstone LaunchPad opened on the CWRU campus on April 23, providing a place for aspiring entrepreneurs to gather, learn and get advice.

“LaunchPad is aimed at students seeing it and saying, ‘I have an idea,’” says Deborah D. Hoover, president and CEO of the Burton D. Morgan Foundation. “It’s aimed at students walking in and talking to people and an idea takes off.”
 
The Burton D. Morgan Foundation in Hudson and the Blackstone Charitable Foundation announced in November 2011 that they had committed $3.2 million over three years to open LaunchPad locations in Northeast Ohio to train area student entrepreneurs.
 
The LaunchPad is a venture coach program developed at the University of Miami, Florida in 2008. The program provides participants with advice and mentorship to take business ideas to fruition. Students are matched up with venture coaches to guide them through the development process.
 
The other Northeast Ohio LaunchPads are on the campuses of Baldwin Wallace University, Lorain County Community College and Kent State University. The goal is to create 150 new sustainable companies in the next five years, which could generate as many as 3,000 jobs. Hoover says they expect to exceed that goal.
 
More than 40 students already are registered with the CWRU LaunchPad and 16 are exploring their business ideas. “More than 400 student ventures are underway among the four campuses,” says Hoover. “We think that’s pretty great.” Registration is ongoing.
 
Nearly 200 people turned out for the opening in CWRU’s Thwing Center. “It was great, we were really pleased with the way it went,” Hoover says of the opening. Attendees included Case president Barbara Snyder and Bob Sopko, director of the CWRU LaunchPad, as well as Joan Solotar, chair of the Blackstone Charitable Foundation and Vinny Gupta, chair of the Ohio Board of Regents.

 
Source: Deborah D. Hoover
Writer: Karin Connelly

Chris Armenio and Art Geigel like having everything they need right at their fingertips. Pairing smart phones with tinkering on a hobbyist level, the two came up with iOTOS, a way to control everything from the garage door opener to the coffee maker through smart phones and tablets.
 
Armenio and Geigel developed iOTOS through the LaunchHouse Accelerator Program last year. Based on a technology known as “the Internet of things,” the tech wirelessly connects consumers and businesses to the things they use every day. The Internet of things market is expected to hit $14.4 trillion in the next 10 years.
 
“It started as an easy way to control hobby projects through a website or email for the hardware hackers,” explains Armenio of their NiOS wireless hub. “As we started looking out there, we found more and more diversified companies were looking to fit this stuff with their commercial products.”
 
The technology and iOTOS’ offerings are growing in popularity as the concept and demand takes off. The company was named “Most Promising Startup” at 2013 NEOSA Tech Week’s Best in Tech awards last week.
 
So far, the company has sold its technology to garage door opener retrofit packagers.  iOTOS recently announced pre-sales of its NioGarage, a retrofit WiFi garage door system. “We’re in pretty advanced talks with a few Northeast Ohio companies,” says Geigel.
 
iOTOS has four full-time employees, including Armenio and Geigel, two salespeople and three part-time employees. The company recently brought on Jim McGreevy as vice president of business development.

 
Sources: Chris Armenio and Art Geigel
Writer: Karin Connelly

The City of Mason is part of a private-public partnership to house and grow tech-based startups in the Cincinnati suburb. In late May, the city will invite businesses and local media to an open house of the Mason Tech Center, a renovated office building just off the Mason-Montgomery Road corridor.

Top Gun Sales Performance, a global sales support organization that provides consulting, training and personnel for Fortune 500 clients, began the $4 million renovation at 5155 Financial Way last February. The growing company, expected to create 500 new jobs in the next five years, occupies the first floor of the tech center.

Through incentives offered by the City of Mason and Mason Port Authority, Top Gun renovated additional space to create the Mason Tech Center for startups in digital IT, biohealth IT and technology sectors.

One company, ConnXus, has already moved into the center. The three-year-old company is an online service that connects diverse and small businesses with companies that are seeking to expand and diversify their supplier bases.

"The Mason Tech Center is a unique alternative to a traditional startup incubator," says Sue Oswalt, vice president of operations and member services at Connxus. "By bringing together public and private resources, the City of Mason is building a location and community that is a great fit for a company like ours. We were excited to be the first startup company in the Mason Tech Center."

The tech center has about 25,000 square feet of available space and can accommodate up to 20 companies.

"Through an innovative partnership with Top Gun Sales Performance, these young companies can access energetic office space at below market rates, tap into a network of peer companies and an infrastructure of resources, which can propel them further, faster," says Michele Blair, director of economic development for the City of Mason. "To use an analogy, we aren't just planting a seed and waiting for it to rain. We've bioengineered the soil and are watering it regularly so the seed can grow faster, stronger."

By Feoshia H. Davis
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Rebecca Huffman’s circuitous route to UC’s Fashion Design program both inspired and informed her non-traditional senior thesis, Design Genius. More methodology than consumer good, Design Genius is a learning module that teaches students the value of education and the building blocks of problem-solving as they design their own products.

Unveiled at UC’s DAAPWorks, Design Genius takes a fresh approach to making learning relevant for kids of all ages, which is exactly what recent grad Huffman, 24, who works for LPK, wanted. 

“I knew that I wanted to do something that would help kids,” says Huffman, who spent a year working as a preschool teacher before starting her design training at DAAP.

As she considered what her culminating project for college would be, she thought back to a studio class in which she’d designed and created a real project, then put it up for sale in real life. Through that process, and its embrace of design-thinking, she saw the value of the disparate classes she’d taken through her academic career, from math to marketing and writing to psychology. And she felt empowered.

Her work as an LPK co-op increased her experience with design-thinking, an approach to problem-solving more often seen in Fast Company than elementary schools. 

“Design Genius is an attempt to solve the problem that our kids are facing by instilling a greater sense of educational purpose,” she says. 

She describes Design Genius on her website as “the culmination of five years of study and extensive research on the Creativity Quotient, Design Thinking in education, the concept of ‘failing forward,’ sociocultural trends impacting Generation Z, and the educational and social development of Tweens.”

What that looked like, in the end, were three, one-and-a-half hour sessions in two schools—St. Ursula Villa and Pleasant Ridge Montessori—in three different classes. Fourth and fifth grade students examined case studies in the form of fictional diary entries. Then, they ideated, revised and designed real products to help solve the problems of their fictional “customers.” 

“They learned everything I was trying to teach them,” Huffman says. “It was amazing.”

The students not only learned from the project, they loved it. Huffman received unprompted thank-you notes and testimonials when the students presented their products. She’s convinced that with a little tweaking, she can develop a fully functional learning module that can help young students not only design products, but create and sell them. 

By Elissa Yancey
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In case of fire or some other emergency, the need to quickly evacuate patients from a hospital or nursing home can often create confusion among staff members and rescue workers.
 
That’s what Saundra Stevens observed teaching and conducting emergency evacuation drills during her 25 years as a hospital R.N. and a nursing home consultant. “To confine the spread of fire, smoke and vapors, staff immediately shut all patient doors when an alarm sounds,” she says. “With all the doors shut, however, the dilemma was always how to identify which patient rooms had been evacuated and which hadn’t.”
 
Concerned, Stevens turned to her son, Rob Fuller, an engineer, to see if they could come up with a solution. They established EVIS, which stands for Evacuation Identification Systems. The Cincinnati-area company has developed two emergency evacuation products -- the Evacuation Status Indicator (ESI) and the Evacuation Status Module (ESM).
                                            
“ESI is a manual device made of metal that’s mounted on the wall outside an occupied room adjacent to the door handle,” Fuller explains. “The device is hinged and held in a closed position. When the device is opened, it reveals an embossed ‘E’ shape that’s tactile, reflective and visual. During an evacuation, the rescuer opens the device after they ensure the room is empty.”
 
The Evacuation Status Module is an electronic version of the Evacuation Status Indicator.

“The ESM software provides a real-time overhead view of any floor within the facility,” Fuller says. “The floor plan view contains markers for each room and indicates what the status of the room is – evacuated or occupied. It also provides room temperature, hallway temperature and any motion present inside the room. All this information is available to rescuers at a safe location and enables them to better manage the evacuation, making it faster, safer and more efficient.”

The University of Cincinnati Hospital is currently installing the Evacuation Status Module.
 
According to Fuller, the company’s two emergency evacuation systems are the only products of their kind on the market. 
 
The company has received funding from Ohio Third Frontier.
 
 
Source:  Rob Fuller, Saundra Stevens, EVIS
Writer:    Lynne Meyer

SocialPoint is a new web-based service that combines major forms of social media into one feed. Users can control what services they’re accessing with simple clicks, which helps make the management of personal profiles much simpler.

Created in Cincinnati, SocialPoint was developed by a local team of techies who wanted to make the social media experience more efficient.

“We found that we were spending a lot of time every day checking in with our friends on all our various social media sites, and that we needed a solution for ourselves, so we developed SocialPoint.Me,” says Chris Burnett, SocialPoint’s vice president of marketing.

SocialPoint makes it very easy to navigate between different profiles on connected accounts, which still provide the standard features offered by the original sites. For example, if you wanted to check your Facebook account, SocialPoint gives you the option to filter specific categories. If you are just interested in seeing photos uploaded by your friends, you’d select the preset on the easy-to-navigate sidebar. Your search can be as specific as you want. Plus, you're still able to chat with your Facebook friends with SocialPoint. 

Similar features are also available for Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, FourSquare and AT&T.

While most social media apps are aimed at business owners who are more interested in tidying up their “online estates,” SocialPoint is intended for personal users who want to continue sharing and keeping up with friends in the many ways the expanding idea of “social media” allows.

A mobile app will soon be available, along with an early summer update with additional social media customization options.

SocialPoint’s office is in the heart of downtown, and all of their funding comes from Chicago West Pullman LLC, which is headquartered at 600 Vine Street. 

By Sean Peters

Researchers at CWRU have developed a material that can morph from stiff to soft, making its gradient properties potentially useful in medical implants. The research was conducted by professors Stuart Rowan, Justin Fox and Jeffrey Capadona of the macromolecular science and engineering, chemistry and biomedical engineering departments, and Paul Marasco of the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
 
The inspiration for the new material came from studying the properties of squid beaks. “Squid beaks are a stiff material, but they have to attach to very soft tissue,” explains Rowan. “They don’t have any bones per se. Imagine a piece of steel attached to a piece of plastic and you started bending or putting stressors on it. Things would start to tear, and that’s obviously not very good for the squid.”
 
Capadona, Marasco and Rowan came up with the idea after reading a research paper published in 2008 at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Rowan and his team looked at how the squid’s beak transitions from hard to soft material. “How the squid solves the problem is with a gradient design that goes from hard to soft when wet,” explains Rowan. “We created a material with a similar kind of structure. We tried to mimic the architecture and properties.”
 
The nanocomposite material the researchers developed changes properties when wet -- going from a rigid material to a soft material. It potentially will prove useful in medical devices such as diabetic glucose sensors, prosthetic limbs and central vein ports. The researchers are now working with the Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs to develop uses for the material.
 
The research was recently published in the Journal of the American Chemistry Society.
 
Rowan and Capadona previously had studied the properties of the sea cucumber, developing a self-healing polymer that is useful in coating. Rowan enjoys taking his cues from natural phenomena.
 
“As a materials person, I can learn a lot from seeing how nature has evolved to tackle the challenges that we see in our world, too,” Rowan says. “Nature makes a wonderful variety of very cool materials. The key is in understanding how nature does that.”

 
Source: Stuart Rowan
Writer: Karin Connelly

Despite the popularity of the Internet, Shaul Weisband is a big believer that the retail store gift-giving experience is alive and well. “People still enjoy walking through local stores and going to the mall,” says the founder of Jifiti, a new gifting app. 
 
“But there are still those two basic anxieties when it comes to gift giving – what to give and how to find the time to get it to the recipient.” According to Weisband, Jifiti eliminates both concerns.
 
“Jifiti lets retail shoppers select an item, scan and purchase it, and instantly send it as a digital gift card to a friend’s phone for them to redeem at any of that store’s locations in the U.S.,” he explains. “The recipient has the flexibility to select the right size, color and style. Or, if they see something else at the store they prefer, they can use the gift card for that item instead.”
 
Jifiti is currently available at 30 national retailers, including Barnes & Noble, Old Navy, Crate & Barrel, Toys R Us and Brookstone.
 
Jifiti was established in Israel last year, and the company moved its headquarters to Columbus a few months ago. “The Midwest in general and Columbus in particular are big retail hubs, and that’s who we work with,” Weisband explains. “Jifiti requires a lot of leg work in terms of meeting with retailers and creating strategic partnerships.”
 
Weisband appreciates the quality of life in Columbus. Looking to contribute to that quality of life, he recently introduced Jifiti to The Ronald McDonald House of Central Ohio to start a new charitable program for the organization. The information is posted on the Jifiti website. “Their supporters are always looking for new and easy ways to help out,” Weisband says. “Now they can see on our website what the organization needs and donate those items within minutes.”
 
Jifiti was recently named a finalist among 500 companies in the 2013 SXSW Interactive Awards in the mobile apps category. “It’s a tremendous vote of confidence from the industry,” he notes.
 
 
Source:  Shaul Weisband, Jifiti
Writer:  Lynne Meyer
 

On April 12, Platform 53 is hosting a “jelly” for those interested in coworking. A “jelly” is a temporary coworking event that Platform 53 plans to host every two weeks.
 
Adam Dean launched Platform 53 in January 2012 at Northern Kentucky University’s Startup Weekend—but under the name 3C-Coworks. At the time, Dean was an intern at Bad Girl Ventures, and he saw a need for a coworking space in Covington. He partnered with Stacy Kessler, an ex-P&Ger whose background is in consumer understanding and strategy, and the name was eventually changed.
 
The name references the railroad and the impact it had on the area. The “53” refers to 1853, which is the year the Covington train station at Eighth and Russell was built. Platform 53 also symbolizes the role the group wants to play in the community, by being a platform upon which people can build their businesses.
 
“I was used to a traditional office setting and office resources, but then I started working at home and out of coffee shops, and I realized I needed something different,” Kessler says.
 
About 30 percent of the private workforce in the United States works independently, Dean says. “We want to create a network of opportunity in the area and be a hub for independent workers.”
 
Dean and Kessler have a vision for Platform 53’s physical workspace, which they’re hoping to secure by the end of April. They want to have an open work environment with a combination of phone booth rooms, meeting rooms and conference rooms, plus flexible desk options or dedicated office space for those that wish to have their own offices.
 
“We want to make people feel at home, and have a platform to celebrate successes and make announcements,” Dean says.
 
Platform 53 is for entrepreneurs, small businesses, independent workers and those with flexible work arrangements who want to run and grow their businesses and connect with others.
 
“To me, coworking is about ‘accelerated serendipity,’” Dean says. “You might not know what you need, but you’ll eventually see the opportunity by being around others.”
 
Currently, Dean and Kessler have had about 75 people show interest in Platform 53. And the group isn’t just tech-focused. “The magic happens when you bring together people from different walks of life,” Kessler says.
 
They’re looking for different skill sets but shared values among members.
 
“We want to be part of the startup corridor,” says Kessler. “The Brandery and Cintrifuse are in Over-the-Rhine, and UpTech and Platform 53 are here in Covington—we’re like bookends that connect the region.”
 
By Caitlin Koenig
Follow Caitlin on Twitter

Laurel School junior Anamika Veeramani took first place at TiE Ohio’s inaugural TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TYE) Business Plan Competition on March 13 for her online science journal for high school students, En Kephalos Science Journal. Veeramani first beat out her fellow Laurel students in a competition before advancing to the regional competition. She won $1,000 and will compete in the TiE Global competition at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia in June.

Competitors were asked to create a business plan for a company that could be started for less than $1,000. The plans were reviewed by a panel of judges based on concept, business model, market analysis, financial analysis and overall presentation.
 
Veeramani created En Kephalos Science Journal -- which is Greek for “In the Mind” -- during her freshman year as an outlet for students to go more in-depth in their science research. “I had done research since seventh grade,” she says. “I would do really well at science fairs, but there was nothing beyond that and no opportunities to publish in journals.”
 
Veeramani wanted to provide a vehicle for high school students to share their findings. “I chose the name En Kephalos because I wanted to stress the fact that while age and experience are closely tied, age and knowledge or ability don’t necessarily correlate,” she explains. “You don’t need to be an undergrad or postgrad to be able to conduct meaningful, publishable research.”
 
En Kephalos has three boards, made up of high school and college undergrads and a board of science professionals. “Our model is different because the majority of the staff is made up of peers,” Veeramani says.
 
Contributors come from mostly the Midwest and the East coast, but Veeramani says she has contributors from around the country and Canada. One of her staff lives in England.
 
TiE Ohio sponsored the competition in partnership with the Burton D. Morgan Foundation and the Veale Foundation. Second and third place winners came from Magnificat and University School.

 
Source: Anamika Veeramani
Writer: Karin Connelly

As the owner of a small consulting firm, James Gasparatos knows all too well the struggles of running a small business, including promoting the company and finding the right talent among other things. The challenges gave Gasparatos the idea to start Gigfinity, an interactive website designed to help small and mid-size Cleveland businesses connect with customers, promote their companies and find local talent. The site also allows job seekers to peruse and apply for jobs with Gigfinity businesses.

“Gigfinity is a social commerce site focused on marketing and hiring for small businesses,” explains Gasparatos. “My business partner, Eric McGarvey, and I were running our own small consulting companies when we had this idea a few years ago. We saw a gap where there were a lot of opportunities here for both small businesses and for job seekers. We connect them.”
 
Small businesses can post their profiles on Gigfinity -- free of charge -- detailing their services, job openings and even work samples. The businesses only pay a fee if they fill a job or get customers from their listings on Gigfinity.
 
“We only want them to pay if there’s something of value for them,” says Gasparatos. “Here, people who are looking at your profile most likely need your service.” Additionally, Gigfinity is offering small businesses a free credit for signing up on the site. Simply put in offer code “G1000” to get the free credit when signing up.
 
Service seekers can search the database for companies that fulfill their needs. And job seekers, or “gig seekers” can search for open positions or post their resumes and profiles.
 
It’s all about keeping it local and supporting the little guy, says Gasparatos. The site, which officially launched in the beginning of 2013, already has more than 60 small business listings and around 10 open jobs.
 
Gasparatos plans to team up with local high school and colleges in the area to attract and retain new talent to the growing small businesses. “Nothing brings everyone together as a region like small businesses and jobs,” he says.
 

Source: James Gasparatos
Writer: Karin Connelly