Pittsburgh Innovates

Point Park's president peddling Pittsburgh to students through a city bike tour

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Point Park president Paul Hennigan is taking the college tour to the next level.

By bike, actually. The Pittsburgh native and avid biker decided last year that the best way to indoctrinate incoming students—especially those working on campus as RAs—was to personally take them on a bike tour of the city.

“It’s an eye opening, fun experience for many of the students,” says Hennigan. “As our student ambassadors, this is a great thing to do and know about.”

Hennigan meets with the students twice before the tour and they are given an assignment: a one-page summary of the history behind the points of interest along the way.

How did the Hot Metal Bridge get its name? What’s the story behind the South Side Boat launch? How did the Pittsburgh Technology Center come to be?

“I’ve watched the evolution of this city and the creation of these bike trails.,” he tells the students. “I know these stories. Now its your job to learn the history.”

The tour begins at the Golden Triangle bike rental downtown and continues along the Eliza Furnace Trail to the Hot Metal Bridge. Crossing the bridge, the tour continues west on the South Side Trail to the Duquesne Incline, veers sharply left on the hairpin turn that winds up to the Fort Pitt Bridge, crosses the river and traverses Point State Park.

From there its over the Duquesne Bridge to the north side and onto Washington’s Landing where the tour breaks for lunch. Then its back across the Fort Duquesne Bridge to The Point and back to the bike rental.

Hennigan’s favorite stop is on the Hot Metal Bridge, which he points out was once a conduit that helped moved steel across the river.

“We stop in the middle of the bridge. To the right is the gleaming metropolis, to the left is nothing,” he says. “It’s a great juxtaposition.”

The city is our campus, Hennigan says.

Writer: Deb Smit
Source: Paul Hennigan

Disney Pittsburgh: Don't look now but your hosta is jamming with the salvia

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

And now, for your listening enjoyment, the impatiens.

Those playful scientists at Disney Research, Pittsburgh at CMU are at it again, this time with a project they are calling Botanicus Interacticus. Quite simply, they’ve taken the common houseplant and placed an electrode in the soil, enabling it to respond musically to human touch and gesture.

You and your ficus making beautiful music together.

Plants are everywhere—parks, homes, playgrounds—and much more pleasant and inviting than a computer screen, explains Ivan Poupyrev, Disney team member.

“We’re interested in creating highly interruptive, responsive and intelligent spaces both indoors and outdoors. The plants are an antennae to provide information for people.”

The input system is called Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing. The electrode placed in the soil senses frequencies of both human touch and gesture. Touching a plant stem or trunk not only creates beautiful music, but the plants may be entertained.

So what might the implications be of turning your potted plants into musical instruments? Bontanicus Interacticus isn’t for plants only, Pouyrev points out.

The research is a further development of Disney Pittsburgh’s Touchè technology. Disney has been tinkering with the futuristic idea of smart gadgets that allow any material, even water, to become a touch screen capable of reacting to touches and gestures, such as a doorknob that unlocks with a tap.

Play it again, hibiscus.

Writer: Deb Smit

Source: Ivan Poupyrev

Who's hiring in Pittsburgh? ShowClix, DeepLocal, Pitt and Chorus Call post openings

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Each week Pop City provides the latest in company hiring news in Pittsburgh.

We’d like to note in doing so, we will only post jobs considered to be professional, life sustaining positions offered by many of the region's fastest growing companies.

Naturally, we don’t have room each week to tell you about every job out there. For example, the fact that the Fairmont Hotel is hiring 16 full and part-time positions, including bellman/doorman, cooks and business travel and sales managers.

Whoops. Okay, occasionally we’ll reserve the right to make exceptions.

And now the jobs. The following companies are hiring this week in Pittsburgh: ShowClix, Deeplocal, Chorus Call, Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering, Gigapan, and the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.

ShowClix is hiring seven and is on the lookout for a software engineering intern.

Positions include mobile software engineer, front end software engineer, applications engineer, account manager, account executive and a customer care rep.

ShowClix is the region’s premiere online ticketing company, working with venues and performers to offer the latest software and apps for online ticket sales.

Deeplocal is hiring a programmer/software engineer and a creative to join their team, someone who can work with clients, engineers and designers and has excellent communication skills.

With Nathan Martin at the helm, the company has spent the last 10 years redefining the world of media through its “gutter technologies,” creating real world experiences that blur the boundary between technologies, digital space and the human spirit.

Chorus Call has three jobs in Pittsburgh for an audio conference specialist, video conference specialist and software engineer. The company, based in Monroeville, is raising the bar on video and audio teleconferencing technologies.

Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering is posting nine jobs for faculty positions. Jobs are in the Center for Energy, Center for Medical Improvement, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mechanical Engineering and Material Sciences.

Gigpan is hiring a web developer and QA engineer for its Pittsburgh satellite office at the CreateLab at CMU.

Gigapan Systems makes interactive high-resolution imaging, hardware and digital services products for creating and displaying images in large formats. The company is based in Portland and serves customers like National Geographic, Major League Baseball, the BBC, and the Discovery Channel.

And finally, Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy is looking for a full time marketing manager. Job seekers should Email info@pittsburghparks.org.

To post a job, shoot us an email.

Writer: Deb Smit

And from previous weeks...

Google is hiring for a variety of technical positions, engineers all, including software engineers, data scientists and evaluators, product managers, system engineers and technical program managers. Also a human resources business partner.

PNC is posting 340+ jobs across all sectors, everything from mortgage and technical specialists to business bankers and systems analysts.

Sierra w/o Wires reports this week the hiring of eight people, everything from experienced engineers to an entry level support analyst.

PNC is posting 340+ jobs across all sectors, everything from mortgage and technical specialists to business bankers and systems analysts.

Aquion Energy is hiring more than 20 people including a director of research and development. In fact, the company, which plans to establish a manufacturing center in Pittsburgh, is always on the lookout for intelligent, committed innovative thinkers to join their world-class team of scientists, engineers and business people.

Avere Systems, developers of high performance storage solutions for data enterprise centers, is at 75 and continues to grow. The company has 10 job openings including: product marketing manager, technical writer, regional sales manager, inside sales rep and various engineers.

The Pittsburgh headquarter of ANSYS in Canonsburg is always hiring, the company reports. Currently the developer of engineering simulation software has more than a dozen postings for its home office, including software developers, engineers and human resources.

Pittsburgh-based AltarTV, the alternative music network for bands and artists on the way up

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

When their days in a band began winding down, longtime friends Alex Mohler and Alex Drizos considered starting a business.

Their first thought was to open a production company to produce original concert footage from local events. The idea grew into AltarTV, an online repository of the music of bands and artists from around the world who were flying just under the radar.

Since 2011, the studio in the Rose building in the Strip has produced seven original series, all high definition videos that share the music and stories of the artists through live concert footage, documentaries, intimate artist interviews and exclusive in-Pittsburgh-studio performances.

Altar TV’s specialty is finding those acts that are on the verge of crossing over to the mainstream, explains Mohler, vice president of AltarTV.

“We are bound by our mutual passion for music, content and a mission to re-connect artists with their fans in new and interesting ways,” Mohler says. “Our mission is to capture that moment when an artist is breaking out. That’s our specialty, finding artists that are at that point.”

AltarTV has a "nimble" team of seven who wear many hats, he adds. Everyone was either a former touring musician or has experience in film production.

More than 200 segments have been recorded to date. There's “Unplugged and Unrehearsed, ” “Noise from the Underground,” “Studio Diaries” and “Here and Now. ” The network, hosted on Ultra Genie, reaches 60 countries including China, one of our biggest audiences, he says.

The artists cross several genres and are local and international. There's the up-and-coming band from Las Vegas, Imagine Dragons, who wander The Point before their concert; they performed on Jay Leno last month. Scottish folk rock band The Dunwells. Rapper Snoop Lion (who recently changed his name from Snoop Dogg).

There’s also a few unexplained segments such as “Lucky the Painproof Man Eating a Lightbulb,” which you may or may not want to force yourself to watch.

“We want to be the destination where people know they can consistently get good quality video and media about artists they care about. We want to rise above all that noise.”

Writer: Deb Smit

Source: Alex Mohler, AltarTV

What makes Paris look like Paris? Software pinpoints elements that give cities distinctive flair

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

What makes Paris look like Paris?

CMU has created software that pinpoints the visual elements that give certain cities their distinctive flair, such as the doorways of Dublin or the balustrades and bridges of Paris.

Of course you don’t need a computational data tool to see that places such as Paris and Barcelona have a look that sets them apart from other cities. But this research gives us visual data mining software that scientifically confirms this fact while identifying the subtle features that are unique to each place, such as the cast-iron balconies in Paris, fire escapes in New York City and bay windows in San Francisco.

Researchers analyzed more than 250 million visual elements from Google Street View in 12 major cities in the world to crack their stylistic code. Paris might be the most harmonious of cities studied, from its lampposts to doors, balconies, windows with railings and the shape of its street signs.

U.S. cities, not surprisingly, showed a relative lack of stylistic coherence, no doubt a result of their melting pot of styles, researchers say.

This is the first time that finding patterns in large databases--called “Big Data mining”—has been used to identify visual elements, says Alexei Efros, associate professor of robotics and computer science. It may one day prove useful for computational geography tasks.

The research was conducted by CMU and INRIA/Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris.

In other news, CMU researchers report they have mastered a streamlined approach to the painstaking technology behind computer animated movies and games as part of their work for Disney Research, Pittsburgh.

Computer graphic artists often spend hours creating an animated character’s subtle movements—such as a yawn or the drape of their clothing. Improving the method of modeling these movements will greatly simplify the editing process and enable artists to create more compact, powerful and easy-to-manage models.

Both findings will be presented on Aug. 6 at SIGGRAPH 2012, the International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Writer: Deb Smit

Source: CMU

Fly Pittsburgh nonstop. Because if you don't, you only have yourself to blame

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Business travelers planning to fly out of Pittsburgh should keep in mind that the best way to bring more nonstop travel service to our region is to support the nonstop flights that currently exist.

The Allegheny Conference reminds the region that competitive nonstop flights are available for business travel departing from Pittsburgh. Fast and economical options are available to get to New York City, Boston, LA, San Francisco and West Palm Beach.

The Pittsburgh-Paris direct flight will, hopefully, be returning as well.

Part of the problem is that flight data shows that 80% of those currently flying from Pittsburgh to the West Coast are taking connections to get there, says Dennis Yablonsky, CEO of the AC.

“It’s a conundrum,” he says. “For the normal business traveler, these (direct) flights are selling for as good as or often better price. The best way to keep the service we have is to use it.“

Airlines will be making decisions on their 2013 flight schedules in the next 60-90 days. Business travelers in particularly are asked to support the routes to keep them available.

Among the direct flights out of Pittsburgh:

Delta will be deciding whether to bring back the region’s only transatlantic flight in the spring of 2013. By flying through Paris, travelers can connect to more than 100 destinations across Europe, India and the Middle East while bypassing the congestion of East Coast hubs.

Delta is introducing a new nonstop service to LaGuardia this month.

United is providing nonstop flights to LA and San Francisco.

JetBlue is offering competitive rates to New York and Boston.

Pittsburgh leaders—including CEOs from the region—are currently working on ways to bring more direct flights to Pittsburgh and improve air travel to the region.

The Allegheny Conference on Community Development was recognized last week by the national Alliance for Regional Stewardship (ARS) for Distinguished Achievement in Sustained Stewardship.

Writer: Deb Smit

Source: Dennis Yablonsky, Allegheny Conference

Catch Pop City Innovation and Tech news on Essential Pittsburgh each week!

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Join Pop City innovation editor Deb Smit each week on Essential Pittsburgh and hear about the latest in tech and innovation news in the region.

Pop City will be partnering with Essential Pittsburgh on a regular basis to talk about Pittsburgh's emerging new economy. The show generally airs on Wednesdays during the noon hour on 90.5 FM. Find out more details behind the companies in the region who are hiring as well as the latest news from Carnegie Mellon, local startups and the region's tech giants.

Who's hiring in Pittsburgh? Google and PNC for starters...

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

The top hiring story for this week is the news of Google Pittsburgh hiring eight.

Earlier media reports that Google may be moving from Bakery Square were inaccurate, reports Jordan Newsman, Google spokesman.

“We are definitely growing, but we have no plans to expand,” he said. “We have been hiring for awhile and we continue to grow. There’s a ton of great talent in the city.”

The company, currently at 220 people, is hiring for a variety of technical positions, engineers all, including software engineers, data scientists and evaluators, product managers, system engineers and technical program managers.

Google is also seeking a human resources business partner.

PNC is posting 340+ jobs across all sectors, everything from mortgage and technical specialists to business bankers and systems analysts.

Sierra w/o Wires reports this week the hiring of eight people, everything from experienced engineers to an entry level support analyst.

While construction on the Shop N Save grocery store in the Hill District has been pushed back to 2013, Massaro, general contractor, reports that interested parties will be collecting applications for a number of construction, hospitality, restaurant, banking and grocery store jobs opening up.

The Hill House will hold an orientation and application intake session Wednesday night, Aug. 1, at the Hill House, 1 Hope Center, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

And from last week...
As reported last week, Aquion Energy is hiring more than 20 people including a director of research and development. In fact, the company, which plans to establish a manufacturing center in Pittsburgh, is always on the lookout for intelligent, committed innovative thinkers to join their world-class team of scientists, engineers and business people.

Hundreds of jobs are projected at Aquion by 2014; current postings are in every area for those with extensive experience in the fields of electrochemistry, materials science, manufacturing, mechanical design, fabrication, electrical engineering, chemical engineering and physics.

Avere Systems, developers of high performance storage solutions for data enterprise centers, is at 75 and continues to grow. The company has 10 job openings including: product marketing manager, technical writer, regional sales manager, inside sales rep and various engineers.

The Pittsburgh headquarter of ANSYS in Canonsburg is always hiring, the company reports. Currently the developer of engineering simulation software has more than a dozen postings for its home office, including software developers, engineers and human resources.

Writer: Deb Smit
Source: Google Pittsburgh, PNC Bank, Sierra w/o Wires, Aquion Energy, Avere Systems, ANSYS and ImaginePittsburghJobs.com

CMU's new Pedo-Biometrics Lab--your feet say more about you than a fingerprint

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

When it comes to the science of identifying who we are, our feet are uniquely suited to the purpose.

Ottawa-based Autonomous ID has partnered with CMU and has invested $1.5 million a year to establish a Pedo-Biometrics Research and Identity Automation Lab here. The lab, to be located on campus, will expand the university’s research in the field of biometrics beyond the study of the iris to our feet.

Pedo-Biometrics represents a new frontier in the field, an area of research that has been developing scientific techniques over time to identify that we humans are, in fact, the people we say we are. Traditionally the identification has been done through fingerprinting or scans of the iris, explains Marios Savvides, Electrical and Computer Engineer at CMU.

Scientists have known for years that feet, as well as gait, are unique to each person. Sensors placed in the soles of shoes can check the pressure of the feet, monitor the gait and a create a master file that identifies each person. These changes can also be monitored as we age.

Monitoring aspects of the foot may also prevent or assist in the diagnosis diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s and dementia, says Savvides.

A sole insert can more easily facilitate the identification process in high security situations. Entering into a monitored and secure area, such as a military base or nuclear power plant, could be as easy as a car passing through an EZ-Pass exchange on the Turnpike, says Savvides.

The lab will develop a prototype for Autonomous ID, which has been working since 2009 to create an inexpensive ID system.

“This new frontier is very exciting,” says Savvides. “Looking at both the biometric side and the biomedical side and how they work together is the really exciting part.”

Writer: Deb Smit
Source: Marios Savvides, CMU

Sierra w/o Wires, the IT company for IT companies. HIRING

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Sierra w/o Wires is a fast-growing company that has gone from a handful of people to 26 employees since it opened its doors officially in 2006.

With offices in Robinson, the firm has gained traction in 34 states and four countries as an IT company for IT companies. Clients range from small non-profits to billion dollar organizations who rely on Sierra’s “cloud team” to streamline and improve operational efficiencies, reliability and security.

With current revenues of $4.5 million, Sierra projects a growth rate of 25% going forward and expects to hire eight additional employees this year.

It’s all through word-of-mouth referrals, insists CEO Bruce Freshwater. Freshwater worked for the U.S. Airforce and Alyeska Pipeline before starting Sierra, which had a few starts beginning in 2003 under several different names before morphing into the present day company.

A company that embraces personal marketing through a strong social media presence—Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn—as well as an open culture that offers “flex” time and a casual dress code, Sierra’s success has been rewarded with a number of accolades.

The company was named 2012 PA Technology Company of the Year and has received several DATA (Design, Technology and Art) nominations from the Pittsburgh Technology Council, as well as a nod in the Tech 50.

The firm is a family affair of sorts, admits Freshwater, father of four. His wife Stacy is the company CFO. The company was named for his younger daughter, Sierra.

“Our big push for last year is custom portal solutions, anything you need on a web interface for your business. whether a scheduling site or billing solution, we can take care of it,” says Freshwater.

Writer: Deb Smit

Source: Bruce Freshwater, Sierra w/o Wires

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre dancers raise the Barre on vegan snacks

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Who better to trust when choosing a healthy snack than two ballet dancers who have spent their whole lives maintaining their body?

For Julia Erickson and Aaron Ingley, their body is their career. Erickson is a full time principal dancer at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre (PBT). Ingley danced with PBT until 2008 and dances now as a freelancer.

The two have teamed up to create Barre, a nutritious, vegan snack for both the dance world and general consumers. Playing on the word barre, French for the ballet apparatus, Erickson cooked up the idea in her kitchen from whole, natural food ingredients.

“It had kind of the perfect goldilocks just-right combination,” says Erickson who eats it during rehearsals. “It gave me great energy.”

Fellow dancers gave Erickson positive feedback on the experiment, and, joined by Ingley, went to work making more bars to sell at farmers markets, bake sales, and to fellow dancers. The bars are now made in Ohio and the duo is selling it, with the help of two part-time employees, within stores and online.

Barre is currently selling at about 160 dance locations throughout the country, as well as in Whole Foods, and Giant Eagle Market District will begin carrying them in the fall. Erickson and Ingley plan to continue expanding to the general market.

“We’ve had incredible feedback from the dance world,” said Erickson. “They love the idea.”

The bar comes in 3 flavors. Each flavor's name is a play on a dance term or reference in pop culture. There’s pirouette cinnamon pecan, black swan chocolate berry, and ballerina spirulina.

A portion of Barre’s profits are given back to charity, including Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School.

“Pittsburgh has been an amazing place to start a business,” said Erickson. “It’s a great city I think for a businessman, because it’s small enough to have that community feel but large enough that--” “it has all the resources,” finished Ingley.

Writer: Kaija Nealon

Source: Julia Erickson and Aaron Ingley, Real Food Barre

Fox Chapel students hike the Trillium Trail virtually and in person

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Imagine traipsing through a fantasyland of three dimensional, high-fidelity virtual simulations—a place filled with colorful flowers, fauna and birds--learning about the environment around you as you go.

And afterward, actually going there in real life.

Maria Harrington, assistant professor of computer sciences at Slippery Rock, has developed The Virtual Trillium Trail, a virtual field trip that layers high-end gaming engines with virtual reality simulations and real photographs to create a new education tool for students.

Students at O’Hara Elementary School in Fox Chapel were among the first to pilot The Virtual Trillium Trail. What makes it unique is students have 360-degrees of freedom as they journey along the trail, wandering where they choose, clicking on and collecting knowledge and learning about the environment.

Harrington has drawn information from data on public terrain, facts from the Audubon Field Guide and plant population studies to create simulations of the environment. The Virtual Trillium Trail is a scientifically accurate real world simulation of the real trail in Fox Chapel, PA near Stoney Camp Run and Squaw Run creeks, she says.

A flower tells the story of photosynthesis. Stumble upon a waterfall and learn about watersheds. Students can become hawks and fly over the forest or a deer and run through the stream.

Following the virtual field trip, the students then set out—notebooks in tow--to hike the real Trillium Trail.

“It’s a paradigm shift making these virtual realities available,” says Harrington. “Think of the places you can go, true virtual realities and simulations. We can immerse ourselves in a new type of learning environment.”

Students were able to identify trees and flowers they had learned about when they later walked the real Trllium Trail, explains Harrington. They were sharing the knowledge they had learned with one another.

Harrington hopes to raise funding through angel investors to take her company, Virtual Field Trips, to the next level.

“Kids are not an easy market. It has to be totally bullet proof for a kid to use it like a tool. They totally picked it up and ran with it.”

Writer: Deb Smit

Source: Maria Harrington, Virtual Field Trips

Who's hiring in Pittsburgh?

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

This week Pop City begins a regular roundup of just who’s hiring in Pittsburgh.

Whether your company is hiring one or many, we encourage you to contact us for inclusion in our regular list. We'll report on a handful of companies or more looking for talent. Up this week:

Aquion Energy is hiring more than 20 people including a director of research and development. In fact, the company, which plans to establish a manufacturing center in Pittsburgh, is always on the lookout for intelligent, committed innovative thinkers to join their world-class team of scientists, engineers and business people.

Hundreds of jobs are projected at Aquion by 2014; current postings are in every area for those with extensive experience in the fields of electrochemistry, materials science, manufacturing, mechanical design, fabrication, electrical engineering, chemical engineering and physics.

Avere Systems, developers of high performance storage solutions for data enterprise centers, is at 75 and continues to grow. The company has 10 job openings including: product marketing manager, technical writer, regional sales manager, inside sales rep and various engineers.

The Pittsburgh headquarter of ANSYS in Canonsburg is always hiring, the company reports. Currently the developer of engineering simulation software has more than a dozen postings for its home office, including software developers, engineers and human resources.

News radio station 1020 KDKA Pittsburgh is looking for an afternoon Show Host to anchor the KDKA Afternoon News. The position calls for a talent with a distinctive style, someone with strong writing skills and the creative dexterity to go from a discussion of pop culture to breaking news.

Dobil Laboratories in Pittsburgh, an audiovisual systems integrator since 1971, is hiring experienced AV technicians and project managers. Email resumes to info@dobil.com

And last but not least, MAYA, design consultancy and technology research lab now housed at Four Gateway Center, is hiring designers, researchers and engineers. Check it out here.

Writer: Deb Smit

Source: Aquion Energy, Avere Systems, ANSYS, CBS News, Dobil Labs and ImaginePittsburghJobs.com

Tiversa buys a building downtown and launches a music division. Hiring

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

When it comes to the business of security, owning the building you work in is critical, says Robert Boback.

The company's CEO is moving Tiversa, a homegrown P2P intelligence services company, downtown and doubling in size from 25 to 50 people this year.

It's just the beginning of exciting developments to come for the former Cranberry firm. Tiversa provides patented technologies to security-driven businesses and government entities--think Goldman Sachs and the FBI--keeping the most sensitive of online information secure.

The company purchased the 606 Liberty building, near PNC and the Fairmont, for $2.6 million and plans to use 25,000 square feet of the 48,000 square-feet of space to grow the four separate businesses: government, enterprise, consumer applications and identity theft protection and—a twist—a media relations business that is attracting famous artists in the recording industry.

The new business, called Dreya, will provide artists with information to help them identify their fan-base, pinpointing geographical areas where they are most popular, which will in turn help them market themselves and tour more efficiently. It’s information that has become unattainable in this age of digital downloading, says Boback.

“This is the most exciting side of the business,” says Boback. “We’re in ongoing discussions with multiple celebrities, very well known people. We can’t reveal anything yet.”

It won’t be the first time Tiversa has surfaced on the national radar. Just last year Tiversa was conducting investigative searches for U.S. agencies when it uncovered some key evidence on WikiLeaks. In March of 2009, Tiversa discovered a security breach involving compromised blueprints of President Obama’s helicopter.

Founded in 2003 by Boback, CEO, and partner Sam Hopkins, who recently retired, Tiversa has managed its growth with only one round of funding. The firm has additional consultants in DC and Los Angeles.

Hires will be in the area of engineers and administrative and finance.

In file sharing world, we don’t encounter competition, says Boback. We have 23 patents issued and 70 still pending, a patent strategy that gives us competition-proof positioning.

Writer: Deb Smit

Source: Robert Boback, Tiversa

CMU's Terry Collins calls fracking a "global economic disaster" and health threat

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Climate change threatens to be the biggest global disaster of our century. What toll will these changing weather systems take on human health?

Terry Collins, Teresa Heinz Professor of Green Chemistry and Director of the Institute for Green Science at CMU, was the keynote speaker at a symposium at CMU on "Climate Change and Health for Health Care Providers," sponsored by the national nonprofit Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) and Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC.

He was joined by Gary Cohen, a social entrepreneur committed to improving health through improvements in the environment and founder of HCWH, Practice Greenhealth and the Healthier Hospitals Initiative.

Among the takeaways:

While oil and gas promise economic health, fracking and oil drilling exact a debilitating cost on human health. Almost 75 percent of the nation’s health care expenditures are for treatment of chronic illnesses, such as asthma, cancer and heart and lung disease, many of which are exacerbated or caused by environmental factors.

In Pennsylvania alone, more than 260,000 children and more than 890,000 adults have asthma.

The estimated incremental direct cost of asthma in Pennsylvania to children and adults is over $2.3 billion a year according to a report released in 2011 by HCWH, the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE) and the National Association of School Nurses (NASN).

“Fracking is further poisoning, heating, filling and acidifying the oceans,” said Terry Collins. “In real time, it is degrading health, biodiversity, peace and prosperity. It is important for health professionals to speak out on energy policies and activities and to help redirect America and the world toward the clean energy we can so easily have by changing course.”

Solar energy is a feasible alternative, despite what the critics are saying. We need to build more projects like the solar farm underway in Lancaster County, Pa.

Rising oceans could one day submerge parts of Holland, Denmark, England. It’s already happening in North Carolina. The world’s poor is the most vulnerable to unstable products and processes. What does a disappearing Bangladesh mean to you? asked Collins.

“If we stay on the road most travelled, we will end up on the super carbon dioxide highway,” Collins said. “This is where we are headed, a dramatically reduced and diminished earth controlled by the wealthy.”

The magnitude of this problem looks enormous but it’s doable, presenters noted. Sustainability is about right and wrong behavior. We need to teach that sustainability is not an endpoint but a direction.

The event, which attracted more than 60 people including educators, students and medical professionals, hoped to raise awareness and encourage health professionals to join the public debate on national energy policies and health issues surrounding natural gas drilling, says Judith Focareta of Magee, co-ordinator of the conference.

Writer: Deb Smit

Source: Magee Women’s Hospital, HCWH