4CDesignWorks, an interactive marketing and communications division of 4CTechnologies, recently won MarCom’s Gold Award for their Spring 2009 technology event and creative package. 4CDesignWorks entry included direct mail, email blasts, press packages, PowerPoint presentations, a complete program “passport” and directional signs. All creative tactics utilized the flight/airline theme of the event – ONBOARD’09 – and the event was held high above Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers, at the prestigious Le Mont Restaurant. This marketing activity was developed for 4CTechnologies and sponsored by IBM and Ingram Micro.

MarCom is an international award competition for marketing and communication professionals involved in the concept, writing and design of marketing and communication programs, print, visual and audio materials.

4CDesignWorks offers professional creative services to clients elevating interests in marketing performance and gaining a competitive advantage in the marketplace.  4CTechnologies is a Pittsburgh-based business consulting and software engineering firm specializing in IT-based innovation, application development and application integration.

ANSYS, Inc., a global innovator of simulation software and technologies designed to optimize product development processes, said it has become an official sponsor of Astrobotic Technology Inc.’s Tranquility Trek™ mission, which involves developing a rocket-launched robot as part of the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition. As sponsor, ANSYS is providing its multiphysics engineering simulation software in the development of the robot, lander and payload adapter as the company races to become the first privately funded team to reach the Moon.

Through the use of tools from ANSYS, Astrobotic Technology is simulating the effectiveness of machinery and materials performance under extreme fluctuations in lunar conditions — all to be conducted prior to sending the robot to the Moon. The project will pave the way for human exploration and eventual tapping of lunar resources for export to Earth.

The Google Lunar X PRIZE is a $30 million competition to encourage privately funded teams to send a robot to the Moon, travel 500 meters, and transmit video, images and data back to the Earth. U.S.-based Astrobotic is one of 21 teams from around the world participating in the competition. The company, which has identified a 2011 launch date, already is field-testing prototype Moon robots.

“This is a race after all, so we are leveraging engineering simulation software from ANSYS to keep moving at warp speed,” said David Gump, president of Astrobotic Technology Inc. “We are applying the software to find the lowest-cost, lightest-weight designs for our robots and the deep-space transfer stages that will deliver them from Earth’s orbit to the Moon. ANSYS® technology enables us to examine alternative structures and materials to rapidly find the most effective combinations via simulation, before we build physical prototypes.”

The current economic climate doesn’t mean companies can’t succeed. It just means the WAY a company succeeds has its own unique challenges.

Hear the real-world experiences of entrepreneurs from today, the lessons learned going from start-up to success story, and the research and best practices that will help YOU get growing. You will hear first from a broadcast from MIT that is presented in association with NASDAQ OMX in celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week. Introductory remarks from MIT President Susan Hockfield are followed by a panel discussion that includes:

• Bo Fishback, VP of Entrepreneurship at the Ewing Marion Kauffman
• Helen Greiner’89, SM ‘90, CEO, The Droid Works
• Daphne Zohar, Founder, Managing Partner, PureTech Ventures

Moderator Dennis S. Meteny is President and CEO of Cygnus Manufacturing Company LLC.  Meteny is a former Executive in Residence with The Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse and a former President and Board Member of TissueInformatics Inc., a privately-held life sciences company in the medical imaging sector.
 
Panelists will include:

• Matt Harbaugh, the Chief Investment Officer of Innovation Works (IW)
• Don A. Linzer, JD, LLM, CFP®  shareholder at Schneider Downs since 1985
• Mike Maggs of Payroll Solutions

Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 

Time: 5:30 p.m. Registration and networking. Light buffet served. 6:30 p.m. Program begins.

Location: Pittsburgh Golf Club, 5280 Northumberland Street, Pittsburgh, 15217 (just off Forbes on Northumberland Street, next to Schenley Park). 
 
Get all of the details right here. 

What if you could confidently test an idea for a product in front of potential users? Based on this feedback, how would you like the ability to reconfigure ideas immediately?  You’ll be able to generate more concepts in each meeting. 

Designers at Bright Innovation have created the Bright Tools Workshop to help you do just that and more. The first of this series – “Prototyping for Pennies” – will demonstrate how the designers at Bright create and change concepts quickly and easily.

This rapid prototyping exercise concentrates on creating concepts using inexpensive materials and imploring interviewees to use their imagination to think creatively. This particular method enables a user to test many configurations of a design with potential end users. The key to this method is education and collaboration with your potential consumers to draw insights from valuable feedback.

The workshop is set for Wednesday, November 11, 2009, from  8:30 – 11:30am.

Get all of the details right here.

Pennsylvania based Information Technology provider, Global Data Consultants, has landed on Nine Lives Media Inc.’s second-annual MSPmentor 100, a distinguished research report identifying the world’s most progressive managed service providers.

Global Data ranked 64th out of approximately 1,000 MSPs (Managed Service Providers) surveyed worldwide.

“Being ranked in the World’s Top 100 Managed Services Providers is truly an honor for us and a great point of recognition for the customercentered efforts of our internal teams” said Nelson Witmer, Vice-President of Network and Infrastructure Services for Global Data. “We have always been a very relationship-based organization with a strong emphasis on providing a level of technical and personal support that goes beyond just customer satisfaction. That approach has rewarded us with a very loyal client base and positive word-of-mouth references that have stimulated significant growth especially within the small-tomedium business sector. I believe that growth is also attributable to clients realizing the business value and overall cost savings with this type of service model. Through our managed services offering, we allow clients the ability to focus on their business while we focus on the performance and stability of their IT infrastructure and applications.”

The free MSPmentor 100 report, available at www.MSPmentor.net, is based on data from MSPmentor’s global online survey, conducted October through December 2008. The MSPmentor 100 report recognizes managed service providers based on a range of revenue
and management metrics.

Good news keeps rolling out of Wavecam.

Some schools in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) may not have understood what California University of Pennsylvania’s school President Dr. Angelo Armenti saw, when they heard about the Wavecam™ being installed in Amundson Stadium. Now they can see for themselves.

Armenti, as well as Athletic Director, Tom Pucci and Associate VP for Athletic Development Frank Bauer researched the success of the Wavecam at Penn State and Villanova and determined that the Wavecam was a terrific technology that would enhance; the television broadcast of Vulcan football on FSN Pittsburgh, provide critical game footage to coaches, engage and entertain fans by adding valuable content and sponsorship opportunities to the Daktronics video board and provide another symbol of Cal U’s commitment to excellence.

The Wavecam system can fly down the entire length of the field while dynamically adjusting its vertical height to the preferences of coaches or those directing the in house production or television broadcasts for FSN Pittsburgh. Mike Kendlick who works for Pittsburgh based, Viewpoint Production Services, has been nominated for a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award and directs the broadcast for CalU said that the “system is great” and the “the Wavecam provides that extra look that can’t be captured any other way.” Mike said that they are finding more ways to use the Wavecam with every production.

“When we use [the Wavecam] in practice it lets us see everything from an entirely new perspective,” junior wide receiver Tony Battaglini said. “It has changed the way we view game tape because it allows us to see mistakes in formations.” Beth Ann Conway who works in the Vulcan athletic department says that that everyone at CalU is “really excited about the system, what it has provided and the many perspectives it captures. Conway claims that there is has been positive feedback from everyone; school administrators, broadcasters, fans, players and coaches. She also noted although there had been some anxiety in how the Wavecam would be integrated their operation, the training and support by the Wavecam Media team have made it an easy.

California University has ordered a second Wavecam system for Hammer Hall, their indoor athletic facility that is home to volleyball, basketball and wrestling. Everyone is looking forward to the Wavecam providing an exciting new dimension to those sports’ broadcasts. This second Wavecam system will be re-located and to the new convocation center, which will be completed in 2011. Armenti says of the new facility, that it “will provide a “world-class facility for our students and cutting-edge teaching tools.”

Blue Archer, a Web design and marketing firm located in Shadyside, recently debuted inTouch, a Web-based constituent management program for non-profit organizations.  The program integrates the back-office platform of Salesforce.com’s Nonprofit Edition with Blue Archer’s full range of non-profit Web design capabilities. 

“Through years of non-profit Web design, we understand the unique requirements and challenges that nonprofits face,” said Robert Faletti, Blue Archer Co-Principal.  “Equipped with inTouch, nonprofits can leverage the web to grow their mission while utilizing a proven back-office platform.”

The inTouch program streamlines the interaction between an organization’s front end and back end platforms, in this case a Blue Archer custom-designed AccuCMS Web site and Salesforce.com’s Nonprofit Edition, respectively.  The website supports online submissions such as donations, event registrations, and contact information, which are then deposited into Salesforce.com’s back-end platform for constituent tracking and management.

“Resource hours are incredibly valuable to non-profits of all sizes – they can’t afford to have employees spending hours on data entry,” said Al Polanec, Blue Archer Co-Principal and creator of inTouch.  “Non-profits that integrate their online marketing efforts and web transactions with their back-office databases are not only going to be better equipped to track constituent behavior, but will spend less time on administrative processes and more time expanding their constituency.”

“Blue Archer appreciates that non-profit clients posses a unique set of needs,” said Faletti.  “Their resources, processes, and fiscal situations are vastly different than their for-profit counterparts.  We’ve created inTouch to meet these needs simply and affordably.”

For more information about Blue Archer and the services it provides, visit www.bluearcher.com.

Cellumen, a discovery and early safety assessment company, today announced that its in vitro Rat Hepatocyte Early Safety Assessment Panel provides increased predictivity for human drug induced liver injury (DILI) equivalent to that of a recently published panel comprised of human hepatocytes.

The implications of this study have a significant impact on cost and throughput for in vitro human DILI predictive solutions.

As a result of these findings, less expensive, more reliable cells from a rat coupled with a 384-well assay format can result in reliable classification and risk-ranking of compounds for purposes of hit-to-lead prioritization and chemical class selection. In addition, the Cellumen in vitro rodent safety assessment panel provides robust dose- and time-dependent mechanistic profiles for each compound, allowing for de-risking compounds for specific mechanisms of toxicity.

The internal study, completed by Cellumen, focused on a set of 178 compounds spanning diverse chemical classes with published human DILI scores. Cellumen applied its proprietary Rat Hepatocyte Early Safety Assessment Panel consisting of freshly harvested hepatocytes, eight cellular features, three time points, and a 10 point dose response. The panel was analyzed on a high-content imaging platform and a classifier constructed to predict human DILI scores. Using this optimized Rodent Hepatocyte Panel, Cellumen achieved 100 percent specificity with nearly 50 percent sensitivity.

“We were excited by these findings, since we did not expect the concordance of human-to-human and rat-to-human DILI predictivity to be so strong,” says Don Taylor, Vice President of Corporate Development for Cellumen. “However, since Cellumen measured molecular mechanisms common to both species, these results may not be as surprising as initially thought.”

The results indicate that its in vitro Rat Hepatocyte Early Safety Assessment Panel can offer Cellumen customers higher throughput and lower cost solutions for human DILI predictivity than other options currently available.

Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC) has announced that several CTC engineers have been selected to present at the annual Defense Manufacturing Conference (DMC) scheduled for November 30–December 3, 2009, in Orlando, Florida.

“DMC is one of the most significant gatherings of the year for defense manufacturing industry innovators,” said Edward J. Sheehan, Jr., CTC’s President & Chief Executive Officer.  “We are enormously proud that the Navy Metalworking Center’s (NMC’s) technical achievements have been recognized by the Joint Defense Manufacturing Technology Panel and will be so well represented at the event.”

DMC 2009 will address the role of government and industry leadership in creating affordable defense systems.  Last year the conference attracted more than 1,000 attendees.

CTC’s presentations focus on work done through NMC to advance metalworking and manufacturing technologies and to implement those technologies on Navy weapons systems.  The presentations feature expansion of a Web-based welding procedures system, advancements in friction stir welding, improvements in steel processing, and the use of laser peening to improve fatigue on critical shipboard components.

“We’re pleased to have the opportunity to share some of our recent successes in advancing metalworking technology for the Navy,” said Daniel L. Winterscheidt, Ph.D., Program Director, NMC.  “NMC effectively partners with government and industry to develop metalworking solutions that increase affordability and are ultimately implemented in the shipbuilding industry.”

Operated by Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC), the Navy Metalworking Center develops and implements advanced technologies for metalworking and manufacturing processes and applies these technologies to improve the cost and performance of Navy and Department of Defense weapon systems.  For more information about NMC, visit www.nmc.ctc.com.

Techburgher loves publishing news of local tech companies making new hires. Pittsburgh-based All Lines Technology, a  provider of enterprise business solutions that integrate IT and procurement services with advanced technology products, announced the following new hires:

• Jerry Thomas – Business Development Manager;
• Ron Caruso – Director of Sales & Operations; and
• Alan Striegel – Senior Engineer

Awarded the 2009 IT Vendor of the Year by Heinz North America and recently named HP’s fastest growing Enterprise Elite Partner in Southwestern Pennsylvania, All Lines Technology is expanding its business and technology teams to support the company’s growing base of customers located throughout Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio and West Virginia.  All Lines Technology helps clients, large and small, to streamline and improve the way they buy, implement and manage the technology infrastructure that supports their mission-critical business applications.