Software : Innovation + Job News

Creating today's complicated video games definitely isn't child's play.

Aharon Cagle, a marketer turned video game entrepreneur, is leading a 15-person team in creating a new role-playing game, "Ambrov X." He's CEO and founder of Loreful, an independent video game development company launched last fall.

Cagle, who's worked for Brand Populace and EmpowerMedia Marketing, is a passionate gamer who decided to turn that passion into his life's work.

"I hit 40, and I was like, 'I love games so much more than I love marketing.' I'd been a creative marketing director, so I knew I could lead a team of this size. So I wrote the business plan and started Loreful."

Cagle is working with a team of writers, designers, developers, visual arts, voice actor, animators and more to bring life to "Ambrov X."

Much of the team is already in Cincinnati, while others are moving here for the project, Cagle says.

"We're in the process of pulling people here to Cincinnati," he says.

The game garnered exposure during the recent Cincy ComicCon and Cincinnati Comic Expo.

"We have a playable pre-alpha version of the game we've been showing around. It's not necessarily how the game will ultimately look, but it shows the larger vision of what we want to do," Cagle says.

Set for release in early 2015, "Ambrov X" is being developed in partnership with the Science Fiction franchise Sime~Gen. The game is based on the Sime~Gen Universe novels that envision a future where humans have divided into two subspecies: Gens and Simes.

Gens produce a life energy that Simes need to survive. The novels center on the subspecies' struggle for co-existence.

"We're basically taking that story 1,000 years in the future. The humans have learned to live with this genetic catastrophe and are beginning to explore space," Cagle explains.

"Ambrov X" is planned for release on Windows, OS X and Linux through STEAM, a game-distribution platform. The game will be released in five episodes, ranging from three to five hours each.

Loreful is in the midst of a $500,000 Kickstarter campaign to help push development, set to end Oct. 5


By Feoshia H. Davis

Cincinnati is home to MoveMX, a video game development team that is creating motion-responsive games for mobile devices.

While current generation console gaming platforms already have the ability to recognize body movement in relation to their game’s generated characters and environments, MoveMX is determined to bring that same vitality and energy to tablets and cell phones. By utilizing the devices’ built-in cameras, the games can be controlled through body movement.

“MoveMx was created to provide a more immersive mobile gameplay experience,” says Zak Nordyke, founder of MoveMX. “We wanted to give mobile gamers the opportunity to use their bodies as the gamepad. We didn't like the idea of young gamers craning their necks and tapping buttons as the only way to enjoy content.”

Nordyke’s team is currently developing its first title, “The Chronicles of Glover.” It will be an action platform game centered around a young man named Glover who discovers mysterious body armor that grants him heightened abilities. The game is currently in demo stages and is slated to be available to play late August.

Dedicated to stimulating gamers beyond the simple pressing of buttons, MoveMX is lending a hand to the mobile industry by innovating its current technology.

“We wanted to bring the motion gaming experience to mobile,” says Nordyke. "It allows users to play movement tracking games everywhere.”

Healthier and more physically engaging than traditional gamepad-controlled video games of yesteryear, motion-tracking with video games is a step (or swing of the hip) in the right direction for the often sedentary video game industry. 


By Sean Peters

If you’ve ever had a brilliant idea, serendipitous conversation or inspirational moment, only to be thwarted by the inability to write down what was said, your worries may be coming to an end.
 
Kapture, a new wearable audio recording wristband, allows you to save and share what was just said. Buffering 24/7, the wristband saves only the last 60 seconds of audio with a tap of your hand.
 
“With Kapture, those you-just-had-to-be-there moments are actually available to share with others,” says Mike Sarrow, co-founder of Kapture. “Rich conversation can now take a higher spot within our overall communication mix.”
 
Since the wristband’s recorder is constantly running, users don’t have to worry about disrupting a moment by getting out a smart phone. The device records over itself after each 60-second interval, allowing the user to save only the moments they wish to remember.
 
“If you never tap the product (there are no buttons or screens - only a tap interface), nothing is ever saved,” Sarrow explains. “We want nothing to do with big data or continuous recording. We are about the good stuff.”
 
Founded here in Cincinnati in 2011 by Mike Sarrow and Matthew Dooley, Kapture launched a Kickstarter campaign last week in an effort to gain support from consumers and create a groundswell around the new technology. The campaign runs through October 2, 2013, and seeks to raise $150,000 to help launch the product worldwide. Following the Kickstarter campaign, the device will go into production with a planned launch to the public in March 2014.
 
“Most startups will tell you fund-raising never ends. And because we bit off a tremendously complex project, we're in the same boat," Sarrow says.
 
Sarrow and Dooley attribute much of their ability to secure funding and grow their business thus far to being a part of the emerging entrepreneurial scene in Cincinnati and tapping into all of its resources.
 
“It might be the best part of starting a company in Cincinnati,” Sarrow says. “It is a very closeknit group willing to help at every turn. Cincytech was our first investor and is leading our seed stage funding round. The Brandery has continued to give us ad hoc guidance along the way, and we are now a project working out of Cintrifuse. We love the support Cincinnati has offered, and we love the partnerships we have in place.”
 
As Kapture has continued to grow, more and more people are taking notice. In less than a week, the Kickstarter campaign has reached more than one third of the target goal and the company has found itself on the front page of the highly touted tech website Mashable. To find out more about Kapture, visit the Kapture Facebook page.

Michael Sarason
 

What has been a lifelong love of comics and video games for Tamar Medina has turned into an interesting business. Medina and his co-founders developed J-Lynn Entertainment in 2011. The Cleveland-based company makes video game comics -- interactive comics in which the reader controls the outcome.
 
In July, Medina began test marketing the video game comics at conventions. “The feedback we got at the comic conventions was great,” says Medina.
 
But at the conventions, Medina also got an unexpected reaction. Parents and teachers approached him to say his video game comics would be a helpful tool for children with autism. After some research into autism, Medina and his team discovered their games were perfect for cognitive training, collecting performance data, and research in autism spectrum disorders.
 
“Kids with autism have trouble reading and comprehending certain words,” Medina explains. “But reading a comic and seeing what’s going on with pictures, the kids really adhere to technology.” Because the comics are interactive, they also help autistic children develop their social and decision-making skills.
 
Medina went to top experts for help in developing a line of games specific to kids with autism. “At the end of the game, we put statistics on the social choices they made,” says Medina of one feature he’s incorporated. “We wanted to have it be fun and be interactive.”
 
J-Lynn Entertainment is still developing its regular line of video game comics and is talking to investors. The company has five employees. Medina says they are hoping to bring on a full-time programmer, and envisions J-Lynn will employ 25 to 50 people within the next five years.
 
“The passion is awesome and we think our product will be great, not only in improving the autism condition, but also identifying it,” says Medina. “I believe we have the ability and skills for growth. J-Lynn is currently polishing its prototype and hopes to release it this fall for android.

 
Source: Tamar Medina
Writer: Karin Connelly

Youngstown Business Incubator (YBI) portfolio company, OAREX (Online Advertising Revenue Exchange), has become the world’s first futures-driven capital market for digital entrepreneurs.
 
OAREX provides capital to digital business owners – smart phone app developers, website and YouTube channel owners – that have sold advertising space on their digital property. “The market is futures-driven because the amount of capital provided to them is based on their expected future advertising revenues over the course of the next three, six, nine or 12-month period,” explains owner Hanna Kassis.
 
This makes funds more readily available to people and businesses who are scared away from banks because of the risk and cost associated with raising capital. “OAREX is neither a lender nor an investor,” says Kassis, who has personally financed his company. “[We] merely pay and guarantee digital business owners their future ad revenues today by providing them with lump sum cash up front.” Interested entrepreneurs can learn more from a video presentation at the company’s website.
 
Though OAREX is now in Delaware, the company remains a portfolio company of YBI and Kassis hopes to one day return to the Steel Valley where he taught economics at his alma matter, Youngstown State University.
 
In the meantime, Kassis is happy to heap praise onto YBI, saying the incubator has played a “pivotal role” in the company’s success so far.
 
“They’ve been available as a resource for connecting OAREX with potential investors and clients, and providing tech support,” he explains. “Members of the YBI team have also helped in the development of the business model and tackling the complex issues of bringing the company to market.” Kassis continues, noting a YBI board member also serves as an advisory board member with OAREX. “The connection between the two entities is very strong and successful.”
 
 
Source: Hanna Kassis
Writer: Joe Baur

Aug. 31, 2013 update: The Ohio Game Developer Expo has been moved to Saturday, December 7, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Ohio Union.


The Ohio Game Developer Association is hosting an expo at The Ohio Union in Columbus on Saturday, September 14. It’s the first statewide event of its kind for the growing industry.
 
Steve Castro, a 2004 DeVry Columbus graduate and co-founder of the association, is excited to discuss the upcoming expo and growing community. He started the organization after seeing California’s “close-knit” development community. “They share ideas and code,” says Castro. “I wanted to build that up in Ohio.” The association launched at the end of 2012.
 
Since then Castro has been surprised to find a number of independent developers across the state. Unfortunately they were unaware of each other. “That’s what the Ohio Game Developer Association is all about,” says Castro. “We want to connect these developers and build awareness of who’s doing this.”
 
“Who’s doing this” includes Matt Maroon of Akron-based Blue Frog Gaming and Stephan Smith of FreshGames in Columbus – two of the few brick and mortar gaming development companies in the state. The two developers will also be speaking at next month’s expo.
 
Castro, who is also the co-founder of ClickShake Games with Jay “Zeebarf” Ziebarth, describes the expo as a festival where people can gather to share ideas and he welcomes all developers of gaming technology. He is anticipating a presentation from a motion capture and 3D software company and hopes attendees will be able to test out the motion capture suit. Castro added that, with more than 40 booths on the showcase floor where gamers can "try and buy," he's confident there will be plenty of games on hand for mobile devices and laptops to test out.
 
For Castro, the ultimate goal of the event is to “excite and empower” game developers and to put Ohio on the map. “We want people to be excited about development,” he says. “And we want people to realize you can do it in Ohio.”
 
 
Source: Steve Castro
Writer: Joe Baur

Marietta-based Offenberger & White, Inc., or "OffWhite" for short, is making waves in the small- and medium-sized business community with the expansion of its cloud-based platform, Ed.it2, which offers users without programming skills an integrated dashboard to manage communications functions, email marketing and social media.
 
“Our expanded platform is an outgrowth of our original website content management system,” explains OffWhite co-founder Bill White. “It’s an affordable, cloud-based solution, easy to use, scalable and very broad in what utilities you choose to switch on.”
 
Users frustrated with complicated, expensive marketing platforms that require programming will be delighted with OffWhite's simplified experience. “The user can access all digital media pathways via a single dashboard,” says White. “This includes website content, blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn and many other functions.” White insists users will not need an IT staff to manage the Ed.it2 cloud.
 
The cloud-based expansion is the latest evolution of Ed.it2, which OffWhite has continually optimized since the platform's launch 10 years ago per the request of a Japanese client. “Since then, it has evolved with new features and utilities as the industry evolves,” notes White.
 
Now, small- to medium-sized businesses that lack the budget for expensive content management systems can opt for OffWhite's services. “We have an affinity for emerging growth and small to medium businesses, especially technology companies,” says White. “They need common sense solutions for tapping into their own websites and social media without lots of infrastructure. That’s just a fraction of what Ed.it2 offers.”
 
 
Source: Bill White
Writer: Joe Baur

Last month, the city of Cincinnati adopted Nextdoor, a free, private social network that aims to improve community engagement between the city and its residents, and to foster neighbor-to-neighbor communications.
 
Each of Cincinnati’s 52 neighborhoods will have its own private Nextdoor neighborhood website, which is accessible only to residents of that neighborhood. City administrations and several city departments will also use Nextdoor to share important news, services, programs, free events and emergency notifications to residents, but they won’t be able to see who is registered to use the site or the conversations among residents.
 
Founded in 2010 in San Francisco, Nextdoor’s mission is to bring back a sense of community to the neighborhood.
 
“We all remember what our neighborhood experience was like as kids, when everyone knew each other, looked out for one another and stayed in the community longer," says Sarah Leary, co-founder of Nextdoor. “We want to invoke that nostalgia for neighborhoods.”
 
To date, Nextdoor is being used by about 17,000 neighborhoods across the country. In June, Nextdoor partnered with New York City and Mayor Bloomberg to communicate with the city’s 8.3 million residents. The site plans to roll out in other major cities like Cincinnati over the course of the next several months.
 
Nextdoor also recently released its iPhone app. “We’re really putting the lifeline of the neighborhood into the palm of the residents’ hands,” says Leary. “The common thread is an interest in using technology to make connections with neighbors. But it doesn’t stop there—once people have an easy way to communicate, they’re more likely to get together in the real world.”


By Caitlin Koenig

Young merchants and clerks of Cincinnati came together in 1835 to found and organize the Mercantile Library, which to this day maintains historic collections of books and artwork in the city. It is recognized as “one of the oldest cultural institutions in the Midwest.” 

When the young minds and innovators came together at that time, in what was one of the largest cities in the United States, the goal was to move Cincinnati forward. 

To this day, that goal remains the same. And earlier this year, the library hosted a Hackathon—an event that brought together young coders who possess the ideas and skills needed to market the library and its offerings to a younger generation. 

“At a typical hackathon, some people will have an idea of a team they want to get together and a project, or a product they want to launch," says Zach Zimmerman, a member of the Hackathon’s first-place team, and who is now working to build the library a new website.

"But at the core of the hackathon, you push it out to people, and they come, and you break off into groups and start to ideate about what you could do, what you could build to provide a solution that hasn’t been thought about before or that could really push a company or product over the edge and make it something big.” 

Zimmerman says one of the ideas his team had to make the library’s website appealing was to rely simply on the building’s beauty and grandeur, as the space showcases history and sells itself through its offerings to the public. 

“The building is gorgeous," he says. "The art that’s there, and just flipping through some of the books—these are 200- to 300-year old books, and the art and just the labor that went into making them—it’s just fascinating to me. I just felt very inspired, and our team actually worked at the library when the hackathon kicked off. They said you could go out and about, and at the end of the hackathon, come back and present your ideas. But we actually stayed at the library the majority of the time because it was a very inspiring place—somewhere I felt pushed to do more.” 


By Brittany York

The fourth annual Cleveland Give Camp was held this weekend on the LeanDog boat by Burke Lakefront Airport. From Friday, July 19 through Sunday, July 21, volunteers helped 18 chosen non-profits with their software and web-based application projects.
 
In addition to the developers, project managers, designers, creative professionals and other techies, Give Camp techie volunteers do everything from making sure everyone is well fed to cleaning up. “Each project team leader, project manager... Every single person who works on Give Camp is a volunteer,” explains spokesperson Amy Wong. “It’s a way for people with a unique set of skills to give back.”
 
But the people involved in Give Camp, many of which come back year after year, also have fun. Many pitch tents for the weekend, while others simply go without sleeping. The event is also a great techie networking opportunity.
 
“It’s fun, you get to spend the weekend on the lake with a great view,” says Wong. “You meet a lot of great people you never met before and hang with some really smart people. People get sucked in by the non-profits they work with.”
 
Some of the non-profits receiving help on their projects this year include the Free Clinic, LAND Studio, Malachi House and the May Dugan Center. In addition to LeanDog and Burke hosting the event, 12 additional companies sponsored Give Camp, including Arras Keathley, Explorys, JumpStart and Hyland Software.

“We’re really grateful to all of our sponsors,” says Wong. “They give us everything. They feed us breakfast, lunch and dinner and a special treat on Saturday night.”
 

Source: Amy Wong
Writer: Karin Connelly 

The Akron-based Software Craftsman Guild (SWC) has opened the first regional software development boot camp featuring intensive training for seven apprentices over 12 weeks.
 
“There is a severe shortage of qualified software development talent nationally,” says Eric Wise, President at SWC. “Our hiring network partners struggle with finding enough talent for their staffing goals and are reaching out to organizations like ours to identify intelligent and motivated people to fast track into the skill sets that are in demand.”
 
Wise walks through what participants will experience in the boot camp, saying the program is broken down into various technical aspects. “This program is very intense and besides the full-time work in the lab with the mentors, apprentices typically put in another 20 to 30 hours per week doing project work.”
 
Ultimately, Wise believes participants will benefit most by being surrounded by fellow apprentices who are in the same situation. “The best thing for the apprentices is that they are with up to a dozen other people who are going through the same learning curve that they are,” he explains. “They have a relatively consequence-free environment to experiment and really dive down into the material that they can't get from other sources.”
 
Various experts in the field are involved in the program, including Eric Ward who has a strong Java background. “He will be launching a parallel cohort this fall in the Java and open source stacks,” Wise says. Rounding out the team are Sarah Dutkiewicz and David Basarab who have both found success in consulting. If others would like to drop by, Wise says they are welcome. “We have an open door policy for IT professionals in our region to come in, visit and do presentations for the apprentices so that they can hear other voices besides ours and learn as much as they can about the field they are getting into.”
 
Wise and his team are excited to be part of the growing entrepreneurial scene throughout the state, especially in Akron. “Our region has been doing a great job through incubators and other initiatives to move the economy more towards knowledge work,” he says, noting their special place in meeting the technical talent gap. “We are proud to be retooling existing talent to place where needed as we bring brains into the region from other states.”
 
 
Source: Eric Wise
Writer: Joe Baur

Today, it seems that every retailer has a loyalty card leading to wallets stuffed with plastic and the potential for confusion. Cincinnati startup LOC Enterprises hopes to replace all those cards with the launch of its LOC Card.
 
The LOC Card is the first truly universal loyalty card that will not only allow consumers to stop carrying around handfuls of cards, but it will also allow them to manage all of their loyalty programs on one website.
 
While holiday shopping for his now 12-year-old son in 2011, LOC’s CEO and founder Jack Kennamer realized the problems of loyalty cards.
 
“I was standing in line at a sporting goods store, and I heard the cashier ask customer after customer if they had the store’s loyalty card,” Kennamer says. “Most people didn’t want one, but one lady decided to sign up for it, and I could see the guy behind her huffing and puffing while she filled out the registration form. And when the guy in front of me was asked if he had the store’s card, he held up his keychain and said ‘No room for you.’ I figured there had to be a better way.”
 
After that experience, Kennamer spent hours researching loyalty cards and programs, and found that there wasn’t a “universal” loyalty card.
 
“Consumers love to feel special and get free stuff and discounts, but it’s getting to the point where they have to work so hard to participate in loyalty programs,” he says.
 
Kennamer’s company developed a 100-percent consumer-centric card that allows consumers to tailor how they want to engage with each retailer. For example, a consumer may want to interact with Kroger one way and Best Buy another, so they can pick and choose which retailers with which to share their email address.
 
When a consumer signs up for the LOC Card, they’ll set up an account online, and anytime they go to a retailer that accepts the card, they swipe it once and they’re enrolled in that loyalty program. LOC’s website manages all of the loyalty programs for the consumer, so there’s only one email address and password instead of 100.
 
LOC is working with the companies that handle the analytic side of loyalty programs to better service consumers. The company is also building relationships with individual merchants and getting great feedback about the LOC Card.
 
The LOC Card isn’t just tailored to large businesses, though. “The problem small businesses have is they don’t stand a chance because they’re so far down the totem pole when it comes to loyalty,” says Kennamer. “With the LOC Card, you swipe your card at the retailer once and you’re signed up for their loyalty program. After that, it’s up to the consumer to come back, and the retailer can reach out and give the consumer personalized offers to start repeat behaviors.”
 
The LOC Card isn’t available to consumers yet, but you can pre-register on LOC’s website.
 

Writer: Caitlin Koenig
Follow Caitlin on Twitter

Oberlin College and Cleveland-based FlashStarts are partnering on an entrepreneurship fellowship, providing a team of Oberlin graduates from the Oberlin Entrepreneurship Fellowship program with a slot in FlashStarts’ business accelerator program this summer.
 
“In this partnership, FlashStarts will be acting as a capstone for recent graduates of Oberlin College,” explains Charles Stack, CEO of FlashStarts. One team from Oberlin has already been slotted to join a class of 11 startups in the inaugural class. Startups range from a cloud-based marketplace that matches students with editors to a web application that coordinates clinical trials.
 
Stack has been involved with Oberlin since 2009 when he invested in the winner of that year’s fellowship program, Skritter – a Chinese and Japanese writing educational application. “The Oberlin Entrepreneur Fellowship Program is one of the best programs around,” boasts Stack. “The school is full of students who think outside of the box and have the drive to create enterprises that can change the world.”
 
FlashStarts’ business accelerator follows a model of “rapid iterations and continuous market validation,” Stack explains. “Each team in our program is receiving an investment of up to $20,000, access to a network of brilliant and experienced mentors, the assistance of interns, and guidance and resources customized to meet specific needs.”
 
The first summer program began on June 3 with the 11 teams that were picked from a pool of 85 applicants from across the globe. Though all the companies are software-based, Stack says there’s plenty of diversity in the program. “Two of the companies will revolutionize the healthcare industry, while another is reinventing the online graphic novel,” says Stack. “One of the companies offers a hardware and software solution for processing big data that I only totally understand on a good day with a full night’s sleep.”
 
Ultimately, Stack is holding FlashStarts and his supported startups to a high standard.
 
“You can expect nothing less than the creation of 11 successful businesses that will change the world.”
 
 
Source: Charles Stack
Writer: Joe Baur

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

NEOSA Tech Week returns for the third year, April 15-21 at various locations. “This year we reached out to a lot of community organizations around Northeast Ohio, like Team NEO, JumpStart and the Regional IT Engagement (RITE) Board,” says NEOSA director Brad Nellis. “We have expanded content, including Information Security Summit’s Spring Summit and NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge.”

The week-long event will also include pitch nights hosted by JumpStart and the Society for Information Management, networking events and Global Cleveland’s IT virtual job fair. The highlights of the week are the Best in Tech Awards and Crain’s CIO of the Year award.

Finalists for Tech Company of the Year include Explorys, Hyland Software, OnShift, TOA Technologies and Vox Mobile. “It’s a great group every year,” says Nellis of the Best in Tech nominees. “But there are some really cool up-and-coming companies in there this year.”

Other categories include Best Emerging Company, Best Software Product, Best IT Services Company and Best Mobile App. “Best app is a little risky with that category because we’re trying to pick apps that have a great shot,” says Nellis. A new category this year is Most Promising Startup. “We want to capture those really early stage companies that are getting early recognition.” Most promising startup finalists include InStore Finance, iOTOS and Public Insight Corporation.

There are a few new companies in the mix too, says Nellis, such as Blue Chip Consulting, Level Seven Group, OEConnection and Relational Solutions.

NEOSA received more than 60 nominations across all categories. About 1,300 people are expected to attend this year, up from 500 in 2011 and 900 in 2012.

The weekend culminates with NEOSA and Tri-C hosting the NASA Space Apps Challenge, an event involving 75 cities around the world. Volunteers spend the weekend coding to find new software solutions to improve life on earth and in space. The event ends with interactive judging of the teams’ solutions and awards.

The full schedule of events and locations is available on the 2013 Tech Week website.


Source: Brad Nellis
Writer: Karin Connelly