On June 9th, Tech in Motion is proud to present their first annual Philadelphia Timmy Awards, which will be held at The Chemical Heritage Foundation (315 Chestnut St). The “Timmys” are hosted by Tech in Motion in tech hubs across North America, with the goal of acknowledging the local companies and individuals that strive to create the best places for technology professionals to work in. After all the votes are in, the finalists in each city come together for one celebratory evening where the winners are crowned as the best (1) tech startup, (2) technology manager, and (3) technology work culture. Here are Philadelphia’s 30 impressive finalists (who you can see at the event if you RSVP below):
RSVP here to attend the 1st Annual Philadelphia Timmy Awards!
Philadelphia’s Best Technology Startup
Biobots, founded in 2014, builds 3D printers that print living tissues made out of human cells. Biobots’ revolutionary technology is set to cure disease, eliminate the organ waiting list, and even revert climate change.
Boxter, founded in 2014, creates solutions for businesses to help them grow faster. Boxter’s main product funnel makes websites intelligent and answers questions that no one else can. Boxter hopes to help bring Philly’s tech scene to the next level with its innovative technology.
Curalate, founded in 2012, produces products that address 
a marketer’s desire to attribute ROI to social media. Curalate provides the power to drive engagement, traffic, and revenue with images across every consumer touchpoint, empowering millions of people daily to easily take action on the products they want from the brands they love.
Greenfish Labs, founded in 2015, is a media production studio specializing in 360 Virtual Reality, helping brands thrive in a digital world with traditional media and VR products, services, and platforms that transform the customer experience. Greenfish Labs is one of the first ambassadors of VR in the Greater Philadelphia Region.
LeadiD, founded in 2011, is a consumer journey insight platform that provides marketers with the highest-resolution view of the consumer buying journey. Seamlessly integrated with any consumer journey decision process, LeadiD enables marketers to shorten the distance between data and decision making.
MilkCrate, founded in 2014, built a mobile and desktop-
friendly platform which encourages, captures, and rewards socially and environmentally positive activity. MilkCrate guides communities to engage their members in a step-by-step process, crafting a culture around social and environmental impact.
Relay Network, founded in 2010, is a simple and secure way for businesses and customers to instantly connect and share private communications in real-time. Through a direct mobile interface, Relay allows consumers to quickly and easily complete transactions, access timely information, and get one-to-one support from the businesses and organizations that matter most in their lives.
ROAR for Good, founded in 2014, created Athena, a simple device with a big mission - to protect women with the touch of a button. Once pressed, it emits a loud alarm and messages friends and family with your current GPS location. Not only did ROAR for Good develop an awesome piece of wearable tech - but they are also working to make a difference in helping to reduce attacks again women.
Swift Capital, founded in 2011, uses the latest technologies combined with a team of Business Funding Experts to get their customers the best of both worlds: fast funding and personalized service. Armed with a mission to provide funding to businesses underserved since the recession, Swift combines innovative data analytics with a relationship-focused customer experience.
VeryApt, founded in 2013, combines personalized apartment recommendations and a trusted community of apartment reviews to help people find their perfect apartment. VeryApt is the first company to empower renters to make truly informed housing decisions.
Vote for one of these Tech Startups to win a Timmy!
Philadelphia’s Best Technology Work Culture
Analytical Graphics Inc. (AGI)
“Always striving to do more."
AGI encourages its developers to continue their education and participate in community events. They participate in professional software and aerospace conferences, publishing and presenting their research. AGI also provides a subscription to online training called Plural Sight that is a development specific training site.
AGI develops commercial modeling and analysis software for land, sea, air, and space systems.
AWeber
"Dream big, fail fast, and iterate on what works.”
AWeber HQ regularly hosts technically focused meet-ups and company hack-a-thons to encourage the team and the community to grow and learn new ways of doing things. AWeber prides itself on a culture of respect and cooperation that doesn't come from policy, it comes from treating people like people ‐ the way everyone should be treated.
AWeber develops and runs an opt-in email marketing service used by over 110,000+ small businesses, bloggers, and entrepreneurs around the globe.
Comcast (CIM)
“Find the right tool, or create one.”
Comcast promotes a "journeyman-style" exchange program called "Summer of Code" where, for several months, employees can trade their existing positions for opportunities within other technical departments within the company to both learn AND spread ideas, best practices, and technical skills.
While traditionally seen as a primarily service-based company, Comcast’s talented technical teams have been trying to move into the hardware and hybrid services realm for years.
CoreDial
“Judgement free zone.”
CoreDial allows their employees to create the best solutions for its channel partners by allowing a free flowing range of solutions to be identified and deployed. Implementing hands-on training, shadowing co-workers and teams with more experience, CoreDial fosters personal growth.
CoreDial provides unified communication services in the cloud and on premise.
eMoney Advisors
“Creating fun and a little weirdness along the way."
The culture at eMoney is driven by the pursuit of disruptive innovation, promoting creativity, advancing technology, supporting community involvement, among more. eMoney’s development team regularly hosts highly-attended workshops in a faux garage, aptly named the “Innovation Lab.”
eMoney Advisor builds interactive wealth-planning technology for financial professionals and the clients they serve.
Linode
“Team-driven camaraderie."
Linode encourages all of its Linodians to enhance their technical knowledge and will pay for continuing education courses, such as Linux certification, PhotoShop instruction seminars, or subscriptions to Lynda.com's online technical tutorials.
Linode provides market-best SSD-based virtualization for cloud hosting purposes, backed by steadfast support.
Monetate
“Be both a Padawan and a Jedi."
Monetate believes very much that diversity is the mother of creativity. For this and other reasons, Monetate formed a committee dedicated to the topic of diversity. Monetate sponsors local events focused on diversity (e.g. LadyHacks), and employees frequently attend these events. To encourage creativity Monetate hosts “hack days” once a quarter where its employees spend three days working on a project that is not on the roadmap.
Monetate makes it easy to create, deliver, and analyze personalized experiences across web, email, and mobile apps.
Music Choice
“Creativity and endless limits.”
Music Choice has a program called Engineering Choice, where employees can pitch a project they feel would be beneficial to the company. After presenting it to the entire department, if it gets approval they’re given the opportunity to work on that project.
Music Choice creates products that allow seamless movement between audio and video and provides easy access to a library of 20,000 videos.
O3 World
“Innovation through experimentation.”
O3 World allows its employees to work on projects that would benefit the office is a positive way. One such project - using custom-built iOS and Android apps, iBeacons, and a Raspberry Pi, makes is so that each employee is greeted by a song he or she has personally selected when he or she walks into the office. "Theme Music" a simple, but fun way to start the day off on the right foot.
O3 World specializes in digital product design and development, from conceptualization through implementation and support.
Weblinc
“Work hand in hand.”
WebLinc is a company this nurtures its employees by providing technical learning reimbursement and sponsoring local tech initiatives such as Girls Develop It. Each WebLinc-er is very much a part of the creative process and is considered an expert in their field.
Weblinc provides an ecommerce platform for fast growing brands.
Vote now for the company you think has created the best workplace!
Philadelphia’s Top Tech Managers
Anthony Romano, VP of Engineering at Leadnomics
“Greatest project is his team."
Anthony makes an effort get to know each of his team members as people. You can tell by the way his team works together and enjoys each other's company that they feel comfortable with each other, trust each other, and have fun together.
Leadnomics is a digital marketing company headquartered in Philadelphia. Through its proprietary technology platform and expertise in optimization, Leadnomics has developed an industry-leading solution and partner network that creates more valuable relationships between consumers and service providers.
Chris Cera, CEO at ArcWeb Technologies
“Employee-to-employee mentoring."
Chris ensures a great team culture by listening to his team. He firmly believes that its the team that defines the culture. Chris champions employee-to-employee mentoring and career development opportunities within Arcweb Technologies and believes that Arcweb exists to create new possibilities for Arcwebers and its customers.
Arcweb Technologies is a digital product development company focused on the finance and healthcare industries, and our mission is to build products people love.
Don Nawrocki, CTO at PeopleLinx
“Creates an environment of openness.”
Don openly tells people in his organization that he knows that they look at other job opportunities and sometimes interview. Accepting this, he asks that if they find other offers that are attractive that they are in turn open with him, so that he can either agree that moving on is the right decision for the person, reply with a counter-offer, or offer career advice where he can. This helps people understand whether the grass is actually greener and recognize when they are being treated and compensated fairly.
PeopleLinx helps sales professionals create presence, networks, and engagement with buyers. Its technology integrates with your CRM data to deliver personalized sales guidance.
Felicite Moorman, CEO at StratIS
“Huge advocate for women and girls in tech.”
Felicite ensures a great team culture by giving back to the Philadelphia community. She and her team participate annually in Philly Tech Week, as supporters and speakers for multiple events, to promote the growth of technology in Philadelphia. Felicite is an active speaker and recent advocate for TechGirlz, as well as mentor through BuLogics’ Girls in Tech Internship Program.
StratIS is an award-winning wireless access, energy, and automation platform for multifamily and campus communities, the commercial residential platform of Smart Cities.
Gabrielle Trotter, Linchpin at BuLogics, Inc.
“Candid and consistent feedback.”
Gabrielle is a clear cultural leader at BuLogics and beyond. From organizing company events and outings (such as an annual 100 mile bike ride and Dave & Buster's blowouts) to being a shoulder to lean on for her teammates, Gabrielle steps up and in where it matters most, at the heart of the company!
From idea to shelf, BuLogics designs, builds, and certifies wireless solutions for the Internet of Things.
JD Albert, Director of Engineering at Bresslergroup
“A kid with a new LEGO set.”
JD will actively engage his team members and ask – what are your goals? What would you like to spend more time learning about? After discussion comes action: You get assigned to work on a project in your interest area, or you get to sign up for a crash course in something new. JD gives you the option to blaze ahead into new territory.
Bresslergroup is a research-driven product innovation lab and consultancy whose employees work together every day to creatively solve meaningful design problems in unexpected ways.
Jody Hamilton, CTO at Zivtech
“Consistent challenges and rewards.”
Jody is committed to ensuring that employees grow into more senior roles through training and challenges. Under her guidance, Jody has brought many people to Zivtech who did not have previous developer training. One employee with a degree in architecture, got her first Drupal lessons in Jody's living room. This employee is now a technical documentation specialist at Zivtech, working with one of the company’s Fortune 50 clients.
Zivtech, founded in 2008, is a Philadelphia web design and web development shop that works with healthcare, pharmaceuticals, education, publishing, government, startups, and nonprofits.
Mike Harris, CEO at Zonoff, Inc.
“Equal parts transparency, collaboration and results.”
Mike is family-oriented and considers each of Zonoff’s employees to be part of his family, so he created a warm, comfortable company culture that inspires through a relaxing, enjoyable and productive environment. Creating a sense of community is one of Mike’s primary missions, so he created a large kitchen for the office to serve as a gathering area for the company, bringing in food and snacks for employees, having beer on tap for after-hours imbibing, and hosting executive breakfasts where the executive team makes waffles and omelets for the company.
Zonoff empowers the world’s leading brands to deliver smart, seamless living to the mass market through its Consumer Internet of Things software and services platform.
Natalie Hirsch, Director of Product Management at WizeHive
“Rolled-up sleeves management style.”
Natalie is always mentoring team members, and giving them the opportunity to lead, as well. She is diligent in providing educational resources …from holding a weekly class on the software solutions with recordings, case studies, homework and office hours... to showing others how to approach better agile project management techniques. The newer and less seasoned team members respect her and try to emulate her professional and people-centered approach.
WizeHive makes it easier for grants managers, nonprofits and business teams to configure and deploy cloud-based solutions that help them organize, automate and streamline their business process management.
Ryan Lockard, Manager of Software Engineering at Elsevier
“Actively pursues increasing productivity.”
Ryan cares about his teams and actively pursues increasing productivity and tackling our technical debt. He actively walks his team through their career path and works with them to improve and reach their goals.
Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health, and technology professionals, empowering them to make better decisions, and deliver better care.
Vote for the Best Technology Manager here!
The Timmy Awards ceremony will celebrate the local technology community and also recognize not only the winners, but the entire Philly community for creating a great business environment to thrive in. The event itself will be a great opportunity to network with finalists and other members of the tech community.
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