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Philly daily roundup: Track power outages; Divergent college strategies; New PA Able website

Plus, the Smithsonian is partnering with Salesforce.

Independence Hall, viewed from the south (Sarah Huffman/Technical.ly)

Track power outages with ‘Is PECO Okay’

Ardmore resident Doug Muth, the brains behind transit tracker “Is SEPTA F*cked,” built IsPECOokay.com after losing power during a storm. The energy company’s status page is good, he said, but uses a lot of battery power, he said.

“Is PECO Okay” takes anonymized data from across the region and charts it over time. You can follow outage trends over the past 24 hours and see how many customers are impacted.

➡️ Get the details about how the dashboard runs and the trends Muth is seeing

Philly high schools address college differently

Two different types of high schools have different strategies for helping students figure out their next steps after graduation.

Criteria-based schools have specific requirement to admit students into the school and push college as the only option for students. Open-access schools don’t have specific admission requirements and share multiple options with students to build their careers.

➡️ Check out the details in this guest post from Joseph Sageman

News Incubator: What else to know today

• The Smithsonian Institution is partnering with Salesforce to make its exhibits, ticketing and donations easier to access for visitors. [Technical.ly]

• Philly Startup Leaders announced Gloria Bell would be the nonprofit’s new board president, taking over for Rudy Ellis. [LinkedIn]

• The City of Philadelphia is accepting letters of intent for Digital Literacy Alliance grants until the end of this week. The grants will support digital literacy, equity and inclusion projects. [City of Philadelphia]

• The Pennsylvania Treasury released the redesigned version of its PA ABLE website. PA Able helps Pennsylvanians with disabilities save and invest money. [PA ABLE]

🗓️ On the Calendar

• This Thursday’s free Venture Cafe gathering in University City will focus on “Scalable Solutions” and creating programs with impact. [Details here]

• WordPress Philly Meetup is back with its first IRL event in a while, held Thursday at Chapterhouse Cafe & Gallery in Bella Vista. [Details here]

Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.

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