Startup Roundup: Wharton restructures MBA program, news orgs get schooled by local

 
Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup parses out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. Follow along with the Startup Roundup’s dedicated newsletter or RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.
MUST READS
The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that Monetate has raised $5 million in venture capital to increase its staff from 30 to 50 employees with the help of First Round Capital.
Wharton faculty have approved a new design for its MBA program, which focuses on strengthened teaching of microeconomics, an integrated focus on ethical and legal responsibilities, more oral and written communication concentration and a new tack on self-reflection and self-analysis. Read the full announcement. In related news, Forbes covers the success sreak of marketing professor Leonard Lodish, who was an early investor in Diapers.com and Milo.com, which combined, exited for roughly $575 million. Lodish is currently working with DreamIt grad NoteHall and Philly’s First Flavor.

GIVE A GLANCE
Alex Hillman was in Phoenix this weekend — along with Technically Philly — at O’Reilly Media, Google and Knight Foundation’s NewsFoo, an unconference for news innovation. He writes a detailed and provacative pitch to news producers to move beyond advertising and to explore business models that work. It’s a good read for any business in crisis.
The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce gave some testimony before City Council, opposing the bill but crediting Bill Green and Maria Quinones-Sanchez for “recognizing the onerous tax burden on businesses in the City of Philadelphia.”
Azavea has announced a $216,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop advanced crime risk forecasting for its early warning software system HunchLab. Hello, Minority Report.
MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME
There’s a lot of search buzz for StartupWeekend, Philly Startup Leaders‘ weekendconference sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation, which features HOTorNOT’s Jim Young and Duck Duck Go’s Gabriel Weinberg. Not much information on this one yet, but details are forthcoming.
CIO magazine analyzes Merck’s use of ProtonMedia‘s 3D virtual reality conference platform ProtoSphere. The key to the business’s success? Attention to detail, like simulating posters and reproducing lighting and furniture of traditional real-life symposiums, which took 12 weeks to build, the article posits.
Campus Apartments, a local leader in developing student housing, has launched iPhone and Android apps to allow students to pay for rent online.
RJMetrics is offering prospective employees a free iPad or $500 for just interviewing with the company. Wow.
Startup Roundup will post weekly on Wednesdays until there’s not a Philly startup story left to link to on the Internet. See others here, or sign-up for its email newsletter.