Technology to help you get pregnant

Mar 29, 2013

Startups & Venture Capital

Startup uses technology to help women get pregnant

Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal

 

 W. Marc Bernsau

The average woman is only fertile for four days out of every 28 – or just about 14 percent of the time. Due to that short window and numerous other factors, more than 10 percent of couples in the U.S. have trouble getting pregnant, according to Cambridge startup Ovuline.
Through its evolving fertility-tracking technology, Ovuline aims to decrease that percentage and enable women and their partners to take more control of their conception.
Launched in June 2012, the company has developed two products: Smart Fertility, which helps women keep tabs on their ovulation cycles, and Smart Pregnancy, which uses health tracking devices to monitor various factors from conception to delivery.
So far, 2,200 women have conceived while using Ovuline’s Web and mobile tools, according to CEO Paris Wallace. They’re getting pregnant in about 60 days, as opposed to the national average of four to six months, he said.
Ovuline’s processes can “significantly reduce the time to pregnancy,” Wallace said.
The company participated in the fall 2012 session of TechStars Boston, and employs seven. The startup is backed by $1.45 million in seed funding led by Lightbank, LaunchCapital, LionBird and TechStars CEO David Cohen.
The Smart Fertility application now has 35,000 users, Wallace said, with a Web version costing $50 and a mobile app $10 (free versions are also available for both).
When women sign up, the Smart Fertility application provides key health information that aids in personalizing the service.
From there, Ovuline’s algorithm technology — based on clinical guidelines and data points collected from users — helps identify when they’re ovulating, and provides a personalized plan with advice on what to do every day to increase their chances of becoming pregnant. They can also order various supplies, including pregnancy tests, thermometers and vitamins.
The program ultimately guides couples through the conception process, and the more time they spend with it, the more accurate the analysis becomes, Wallace said. With the data points collected from users, Ovuline is able to provide increasingly accurate predictions, he said.
“Really, the idea is to understand a woman’s cycle,” he said.
Tatiana Baron of Canton – wife of Ovuline chief technology officer Alex Baron – began using the product as soon as it went live, and she said she found it addictive. She logged in several times a day to input health information, write notes to herself and analyze patterns.
The result: She was soon pregnant, with her now 4-month-old son, Michael. According to Wallace, she was the first woman to become pregnant while using Ovuline.
“This was the first time we tried getting pregnant,” Alex Baron said, “and it worked.”
Meanwhile, the company’s other product, Smart Pregnancy, makes use of Wi-Fi-enabled body scales and wireless health tracking devices – such as the Fitbit tracker — to keep tabs on a woman’s weight, blood pressure, nutrition intake, activity and sleep cycles. A group of experts, — comprised of a dietician, prenatal certified trainer, pregnancy adviser, and program coach — monitor progress and offer personalized recommendations, or alert women if they see trends that could be worrisome.
The product will be available to the public in the third quarter of 2013, through the Web and an iOS app, Wallace said.

Original story link here.

"Normal" fun

New social group unites special-needs teens and adults

 

By Taryn Plumb

Globe Correspondent /  March 27, 2013 

 

 

 

Nathan Pouliot is a tall, soft-spoken 26-year-old — 27 in May, he’ll emphasize when you ask — with a genuine smile and a delicate handshake who likes the same things as most 20-somethings: music, movies, dancing, and, of course, pizza.

But because he has a developmental disorder, lives with his parents, and doesn’t work, he has next to nothing of a social life.

It’s a common issue among those with disabilities, and earlier this year, his mother set out to change it.

The result is a dedicated, Amesbury-based social group for adults with special needs. The burgeoning group attracts a blend of ages and from high-functioning to autistic to its weekly gatherings.

But, as Barbara Pouliot stressed, “To me, they’re all ‘normal.’ We all need a normal social life.”

After creating a page on meetup.com, she organized the first event — food, music, and board games — for about a half-dozen who came on Jan. 7; membership has since grown to more than a dozen, with many coming from well beyond Amesbury to play games and bowl, watch movies, dance, pig out on junk food, and otherwise socialize. Attendees pay up to $15 per event to cover expenses.

On a recent bowling night, members began to filter in around 5:15, wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with “Amesbury Social Meetup,” greeting each other with waves and hugs.

“He comes home and he’s happy,” Debra Doucette of Newburyport said of her 16-year-old, Stuart Linenfelser, seated nearby. Although he’s involved with music therapy and Special Olympics, he can tend to get “isolated,” particularly in the summer, his mother said.

“This has huge potential, and it’s a good thing for these kids.”

“Mummy, I need help,” her son proclaimed as he struggled to loop the laces on a blue-and-black shoe.

“Try doing it one more time,” she encouraged. “Take a deep breath and just try it again. Go slow, ’cause I know you can do it.”

He scrunched his face into a pout, crossed his arms, and emphatically shook his head. “I can’t.”

Eventually, she obliged, but stressed, “I want him to learn, because as an adult, he’s going to have to do it.”

Around them, others also were lacing up their bowling shoes. A few requiring lots of help, others a little, some none. Soon, they settled into the game, assisted by volunteer Kelly Gallagher, 22, a University of Massachusetts Lowell student, and Janis Hibbins, a redhead with a big smile who was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and is one of the group’s higher-functioning members.

Hibbins, 22, helps the others with “anything they need,” she said.

“I have a blast,” she said. “It’s nice to get out of the house.”

And before? “I really didn’t do anything” socially, she said.

As two rounds of bowling proceeded in adjacent lanes, some chucked the ball so it landed with a hard “thunk!” and knocked against bumpers; others rolled it gently, used two hands, positioned themselves halfway down the lane, or bucked the process by rolling out all the balls before the first one made it down to hit the pins.

Next up: Nathan Welch, 26, (who isn’t very talkative, but smiles a lot and shows excitement by rubbing his head and letting out a little screech). Gallagher guided him to position, handed him a ball, and encouraged with a smile and a nod: “Go ahead.”

He put it down at the very end of the lane and gave it the slightest nudge, so it barely rolled until reaching the end and knocking over one pin.

Linenfelser, meanwhile, settled into a catcher’s crouch, wound the ball back between his legs with both hands, then rocketed it down the lane.

The group was boisterous with conversation, laughter, and the cheering-on of every player, whether they hit none or all of the pins.

Pouliot, all the while, serves as a mother, mentor, and pal — she goes from helping tie shoes, to consoling tears, to chatting members up about school and work.

“We all just click,” she said with a shrug. “It’s fun, friendship. They’ve already bonded. They have fun, they look forward to it. So do I.”

“He looks forward to this so much,” Randy Welch of North Andover agreed of her son Jason.

He was born with Fragile X syndrome, a genetic intellectual disability that affects his speech and development. But that doesn’t stop him from having fun — he is described as “the dancing machine” on the group’s meetup.com site — and, like many other members, he spends his days at the Coastal Connections, an Amesbury center for those with varied disabilities.

“It just makes them feel part of something,” Randy Welch said. “Everybody deserves to have socialization and something to look forward to.”

“It gives us a break also,” she added with a laugh. “I take advantage of these few hours.”

Beyond the appreciation of both members and parents, the group also has received an infusion of support from the community.

Get-togethers alternate between Leo’s Super Bowl, which provides a discount on group bowling and free use of shoes, and The Barn Pub & Grille, which opens its upstairs on a night it’s usually closed. Meanwhile, the Stop & Shop in town donates a $25 gift card every month to buy snacks.

Movie nights have been held at Stage Two Cinema Pub, and Pouliot is planning some new events for the summer.

She’s a proud mother of two kids with special needs: Nathan, who she calls her “inspiration,” and Melissa, 13, who she adopted at age 10. She and her husband Paul also have two other grown children, and four grandchildren (with another on the way).

“You can’t imagine the joy,” she said proudly of Melissa as she prepared for the group on a recent Monday night at the bowling alley.

One of her daughter’s recent accomplishments is riding a bike without training wheels. “She’s blossomed,” her mother said.

“I wish other communities could start something like this,” she said. “It’s so much fun, I can’t tell you.”

Original story link here. 

© Copyright 2013 Globe Newspaper Company.

A Match.com for coaches and players

Mar 22, 2013

Startups & Venture Capital

CoachUp: At the top of their game

Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal

W. Marc Bernsau

Jordan Fliegel says he was a decent basketball player as a teen. But he admits he initially spent more time on the bench than the court.
Then his parents hired a personal coach. Equipped with new skills, he went on to become a varsity starter in high school and a starter at Bowdoin College, before playing professionally in Israel from 2008 to 2010.
Later, when he became a coach himself, he figured there had to be a service that linked private coaches and players. There wasn’t. So he started one.
Launched in May 2012, Fliegel’s CoachUp site now lists more than 6,000 coaches across the country specializing in nearly 60 sports, according to Fliegel.
A graduate of the MassChallenge and TechStars Boston startup accelerators, the Boston-based company now has 20 employees.
CoachUp received a $2.2 million round of investment led by General Catalyst Partners and Breakaway Innovation Group in November.
“Private coaching is the best way to improve in sports, period,” said Fliegel, who holds an MBA from Tel Aviv University and previously worked for Waltham-based Zintro.
Players or their parents visit the CoachUp website to search for coaches in their area, specializing in anything from traditional sports like basketball or football, to motocross or baton-twirling. They can then choose to book directly through the site – just one session or a package of them – or contact the coach.
It’s free for all coaches to join. They are all given background checks, and to be eligible, the coaches have to have either played or coached at the collegiate level or higher. The goal, according to Fliegel, is to create a “meritocracy” – coaches are scored and ranked based on reviews and the numbers of sessions booked.
The site has been keeping Brandon Ball busy.
The Boston-based basketball coach typically trains athletes twice a day, ramping up to four to six times a day in the summer, working with players from elementary-school age to college students.
“I love helping kids out,” Ball said. “It’s gratifying when you get a kid to thank you, and really see their development. CoachUp is special. It provides opportunities for players to really develop.”
CoachUp receives a cut of the training packages and coaches’ earnings facilitated through the site. Going forward, one focus for the startup will be to work more closely with coaches to help them build out and manage their businesses. The company also hopes to forge partnerships with youth sports organizations, trade associations and governing bodies for youth sports, said Fliegel, who coaches basketball and takes boxing lessons through CoachUp.
But, ultimately, private coaching doesn’t just have to be for elite athletes, or families with ample disposable income.
“Sports play a positive role in shaping peoples’ lives,” Fliegel said. “No matter what stage you’re at, you can do a little better, and private coaching goes a long way.”

Original story link.

Finding the latest and greatest

Mar 15, 2013

Startups & Venture Capital

‘Citizen commerce’ for undiscovered products

Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal 

W. Marc Bernsau

Countless products are created by entrepreneurs and tinkerers alike, only to inevitably collect dust. That’s because, according to Jules Pieri, while coming up with a unique and innovative product is a crucial first step, the real difficulty is getting it known — and getting it to scale.
This is where Pieri aims to turn the traditional retail model “sideways”: Her company, Lexington-based Daily Grommet, provides a platform for relatively undiscovered products, all the while fostering the concept of “citizen commerce.”
Enabled by social networks, video and broadband capabilities, the “age-old human drive to create a physical product is suddenly becoming available to the average person,” said Pieri, CEO and co-founder of the firm. “There are an amazing supply of products that are all dressed up with nowhere to go.”
Founded in 2007, Daily Grommet provides a curated online shopping site and product launch platform. Every day at noon, a new item is featured in a short, high-quality video explaining its features and the human story behind it. Consumers can then purchase it, and importantly, provide crucial feedback. (The items are called “grommets,” a wink to old-fashioned hardware, Pieri explained.)
Daily Grommet earns revenue using the retail model, buying its products at wholesale prices and selling at retail prices.
The site has launched 1,000 products so far in a range of categories, ranging from PetPaint fur spray, to UV-absorbing clothing, to Sugru self-setting rubber. As Pieri explained, the company now receives 150 to 200 submissions a week.
The vetting done by the company helps to take the risk out of buying new inventions, Pieri said, and presents their creators with performance data and helps them assess whether they’re ready for mainstream adoption.
It’s a service that’s “exceptionally unique” for a fledgling business, said Joshua Resnikoff, co-founder of Somerville-based Cuppow, which created no-spill lids that transform canning jars into travel mugs. They went live with their invention in January 2012, were featured on Daily Grommet in April, and have since become one of the site’s top-selling kitchen items.
Last year, they sold 125,000 of their lids — far exceeding their expectations, Resnikoff said — and they plan to roll out additional products in coming weeks.
“It’s one more personal review from somebody who can touch the object and tell people how it works,” he said of Daily Grommet, and it’s also “an opportunity to talk directly to potential customers.”
Pieri’s goal is to have consumers be an integral part of the process; she trademarked the term “Citizen Commerce,” a concept intended to allow consumers to create a new shopping experience by suggesting and rating items based on their values and interests, and by supporting small producers.
The company, which employs 36, has raised $5.7 million from about 35 angel investors, and in August the firm announced an undisclosed Series B round from Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, which is also an investor in Pinterest.
The company’s goal is to feature many more “grommets” on a daily basis, Pieri said, and to also continue to invest in talent and infrastructure.
She’d also like to see a bit more competition from other sites with a similar approach to Daily Grommet, to help spur the creative economy and current wave of innovation. “We can’t help all the companies we see,” she said.

Original story link.

A smartphone army

Mar 8, 2013

Startups & Venture Capital

Mobee deploys mystery shoppers with app 

Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal

W. Marc Bernsau

Everybody shops, and an ever-increasing percentage of people have smart phones.
With those facts in mind, Boston-based Mobee is offering an app that aims to be mutually beneficial to stores and their patrons. The app essentially allows anyone to become a mystery shopper, and, in doing so, provides businesses with detailed, valuable data that likely wouldn’t be gleaned from traditional mystery shopper visits.
Launched in mid-November, and with “tens of thousands” of users already, the company built its app on the crowdsourcing model to create a literal smartphone army, CEO Prahar Shah said.
“They can go out across anywhere in the Boston area, collect any type of data,” Shah said. “(They provide) eyes and ears as an extension of the auditing and monitoring that store owners are doing.”
Currently the app is only available on Apple iOS, but the company expects to release an Android version soon. The app is currently mostly focused on quick-service, franchised restaurant chains within Greater Boston.
Users go on various “missions” at a certain location — their local Starbucks, for example — and rate it on anything from service speed, to cleanliness, to staff appearance, knowledge or hospitality. Mobee doesn’t currently partner with any businesses. But the firm is collecting the data to show how the service works and eventually plans to pitch its service to restaurant chains and other retailers.
With each mission, users collect points that can eventually be redeemed for gift cards, PayPal cash payments, and possibly $1,000 shopping sprees or Red Sox tickets.
“It’s the first of its kind in being an app that pays you,” said Shah, who launched the company in October 2011 with Thibault Le Conte and Jef Chedeville.
Businesses, meanwhile, will get detailed data and feedback they can’t get anywhere else, Shah said.
Missions are available at more than 500 stores, with users collecting more than a half-million data points so far.
Through the rewards that user Lisa Nowak Wilkins of Brookline has earned, the stay-at-home mom has cashed in about $600 in Amazon.com gift cards — in $50 increments — since January, which she uses to buy essentials for her 9-month-old son.
She said she is eager to see more stores included, and she said she could see a trend emerging — people going out “to go Mobeeing.”
Mobee has 10 employees, and is backed by $1.1 million led by TiE Angels, and also including LaunchCapital, Hub Angels and other angel investors.
Shah said he would like Mobee to eventually tailor its service to a retailer’s particular goals and specifications.
To that end, Mobee will soon begin a pilot project with Au Bon Pain to solicit feedback on the app and its capabilities, and they’re identifying other potential partners as well.
Ultimately, the app’s popularity has surpassed nearly all the goals the company set for it, and at this point, the company’s founders are thinking way beyond Boston, quick-serve restaurants, and mystery shopping. The model could be applied to retail merchandising, market research and field intelligence, Shah said, and could be deployed nationally and internationally. The company already has a waiting list of thousands of users in different U.S. cities, he said.
“Not in our wildest dreams could we have assumed that this would be so popular,” Shah said.

Original story link.

Riding to heal

Watertown

Film follows vet’s grueling ride for PTSD

By Taryn Plumb

Globe Correspondent /  March 2, 2013 

A good day meant 85 to 90 miles on the road — and sometimes he pedaled into the night, guided by a flashlight. 
He slept on gym floors, in motel rooms without electricity, in a tent in 30-degree weather that had him waking up to near-numb toes and frozen drinking water. He battled all kinds of weather, aggressive drivers, rude authority figures.
And in one week, Camilo Atehortua cycled 520 miles from Boston to Washington, D.C., enduring physical and mental trials, and witnessing the beauty and brute power of Mother Nature, and the best and worst of humanity.
The Watertown resident’s trek, completed to raise awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder, is chronicled in an independent, locally produced documentary, “Ride Crazy: The Single Man March.”
A native of Colombia and veteran of the Marine Corps who did a seven-month tour in Iraq, Atehortua suffers from the condition, known as PTSD, and has discovered a sort of healing power through cycling.
After being in a combat zone, he explained, “you get so hyped up to be on watch, that you’re always on watch.”
Directed and edited by Roslindale-based Anthony Barounis, and released through his Tonekat Productions, the film had its premiere at the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge on Jan. 14, and was also screened at 51 Lincoln in Newton on Feb. 5. All proceeds from both the ride and the documentary – about $3,000 at recent count —  are being donated to the Wounded Warrior Project, which helps injured members of the military transition back to civilian life after duty. 

The hope is to raise more money through future screenings, Barounis explained, and he’s also submitting the movie to various festivals.
A lifelong bicyclist who works as a sound engineer, Atehortua embarked on his solo, weeklong odyssey on Nov. 4, shortly after Hurricane Sandy released her fury on the East Coast.
His goal was to reach the Iwo Jima Memorial in Washington on Veterans Day.
Using a GoPro camera positioned in a shock-proof case on the drop bars of his bike, he captured 60 gigabytes worth of footage. Barounis originally intended for it to be condensed into a short YouTube video, but once he began culling through it, he realized the potential for a much more powerful story.
“It ultimately has a humanitarian message,” said Barounis, who works as bar manager at 51 Lincoln, but has aspirations in film and music. “The big message of the movie is, ‘Just look out for each other.’ ”
Both stark and artsy, the hour-plus film is set to a soundtrack by the Electrical Fire, Barounis’ electronic music band.
As Atehortua whirs along on his bike, the film weaves shots of the road rolling beneath his tires with close-ups of his intense and focused face — he positioned the camera either up or out to capture both — as well as scenery both bucolic and urban, and regular interludes of the rider talking to the camera about his mental state, or the day’s highlights or low points.
“It’s starting to wear on me — the miles, every day,” he says during one stop, face bedraggled. 
A sunny and bright morning cheers his mood. “Time is money, and the sunlight is my ATM,” he says with a smile.
Working his way south on his F-Series Felt road bike loaded with a tent, tools and other necessities, he struggled up and down “ruthless” hills in Connecticut, got sidelined by another storm, bedded down one night in a completely empty gym-turned-shelter in New York intended for Hurricane Sandy victims, took advantage of a motel room another night to dry out his soaked clothes and take a rare shower, and visited shops crammed with eclectic gear for cycling.
“I tried to pack as light as possible — bare minimum,” he explained as he watched the film from a sofa in Barounis’ Roslindale apartment one recent evening.
He relied on a GPS and good-old paper maps for guidance; a steady stream of house, lounge, and jazz music for entertainment. He often donned a shirt declaring “Pain is weakness leaving the body” — a mantra from his days in boot camp — and proudly displayed an American flag on his left shoulder.
On active duty with the Marines for four years, Atehortua was deployed to Iraq in September 2006; he worked on security and stabilization, and dealt with the daily threat of roadside bombs. He was a backup on raids, and helped patrol for explosives with metal detectors.
Returning home, he dealt with the after-effects, most notably “extreme paranoia” in large groups, as well as the difficult readjustment from a regimented military life to a daily civilian one, and what he described as an oddness of day-to-day freedom.
But he has found relief from PTSD on his bike, where he feels more grounded, his senses are heightened, and he can outpace the worry and anxiety.
Ultimately, his journey was met with mixed reactions — on the one hand, strangers took him to lunch, or gave him food or money. On the other, he was kicked out of the visitors center at Independence Hall in Philadelphia because he brought his bike inside.
And his ultimate destination had a sour undertone, Atehortua said. After riding on “pure adrenaline” for the final 45 miles, he collapsed with the effort at the memorial, and was very shortly berated by a park ranger who told him he couldn’t ride his bike through the area, and that he was being “disrespectful.”
In the end, Atehortua said, he doesn’t know whether he was on his bike to find himself, or to do just the opposite — leave all the pressures of daily life behind, and just focus on survival.
In either case, it was a “great, eye-opening experience,” he said. He had both good and bad moments, met interesting people who shared their dreams and goals with him, and realized things that people take for granted, but shouldn’t. 
Atehortua’s advice: Find ways to get rid of stress, rather than passing it on. Life is about “being there as a person, being humble.” 

For information on the film, including future screenings, visit www.ridecrazy.com.

Original story link here.

© Copyright 2013 Globe Newspaper Company.

More aid for Plum Island

Newbury

$5.5m for Plum Island jetty repair

By Taryn Plumb
Globe Correspondent /  March 2, 2013 

 

In the aftermath of punishing storms that have left several homes vulnerable to the ravenous Atlantic, Plum Island is getting a significant and long-called-for measure of relief that some say doesn’t go far enough.
An infusion of $5.5 million in federal funding will allow the US Army Corps of Engineers to complete its repair of the 1,400-foot-long southern jetty at the mouth of the Merrimack River. Deterioration and neglect has for years been blamed as a main contributor to the erosion problems that continue to befall the barrier island spanning Newbury, Newburyport, and Ipswich.
The money is expected to come from the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013, and will serve to augment $3.75 million allotted last year for the project. Work isn’t expected to begin until 2014, according to the Army Corps.
After years of watching the beach vanish and the ocean creep closer, residents and officials are relieved by the progress. 
“We’re happy that the federal government and Army Corps are laser-focused on the Merrimack project,” said Bob Connors, who lives on Annapolis Way in Newbury, one of the island’s hardest-hit areas.
Still, he and others said, it’s ultimately just one step in the process to restore Plum Island to its former robust self, with regular dredging, beach scraping, proactive storm measures, and the creation of a long-term management plan. “We need all options on the table,” Connors said.
In the meantime, the initial phase of work, costing $3.75 million, is nearly completed. Hugo Key and Son, Inc., of Newport, R.I., started in late October, placing more than 10,000 tons of stone along the first 800 feet of the jetty, with pieces ranging in size from one to 12 tons, according to Jack Karalius, project manager with the Army Corps’ New England district. Work will be completed by March 31, which is the cutoff for construction activities designated by wildlife officials to protect the migratory habitat of the endangered piping plover.
The second phase, to be covered by the $5.5 million — bringing the total to about $9.25 million for the project — will allow the Army Corps to complete the last 700 feet of the jetty, Karalius said, and should take three to five months. The
Corps will start work on contract plans and specifications as soon as possible, he said, and will likely begin the bidding process later this year.
The next step will be to repair the northern jetty, Karalius said, although there are no funds yet allotted for it.
“The recent winter storms have only reinforced how urgent this matter is for homeowners and the surrounding communities,”  US Representative John Tierney said in a statement. He will continue pressing for attention and funding to address the deterioration of the northern jetty, he said, which “is of significant concern to local leaders and residents of Salisbury.”
Connors said he doesn’t anticipate any direct benefit for the southern part of the island when the south jetty is completed.
Instead, he called for the continuation of regular dredging of the Merrimack River, what he called a critical component of maintaining the channel and the coastal environment. It was a practice that was done regularly up until about a decade ago, he said.

“When they did that on regular basis, we had vibrant, healthy beaches,” he said.
But that process stopped because of cuts to the Army Corps budget, as well as diversion of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, which was established in 1986 and imposed a tax on imported cargo to create a pool of money to pay for ongoing maintenance of harbor channels. However, that money has been pulled away for other purposes, and in recent years, critics and legislators from various states have called for it to be restored to its intended purpose.
According to Karalius, there are no immediate plans for dredging, although the Army Corps will eventually perform a condition survey and will likely dredge at some point in the next several years.
But the hope, he said, is that the completion of the south jetty will keep the channel open so dredging won’t be frequently required.
Officials and residents have tried numerous measures over the years to protect homes, from hay bale barriers to giant sandbag walls, to planting of sea grass and installing sand fencing. In late 2010, a $5.5 million dredging project by the Army Corps deposited 110,000 cubic yards of a sandy slurry on the beach, and this January, several residents on Annapolis Way paid roughly $9,000 to perform beach scraping, a process that involves moving sand from one area to shore up another.
Connors said the area weathered relatively well during Hurricane Sandy in October, but suffered from the late-December storm that brought 12- to 14-foot tides. The February blizzard chewed away another sizable chunk of shoreline. 
At least a dozen homes have had their decks or structures damaged, and many more are in “imminent danger,” Connors said. “Anything but a natural process is going on up here.”

Original story link here.

© Copyright 2013 Globe Newspaper Company.

Tracking every kilowatt hour

Mar 1, 2013

Startups & Venture Capital

Startup has consumers manage individual energy use

Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal

 

 

W. Marc Bernsau 

In the halls of Congress, in the board room and at the kitchen table, energy use continues to be a major topic of discussion.
And while the U.S. continues to grapple with the big-picture issues, Boston-based MyEnergy aims to help consumers make small, daily differences by taking control of — and saving money on — their personal energy usage.
“We really built MyEnergy to help people individually realize this huge opportunity they have before them,” said MyEnergy CEO Ben Bixby, who co-founded the company in 2007 in Washington, D.C., and relocated it to Boston in 2011.
With a free account on MyEnergy’s website, residential users can quickly access a breakdown of their consumption of gas, water and electricity. MyEnergy retrieves and compiles the data through patent-pending technology — the system can read utility meters through the Web, without requiring users to install any hardware or software, Bixby said.
A study commissioned by the company showed that users saved as much as 14 percent during heating and cooling months, he said.
Users can also receive tailored tips, compare their habits to friends and neighbors and earn rewards for saving energy. For instance, one point is awarded for every kilowatt hour of electricity saved, every 10 cubic feet of natural gas saved and every 100 gallons of water saved. Those points can then be redeemed for prizes, including gift cards and Segway tours, through small and local businesses which have entered into a free partnership with MyEnergy.
“You get more and better information than you’d otherwise get through your utility, you get it quicker, and you get it in context,” Bixby said.
And the more you use it, he said. “the more it learns about how it can better help you.”
MyEnergy is backed by a $4 million Series A round, announced in early 2011 and led by Point Judith Capital, Clean Energy Venture Group and Capital-E. The company earns revenue via a premium service for utilities, which aims to help the utilities to meet objectives and increase customer savings. MyEnergy is also working with partners to create and host third-party applications and offerings based on its platform.
The 12-employee company is “growing fast but deliberately,” Bixby said — particularly in its engineering department.
The company didn’t disclose user numbers, but Bixby said MyEnergy has users in all 50 states covering more than 1,500 utilities, and has forged hundreds of partnerships with businesses through its rewards program.
David Paolino, a user from Rhode Island, said he figures he saved about $900 over three years.
Previously, he was spending what he called “exorbitant” amounts of money on energy, until he found MyEnergy and got “hooked” on the idea of closely monitoring his usage and getting rewards for making strides.
He stressed that it’s not about huge life changes.
“Most people think you have to take leaps and bounds to curb energy use,” he said, but “small changes can really make a difference.”

Original story link here.