Every six months, The Project Liberty Digital Incubator gives three startups the opportunity to work from within Interstate General Media, home of Philly.com, the Daily News, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. This gives startups the unique opportunity to engage with IGM decision makers, as well as the opportunity to inexpensively test their technology and business assumptions during a six month residency based out of IGM.

Two members of the March 2014 class are focused on social issues: Fitly and TuValabs. Fitly provides nutritional information to families to make healthier choices as well as a food pick-up or delivery service offering healthy ingredients and meal plans to families at no charge.TuValabs (whose membership was extended from the June 2013 class), allows students to learn math from what they love by taking a variety of mainstream topics and news stories and transforming them into interactive math problems.

“Being a part of the Project Liberty Digital Incubator has presented us with great opportunities that have helped us form key partnerships, meet potential investors, and open doors that, otherwise, might not have been available to us.”
– Anthony Ortiz, CEO, Fitly (from Project Liberty’s website)

Funding for the incubator is provided by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The incubator is operated by Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania.  Project Liberty provides its participants with a wide-variety of resources including Internet, phone, utilities, computers and printing accessibility, meeting rooms, kitchens and programming opportunities. In addition, Drexel University provides two co-op students each semester to assist the start-up companies.

Watch the introductory video below and visit sep.benfranklin.org/project-liberty/ for more information about Project Liberty.

(Image via Project Liberty)