Bits of Business | Yosua brothers launch second game app

There’s a new game in town.

And the Yosua brothers made it.

Dan and Ryan Yosua recently launched their second game app eVubble on iOS and Android. They launched their first game, similarly called eVubble Lite, in 2013.

The brothers got help from the Penn State Small Business Development Center when they launched YosuaTreeGames, and the helping hand has been there ever since to run the business.

“The SBDC has been a huge help to us with our business development,” Ryan Yosua said in a press release. “We are working with them to get the word out about eVubble to the local market as well as websites, blogs and YouTube channels that focus on mobile games.”

The brothers want to develop another game. They already got a boost, because Ryan Yosua was recently awarded the David Rusenko Entrepreneur-in-Residence Scholarship, a gift given to a junior or senior in the College of IST who has entrepreneurial experience. It includes $10,000, six credits and the opportunity to work with a faculty adviser.

“While in my last year at Penn State, I believe the credits and (direction from my) faculty adviser from my scholarship will help us develop a new game that is even more ambitious than eVubble,” he said.

An investment worth making

Centre County recently ranked third for places in Pennsylvania on an incoming investment index, according to a study by SmartAsset, a personal finance technology company headquartered in New York.

The company considered factors including business establishment growth, GDP growth, new building permits and municipal bond investment, and when the results were tallied only Cumberland and Butler counties scored higher on the index.

The county has seen a 1.8 percent increase in business growth in the last two years, ranking 14th in the state. It then ranked 23rd in the state for GDP growth. It also ranked 22nd for municipal bond investment.

What catapulted Centre County to the top of the index was its third-place finish in new building permits, measured by the number of new permits by 1,000 homes.

The factors, according to the methodology, were weighed equally and combined to create the final rankings.

Staying on top

Geisinger Health System did it again.

Hospitals & Health Networks Magazine was recently listed GHS among the countries “Most Wired Hospitals and Health Systems” for the 13th consecutive year. The magazine has conducted an annual survey for 17 years to come up with its list and measures information technology use and adoption among hospitals nationwide.

GHS president and CEO David Feinberg said that health information technology plays a vital role in enhancing the quality of patient’s experiences.

“What makes this honor so gratifying is that it represents the nation’s most innovative, patient-focused organizations,” Feinberg said.

About 740 participants representing more than 2,213 hospitals “examined how organizations are leveraging IT to improve performance for value-based healthcare in the areas of infrastructure, business and administrative management, quality and safety and clinical integration,” according to a press release.

Geisinger is involved in health information exchanges and has been recognized for its OpenNotes program that allows patients to view doctor’s notes through an online portal.

Giant customers go big

Giant Food Stores and Martin’s Food Markets customers donated about $563,000 through the grocers’ annual Children Miracle Network $1 paper balloon campaign, which ran for two weeks from June 21 to July 4. CMN is a non-profit dedicated to saving and improving the lives of children by raising funds for children’s hospitals across North America

“For nearly 20 years, our customers and associates have come together to donate and help create miracles for children in our local communities,” Giant/Martin’s president Tom Lenkevich said. “Once again, they gave generously to our annual in-store campaign, which helps fund state-of-the-art medical care, life-saving research and preventative education at CMN Hospitals right in our own backyard.”

The campaign raised benefited regional CMN hospitals, including Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital.

Giant/Martin’s has raised about $37 million for CMN Hospitals throughout its market area since 1996 and ranks second nationwide in per-store fundraising for CMN.

This story was originally published July 31, 2015 at 1:40 AM with the headline "Bits of Business | Yosua brothers launch second game app."