Connections, travel and family, with business promise

For entrepreneurs, the road from inspiration to creation can be long and rocky. But the local companies that shared glimpses of their innovations and business plans Tuesday at Switch Philly, a start-up showcase at the Wharton School, all hope they've traversed the toughest section.

One presenter was a Wharton sophomore, Joseph Cohen, founder of Coursekit, which aims to remake the way students and teachers interact online - a field he says has long been dominated by clunky software.

Cohen said the goal was "to keep what's magical about a good course and bring it to the Internet" with social-media tools, such as by giving students and teachers the ability to post ideas or links on a virtual classroom wall.

Mary L. Hagy, chief executive of cWyze, presented big dreams of another sort: a multilayered platform for online video ads that aims to make them more valuable to advertisers and website owners by making them interactive. Critique a joke on a Heineken ad - is it "not so funny" or "freakin' funny"? - and you can earn a $5 coupon.

And Laan Labs' cofounders, app-makers Christopher and Jason Laan, demonstrated just one of their creations: Tap DJ, a cool app that can turn your iPad or iPhone into the equivalent of a disc jockey's control station, allowing you to mix, scratch, and mash up sounds from your iPod music library.

It's impossible to do justice to any one of these creations, or the innovators behind them, in a single column. The "Brothers Laan" started their "experimental development shop" all of two years ago, and have won plaudits for work that ranges from the plainly useful (Sonar Ruler measures the distance from your phone to a wall) to the plainly just-for-fun (Fireplace App, which can turn your Mac screen "into a realistic fireplace" - well, if you have a warm imagination).

Five start-ups presented at Switch Philly. Here's a bit more detail on two that especially caught my eye:

Catapulter. The creation of two Wharton students who expect to earn their MBAs next month, Catapulter aims to be "like kayak for ground transportation," according to CEO Adam Waaramaa, who cofounded it with Jen Cheng, chief financial officer and director of marketing.