City Council Resolution: April 25-30, 2011 is officially Philly Tech Week

In case you weren’t convinced yet that Philadelphia’s technology community is being courted, that it’s value for the future of this city and the region is widely known, look no further than City Council Resolution No. 110218.

Introduced by City Councilman Bill Green and supported by his 16 colleagues, the resolution officially marks April 25-30, 2011 as Philly Tech Week.

Are these resolutions a little silly? Yes. But darn it if it isn’t another small step in showing the collective power of our communities. So let’s please show it.

This Thursday, April 7, at 10 a.m., the lead organizers of Philly Tech Week — yes, the same jerks behind this news site — will be receiving an official copy of this resolution to mark the effort, but we all know that, at best, we’re a small voice of this big community. So, we’re inviting any all of you to come. What, you’ve never sat in on City Council? Well, consider this a perfect reason to follow a democratic duty. Check out Council digs and watch the briefly awkward group photo.

Below, check out the resolution (or find the PDF here). While we couldn’t begin to include everyone, please note how we pushed to represent how diverse and broad the technology community in Philadelphia is. (We should add that some of the groups were cut for space issues, please know that we love you all!)

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Philly angels are everywhere, SCVNGR offers VCs as prizes

Welcome to the VC Round-up, where we’ll parse through venture capital news related to Philadelphia-based private equity firms and the companies they fund. Subscribe to the roundup as an email newsletter. If you have any VC-related news to pass along to us, please drop us a line.

DEFINITE READS

Though its only been back in Philly for a few weeks, SCVNGR has announced startup specific prizes for users of its Level Up app. Users can win time with Morgan Lewis, free accounting and one on one time with local venture capitals NextStage Capital, Robin Hood Ventures and DreamIt Ventures. Proceeds benefit Startup Corps.

Mike Armstrong of the Inquirer has a fantastic story about the growth in angel investors in Philadelphia. From the Keiretsu Forum, to Open Angel Forum to the recently very active Robin Hood Ventures, angel activity in Philly is on the rise. Look for a special series focusing on angel investing from Technically Philly in the coming days.

According to a Form D filing, Monetate has raised a $5 million round. Backers include First Round Capital and Click Equations CEO Lucinda Holt.

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Motorola to Philly Police: You want a public safety 4G broadband network for video surveillance

Saurabh Singhal, a senior software engineer at Motorola, drives a patrol car equipped with a laptop that feds live video via Motorola's high-speed Internet. Photo by Sarah Schu

Motorola put on something of a show at the Police Academy last week, hoping to gain support and funding for a secured, private, public safety 4G broadband network for video surveillance.

Motorola representatives, including Rishi Bhaskar, vice president of solutions, demoed the video equipment, highlighting prioritization, quality and need in a conference room, before showing off a Philadelphia Police patrol car equipped with the equipment.

Depending on the build out, the network would support high-quality video in police and other first responder vehicles, allowing for dispatcher prioritization to reduce stress on the system, Bhaskar said. First responders would be equipped with an emergency button so that they could automatically call for video coverage of, say, pulling over a driver with a violent history.

“This is an investment in public safety,” Bhaskar said.

Though held at the academy on State Road in the Northeast, no Philadelphia Police Department officials were present. Rather, Bhaskar said Motorola had presented the technology to police and city brass earlier in the day. The day’s presentation was a hope to garner support for the project from the city, which Bhaskar said is a ‘long-time client of Motorola.’

The technology has already been deployed in [Updated: though the contract has been awarded, the technology has not yet been launched in Harris County, Texas] Harris County, Texas and the San Francisco area, said spokesman Matthew Messinger, noting that the latter was funded by a $50 million grant that Motorola matched and included an institutional public component that benefited places like hospitals and schools.

Three steps for the City of Philadelphia to have clear path for releasing data, says interim CTO Tommy Jones

Tommy Jones, the City of Philadelphia interim CTO,  is good with details.

When Technically Philly asks about releasing data, instead of big vision, the former Washington D.C. deputy CTO gets right to the point.

“In D.C., we put up 425 data sets from crime to procurement to health to insurance and any other topic. I don’t lay claim to starting it, but I do lay claim to growing it a lot,” Jones says. “But here, in Philly, well, we’re in the infancy.”

While the technology community’s interest is high and a private partnership to catalog what city data is already available is underway, Jones is reliably focused on the details to make that happen.

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Event Highlights April 4 – 10, 2011

The Phillies are 3-0 and we have three events. Coincidence? I think not.

We have quite the week for you developer types. Whether you consider yourself a Microsoft fanboy or you prefer Adobe products, you have a meetup for you.

This week: Microsoft goes to camp, Philly.rb hacks and CFUG slurps.

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Happy April Fool’s Day, Philadelphia

No, Technically Philly is not moving to New York to pursue an online news site in a new niche community, even if it meant the chance of running into Rupert Murdoch, pitching that media acquisition, and living the high life at News Corp.

Today was April Fool’s Day, after all, and we’re proud to be here in Philly’s tech community. Where else would we be able to make such crude jokes, rip-off the Onion, and take a day off from our editorial calendar?

To sum up our trickery [Updated: now all below], no, First Round isn’t investing in the food market, we’re more emotionally attached to Port Richmond than you could believe, Mike Werth beat the entire Mario Brothers series years ago, keep those urban farms at Ignite coming, the power of GIS will continue to amaze and excite us, yes, we’re still a little bitter about the Gigabit thing, and actually, the Comcast parade kinda sounds like a good idea.

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Thanks to our weekly sponsors

Technically Philly is made possible by advertisers and sponsors that are important to Philadelphia’s technology community. This week we’d like to thank:

Empowerkit MLM Software – Empowerkit roots are in Philadelphia where it started as a company. It creates websites for Franchisees through powerful software solutions.

Optimized Cable Company – OCC is a distributor of high end electronic cable products, at a much lower price than most physical storefronts. Pick up some HDMI cables for your upcoming football parties today!

GOPromos Promotional Pens – GOPromos has great promotional items, like custom envelopes, for you to use with your company or for personal use. Get great products to give away!

OpenDesks – OpenDesks.com lets you monetize unused workspaces – a cubicle, a conference room, an office or a seat in the lunchroom – as long as there’s somewhere to sit and work, you can post it. Join OpenDesks.com‘s Founders Circle today for a low-cost lifetime membership.

Caffeine Fish – Caffeine Fish develops the Trainboard iPhone app and offers iPhone development consulting in the Philadelphia area.

Interested in joining these organizations and individuals in supporting Technically Philly? Check out our ad packages and contact our Ad Sales Manager. Can’t find something that fits? We’ll customize a package for you.