Event Highlights: July 4th – 10th, 2011

It’s a light week thanks to the Roots rocking the Ben Franklin Parkway. Oh yeah, and it was someone’s birthday. Or something.

Luckily, your local event highlights never takes a day off. Even in this holiday-shortened week there’s still a slate of great technology events in the next few days. This week: take that video viral and learn the mysteries of the Linux boot processe.

Don’t forget, you can get these event highlights every week as an email newsletter. Be sure to check “Event Highlights.”

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DreamIt Ventures and BFTP partner to keep startups in Philly with “DreamIt Plus”

DreamIt Ventures has proved it can incubate successful startups. Now it turns to a greater challenge: keeping them in Philadelphia.

The University City-based startup incubator is partnering with Ben Franklin Technology Partners to create “DreamIt Plus” an investment fast track for DreamIt grads to ensure they have access to the follow-on capital that often drives incubated companies to move out of the city when graduating DreamIt.

“The startups coming out of the DreamIt program have great momentum. However, since the entrepreneurs come from around the world, the lack of quick follow-on capital can cause them to leave the area,” said BFTP president RoseAnn B. Rosenthal in a press release yesterday.

The partnership creates an easy path for local follow-on investment by Ben Franklin and local angels to help support the company as it seeks its Series A financing round. Participating angels include Duck Duck Go founder Gabe Weinberg. DreamIt companies then receive access to all of Ben Franklin’s resources, such as office space and mentorship, creating a “grad school” of sorts.

The announcement is the latest in a busy year for the incubator. DreamIt opened its doors in New York City for the first time and has announced a partnership with Comcast Ventures to incubate minority-led companies in its Fall session in Philadelphia.

Penn Executive Vice President Craig R. Carnaroli talks development, taxes and tech

Edited, July 4, 2011, 10:08 a.m.: Carnaroli was elected on June 10, not during the third week of June.

We’re not sure when Craig Carnaroli sleeps.

He’s Executive Vice President of the University of Pennsylvania, he’s Chair of the University City District and he serves on the boards of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, Penn Medicine, and The Connelly Foundation.

Whatever free time he might have had will be partially eaten up by his new role as Chairman of the Board of the University City Science Center, after being elected to the position on June 10.

Now, the Wharton alum says that he’s leveraging his roles to strengthen Penn’s relationship to the rest of University City, and helping to create connections across the various institutions.

And a big part of that connection is physical. Carnaroli led the development of Penn Connects master plan, which he says will help bring together the institutions through the built environment of University City and West Philadelphia, with initiatives like Penn Park.

We spoke to Carnaroli by phone to talk about how the built environment can ultimately impact Philadelphia’s technology community, and more, after the jump.

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BigApps Idea Challenge: new iteration of New York City data and tech challenge

GovTech on a new iteration of New York City’s data challenges:

Have an idea for a mobile or Web application that would be useful for New York City, but you aren’t a programmer? If so, the New York City has the perfect apps contest for you: the NYC BigApps Idea Challenge. Launched by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) this week, the competition seeks new ideas for Web, desktop or mobile applications that benefit businesses, tourists and those living in the Big Apple.

Olney’s Central High School Robolancers team makes case for STEM

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods Program, the capstone class for the Temple Journalism Department.

The Central High School Robolancers in Olney should be designing a robot for a different task than usual: one that gives out a good pat on the back. The team of robot-building students placed in the quarterfinals of the local-regional For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology robotics competition in Philadelphia, and took first-place overall in the local-regional Boosting Engineering Science and Technology competition.

The Robolancers competed in grueling competitions which required them to put in long hours designing, building and programing their robots. (Photo courtesy of Central High Robolancers)

After winning the BEST regional, the team traveled south to Alabama for the BEST south-regional competition, where they took sixth-place overall. The top eight teams competed in the national BEST competition in Florida, and the Robolancers placed second in video presentation and third in engineering notebook.

The team also competed in the local underwater Marine Advanced Technology Education competition for the first time this year, placing first in presentation but taking second in the overall competition after a blown fuse disabled their robot. They then went on to Texas for the international MATE competition in Houston earlier this month.

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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:

The University City Science Center — The Science Center has officially opened Quorum, a central gathering space to enable the entrepreneurship and innovation communities to meet, share and learn.

Splat Productions — Splat Productions provides smart, brand-centric website design and internet marketing services to privileged clients in the Philadelphia region and beyond.

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

Newsworks — NewsWorks is the online home of WHYY News and its growing network of journalism partners. This public media service covers the Philadelphia region, Delaware and South Jersey, with a focus on regional issues, neighborhoods, health and science, and arts.

Morgan Lewis — Morgan Lewis provides comprehensive transactional, litigation, labor and employment, regulatory, and intellectual property legal services to clients of all sizes—from global Fortune 100 companies to just-conceived startups—across all major industries.

Alteva — Reduce your total cost of telecom ownership and improve employee efficiency and customer satisfaction with Alteva’s cloud-based Voice over IP phone systems and services.

Reed Technology — Reed Technology’s Web Archiving Service is a litigation protection, web compliance and e-discovery solution for all your online assets.

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.