How to get involved with STEM education in Philadelphia

A child plays with one of the robots at the Philly Robotics Expo during Philly Tech Week 2011. Photo: Rachel Playe

Of the four parts of a series on science, technology, engineering and mathematics education that ran this week on Technically Philly, it was perhaps the fourth that grabbed our attention most.

Despite mounting problems in the School District of Philadelphia related to STEM education, many are beyond its immediate control, and citizens are taking action to get involved.

Throughout conversations with dozens of people involved with STEM education in Philadelphia it was said repeatedly: This is the city’s and nation’s problem, not the District’s alone.

That makes it a local technology community problem.

What is missing is a pipeline to connect that community of bright, active individuals in Philly tech with students. Second, we believe, entrepreneurs could use their experience with innovation to attack the problem with business plans.

It’s with that in mind that we’ve partnered with Teach for America’s Greater Philadelphia: Innovation in Education workshop series. Focused on innovation in education, the invite-only workshops, which will take place in 2012, are intended to inspire the creation of actionable nonprofit and business ventures to impact education.

When TFA launched a similar workshop series in the San Francisco Bay Area, it resulted in the launch of new startups, including Junyo, a tool to help teachers measure student learning, and Skoodio: a student portfolio platform for the social media age. Perhaps most interestingly, of 25 participants in the workshop series, a third were experienced in technology and business with little education background.

When we connected with the organization, it was abundantly clear that the entrepreneurial spirit of Philadelphia’s technology community could help create organizations that could inspire actionable change in education.

The workshops will lead up to a pitch event in May where participants will demonstrate their ideas.

We encourage you to apply for the workshops here. Mention that you saw the opportunity on Technically Philly. Deadline for applications is December 16.

If you’re not interested specifically in the workshops, there’s plenty of ways to get involved with STEM education in Philadelphia. After the jump, we point to some of the organizations that have mentorship, volunteering and sponsorship opportunities.

Read more

Gloria Bell: Technology and creative communities need to collaborate for real growth

Technically Philly is a platform to connect, cover and discuss Philadelphia’s technology community, and we want to give its members a chance to speak. If you’d like to offer a relevant perspective or cover a community event, drop us a line.

This piece was written by Gloria Bell, of Red Stapler Consulting, the events director of Philly Startup Leaders and a frequent supporter the Philadelphia technology community.

History has demonstrated that the development of sub-communities is often a commonplace result of advancement.

The rapid growth of the technology and creative communities in Philadelphia over the last few years is no exception to this phenomenon.  It seems that the more these communities grow, the more silos are developing between and within the spheres of business, technology and creativity.  A simple search on Meetup.com reveals 22 technology groups, 220 business groups and too many different networks falling into the “creative” sector to even accurately count.  And the reality is there are many other organizations, events and informal networks that are not even included in these Meetup.com counts.

However, these communities are now faced with a pivotal question.  How do we continue to shape this growth?

Read more

Nicole Brewer: How I joined the Philadelphia technology community

This is a guest post by Nicole Brewer, a reporter for CBS 3 and CW Philly, as part of our Guest Contributor Week. Want to have an op-ed or feature you’ve written to appear on TP, now or in the future? Drop us a line.

To be honest, I entered Philly’s tech scene by accident.

From a young age, I enjoyed technology as a hobby, and as an aspiring journalist, I relished in the advent of social media. However, I never imagined it would define my career or revolutionize the broadcasting industry quite the way it has.

To that end, it was simply a matter of timing. With the success of its newly re-launched website in 2005, CBS3 had seen its website grow year-over-year in both traffic and engagement metrics. But, the company was eager to stay ahead of the digital curve and willing to try something new.

Fresh off my first freelance gig at the Consumer Electronics Show, I was too.

Read more

Want to rep Philly? Better have some manners.

This is a guest post by Chris DiFonzo, CEO of OpenDesks as part of Guest Contributor Week. Want to have an op-ed or feature you’ve written to appear on TP? Drop us a line.

It’s true, many of the etiquette books around these days don’t hold up in the business world.  Still, those professional etiquette workshops “the man” made me take had value.  Shake, even if someone is visibly sick?  Yes.  Lift your glass when being toasted?  Nope.  Arrive late for calls and meetings?  Obvious.

Then what gives?  Lateness, lack of follow up, and lack of formality are prolific today, even among enterprise consultants, salespeople, managers, and executives.  The worst thing about perpetually more casual behavior in business is it’s a death spiral.  Business culture is organic, not static, and our daily interactions either raise the bar or push it down.

Entrepreneurs, freelancers, and creative independents, this is as opportunity to differentiate ourselves.  I’m calling myself out and asking you to join me.  Let’s set the example by bringing back (a little) decorum.

Three basics to get us going:

Read more

Philly Geeks: the scene that gives back

In February, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and non-profit employees gathered at a coworking space in New York’s Tribecca neighborhood to chat ”Social Entrepreneurship:” businesses that focus as much on social good as the bottom line.

Halfway through the event, organized by Philadelphia’s Good Company Ventures, an audience member asked what city should serve as the center of this social entrepreneurship movement. A surprising number people immediately responded, “Philadelphia.”

It’s no secret that most large America cities are vying to be “The next Silicon Valley.” This typically means a focus on early stage technology and Internet startups, some of which—hopefully—become large employers drawing lots of young, highly educated taxpayers.

While Philly has no shortage of people clamoring for an effort to remake the city into a “Philicon Valley,” recent trends indicate that the city’s entrepreneurial community is busy carving out a different niche in the nation’s technology environment: startups focused on social good, not just the bottom line.

This isn’t an uphill battle, the city is home to some of the leaders in the field of Social Entrepreneurship. Here are some of the local players working to use technology and business to make Philadelphia—and the world—a better place:

Read more at Philly Post.

Sponsored Post: What can the iPad do for higher ed?

This is a sponsored post from Jeff Thompson, CEO of Towerstream, a leading 4G service provider delivering high-speed wireless Internet access to businesses. Towerstream began providing service in Philadelphia in December 2009.

Home to America’s first university and more than 300,000 students, Philadelphia is synonymous with education. Recent developments in technology are rapidly changing the way that educators teach and create curriculums and how students process information and communicate with each other. Students and teachers are increasingly using mobile devices –such as smartphones, the Kindle and iPad – in addition to their desktop and laptop computers for their academic interests.

Recent reports from the top universities have shown that campuses are investigating how to best incorporate the latest technologies, specifically mobile devices, into their curriculums. With devices like the Kindle and iPad poised to potentially revolutionize education, schools will need to prepare themselves to support increased Internet bandwidth demands both on and off campus. The Illinois Institute of Technology recently announced that all incoming freshman will receive the Apple iPad and instructors will build applications specific to their courses. NPR reported a few weeks ago that an Arizona school district installed wireless routers in their school buses for students who have long commutes.

Towerstream CEO Jeff Thompson

Schools will continue to face the challenge of implementing high-speed Internet access for students and faculty without requiring major infrastructural build-out and additional costs. One solution that many schools have found to be particularly useful is setting up a wireless Internet connection, as it adapts to the existing campus set-up, does not require heavy installation and can be turned up in a matter of minutes if more bandwidth is needed.

Our mobile devices are only as good as the Internet connection that supports them, so my advice to schools that are contemplating adopting e-Readers for their students, would be to make sure that the Internet capabilities of the campus are ready to support a massive influx of data requirements.

We need a Philly Tech Week

In an informal partnership with Philadelphia magazine’s new Philly Post daily news blog, Technically Philly will be offering our insight on Philadelphia technology to a broader audience of tech-interested individuals every Tuesday. As is true of so much of our effort, this is yet another opportunity to voice the triumphs and concerns of the community to a broader audience in the city and beyond.

Next week, the city’s bars, breweries and pubs will be center stage as the third annual Philly Beer Week kicks off. The event gives the city’s beer scene a chance to shine on a national spotlight, attracting outsiders to see the beer culture that has been growing rapidly in Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, the city’s technology scene is experiencing a similar revival. After being nonexistent for years, the city suddenly has a handful of events the blend culture and technology to help put Philadelphia in a broader national conversation about new startups, investment and innovative ideas.

The two “scenes” overlapped this week with the creation of the Philly Beer Week iPhone app by a group of volunteers. The application helps Philly Beer Week attendees easily find their next watering hole during the week-long festival and uses geolocation to tell you the event nearest to you. Technically Philly thinks, however, that the two burgeoning scenes have much in common and have a lot to learn from one another.

In fact we think techies should borrow liberally form our beer-drinking friends to help continue Philadelphia’s growing reputation as a tech town. Here’s what needs to happen:

Continue reading at The Philly Post.

Editorial: City government calls for tech support

Allan Frank, city CIO

Here’s a test.

Just how innovative and influential, forward-thinking yet practical is the technology community in Philadelphia? Because you’re being challenged.

We’re still reeling from a presentation that Allan Frank, the city’s chief information officer, gave at a meeting of Refresh Philly Monday night.

The Nutter administration is investing $100 million during the next four years into city technology, including a complete overhaul of Phila.gov, as he told 75 mostly professional, tech-savvy 30 and 40-somethings in a modern, white-walled conference room on the 45th floor of the Comcast Center yesterday.

Read more

Shameless plug: BCNI Philly is this Saturday

This Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Temple University, the entire TP crew along with 150 of our closest friends will be tackling a problem that is very near and dear to our hearts: the current state of news and journalism.

The journalism industry has had numerous conferences and back door CEO meetings, but some of us think its time to try something different, thus BarCamp NewsInnovation was born. Many of us have been yelling at the TV over bias, decrying the lack of certain stories going uncovered in our local paper and wondering how the media industry can fully (and profitably) embrace the Web.

So we’ll be taking the BarCamp format so popular for tech events and applying it to news. Journalists, media types, bloggers, techies, programmers, designers, executives, students and anyone else who is interested will be converging at Temple University for 8 hours of news talk. Like our beloved BarCamp Philly, anyone can make a presentation, as long as its about news. We hope thins brings some frank, unconventional talk to an industry that needs it.

Read more

WiMAX mobile broadband coming to Philly this year

Clearwire Wireless has announced plans to expand its WiMAX mobile broadband network to eight major markets in 2009 including Philadelphia, according to a press release.

Currently, the service is available in Portland and Baltimore, and offers download speeds up to 4Mbps and upload speeds of 384Kbps. Unlimited browsing starts at $50 per month and on the lower end of its pricing tiers, a 24-hour pass is offered for $10. Clearwire has a number of devices that support its WiMAX network, including a modem for home networks and a USB modem for on-the-go use.

While we’re stoked about next generation mobile broadband access in Philadelphia, WiMAX faces tough competition from Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, another next gen mobile broadband solution. The battle between the two network technologies is the mobile equivalent of Blu-ray versus HD-DVD.

Read more