City Hall hosts screening of tech-focused Black In America documentary

Left, facing camera: Navarrow Wright; Right, Mayor Michael Nutter. Photo Credit: Ryan Dennis via Skai Blue Media

Monday evening in the Mayor’s Reception Room on the second floor of City Hall, Mayor Michael Nutter and more than 30 influential African-American technologists watched a screening of the fourth installment of Soledad O’Brien’s Black In America documentary series.

The latest episode turned the spotlight on a lack of black entrepreneurs in the technology industry, focusing on eight minority entrepreneurs entered in the NewME Accelerator that are hoping to get recognized, and get funded, in Silicon Valley.

According to the documentary, less than one percent of funded tech startups are African-American owned.

After the screening, the Mayor and the attendees discussed ways to improve that statistic.

The conversation was moderated by Chief Technology Officer Navarrow Wright, who leads technology initiatives at Interactive One, the web branch of Radio One, an African-American-focused media outlet which owns 69 radio stations across the country. Navarrow was a mentor for the NewMe Accelerator entrepreneurs featured in the documentary.

Starting the conversation, Mayor Nutter asked how black entrepreneurs could improve their chances in Philadelphia’s technology community. “I’m not moving to Silicon Valley,” he said.

The group identified a number of core priorities, noted after the jump.

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Drexel is making waves in Philly’s entrepreneurial community

During the past two weeks at Technically Philly, we couldn’t help but notice Drexel University being mentioned with increasing frequency in our interviews with local entrepreneurs and investors.

We don’t have the resources to rank the region’s schools like U.S. News and World Report, but anecdotally, Drexel is making waves:

• We’ve been told by one source that the college is planning to launch the Center for Visual Decision Informatics. Similar to Wharton’s Consumer Analytics Institute, the group will help analyze large data sets for corporations and government.
• LewBow School College of Business was ranked the #13 best entrepreneurial program for undergrads by the Prineton Review (Temple ranked #11).
• ApprenNet founder and Drexel Professor Karl Okamoto has just launched a entrepreneurial law clinic.
• Drexel is the site of the upcoming Startup Weekend.
• Drexel will be providing interns to Project Liberty, the Philadelphia Media Network’s new incubator.
• According to our interview with Ken Kay, founder of Ecelerator, Drexel will likely provide Ecelerator with interns as well.

Great work, Dragons. Dr.Papadakis would have been proud.

Alexandre Scialom takes top prizes at Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan, NFTE sends winner to the White House

First place winner Alexandre Scialom smiled as he accepted his award plaque for his winning business plan, theCourseBook.

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

theCourseBook, billed by its founder as “Yelp for adult education” won Thursday the two top prizes at the second annual Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan, netting San Francisco entrepreneur Alexandre Scialom a cool $50,000 $25,000.

Thursday’s event, held by the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, was a business plan competition that challenges young entrepreneurs to apply their innovative business ideas in educational formats.

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Penn’s new billionaires, @FakeAPStylebook from South Philly and more Links

DEFINITE READS

• Fake out: Twitter group writes the book on its grammar spoof [Inquirer] — South Philly resident RJ White is a contributor to the @FakeAPStylebook that is now publishing a book
• Study asks well-to-do Philadelphians how they’re investing [Philadelphia Business Journal]
• Penn’s new billionaires: FarmVille creator, Groupon backer [Inquirer] — Mark Pincus of Zynga and Russian investor Yuri Milner
• Philly’s Food in Jars a finalist in Saveur Magazine’s best food blog awards [Geekadelphia] Marisa McClellan

Below, see what Philly startup is moving into a church, big startup perks in Pittsburgh and more.

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Should Center City be a technology business hub?: other neighborhoods compete

Cristina Greysman from Document Depository Corporation explains some of the setbacks young entrepreneurs face in Center City.

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

For Paul R. Levy, the president and CEO of the Center City District, the transformation that area has experienced over the last 20 years has been a huge success story amid the backdrop of serious economic troubles. But not necessarily for the reasons you might think.

It’s the outdoor cafes. All 213 of them.

“To me, that is the ultimate vote of confidence in downtown. People think it’s clean and safe,” he said.

Currently holding 214,433 jobs and paying over $12 billion in salaries annually, Center City relies primarily on the health care and education industries for the bulk of its economic drawing power, Levy said.. While not an alarming statistic on the surface, one need look no further than Detroit to determine what happens to a city that puts all of its progress behind a limited number of industries.

“We cannot rely on health care and education as the primary means of support,” Levy said.

So how about a move to the tech industry? Well, that’s a little easier said than done.

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How do we retain technology startups in Philadelphia? [VIDEO]

Strangers become coworkers at Indy Hall, a coworking space located in Old City. Co-founder Alex Hillman says building community is the best way to retain talent and business. Photo by Sarah Schu.

The argument of whether Philadelphia’s technology community is growing doesn’t seem to be the live one much anymore. The collection of 65 events celebrating Philly Tech Week last month was surely a small answer to that.

Rather, the questions left seem to revolve around the magnitude of that growth and if Philly, like other hopeful regions across the country, can have a significant share of the investment, jobs, revenue, reputation and cache that often follow leaders in that space. Philadelphia missed it’s shot 50 years ago at being Silicon Valley but is there room to be a serious player?

A Philly startup can get investment, something seen weekly. A Philly company can become a top-dollar acquisition, like the $2.4 billion eBay buyout of GSI Commerce, Dell taking Boomi or Eli Lilly snatching Avid Radiopharmaceuticals. Those examples from the last year can help shape the narrative around entrepreneurship and technology in Philadelphia, but, in the end, that just creates a lot more middle managers, not c-level leaders — see Tastykake’s submission to Flower Foods. Recent reports show brain drain here has largely been stemmed, but the tech community has still lost its fair share of stars who could be building the job drivers of the future.

So what’s next for retaining startup talent, sustaining their growth and, dare we suggest, keeping them around long into their future?

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‘Great Ideas’ for fixing cycle of investment and entrepreneurship in Philadelphia

One Great Idea panel members from left: University City Science Center CEO Steve Tang, Ben Franklin Technology Partners President RoseAnn Rosenthal, City Councilman Bill Green and moderator Philadelphia Media Network CEO Greg Osberg, April 27, 2011 as part of Philly Tech Week. Photos by Yusuf Muhammad/Phrequency.com

How to break a cycle of investment and entrepreneurship leaving the region proved a central theme of the One Great Idea panel discussion and forum held by the Philadelphia Media Network as part of Philly Tech Week.

Hosted Wednesday night in the historic Inquirer building on North Broad Street,  the panel was moderated by Greg Osberg, the new CEO of PMN and publisher of the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com. It was the first event based on the network’s One Great Idea series, which asks leading Philadelphians for a single, actionable idea for making the region stronger.

Focused on the role of technology and entrepreneurship, the forum kicked off with a panel discussion between Stephen Tang, President and CEO of the University Science Center, Ben Franklin Technology Partners President RoseAnn Rosenthal and City Councilman Bill Green and closed with each presenting their own One Great Idea for the city.

Below, find those ideas and more from the discussion, attended by more 60 and capped by a reception on the building’s 12th floor deck.

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Philly’s entrepreneurial activity dead last again among 15 biggest U.S. regions

The Inquirer’s Mike Armstrong reports on the noted Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity report’s less than vibrant take on Philly’s business climate:

A key measure of business formation shows 2010 had the highest rate of activity in 15 years…That’s the good news. But here are two pieces of bad news. First, many of those new businesses created jobs only for their entrepreneurs, not others…Second, Philadelphia ranks dead last – again – among the 15 biggest metropolitan areas in terms of entrepreneurial activity. And Pennsylvania didn’t fare much better, surpassing only West Virginia, the state with the most frigid business climate.

Can You Really Build a Great Tech Firm Outside Silicon Valley? | Both Sides of the Table

Perspective from a Los Angeles entrepreneur as posted on TechCrunch:

Last year I was on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley meeting with one of the most prominent venture capital firms in the country.

We were talking about a company, Factual (disclosure my firm is an investor), which was founded by one of LA’s most talented Internet entrepreneurs, Gil Elbaz, who as co-founder of Applied Semantics (purchased by pre-IPO Google for $102 million and now Google AdSense) is responsible for a large portion of the Internet’s monetization.

The VC partner, somebody I greatly respect said, “Yeah, we like Gil and what they’re doing. I’m just not sure you can build a great technology firm outside of Bay Area.”

via Can You Really Build a Great Tech Firm Outside Silicon Valley? | Both Sides of the Table.

Leonard Lodish of Wharton: ‘Have a simple idea that’s hard to implement’

You might spot Leonard Lodish riding his bicycle to his Wharton office.

The 67-year-old vice dean commutes the six miles from his home in Wynnewood by bike ‘everyday’ that he’s at the University of Pennsylvania, he says, which might keep him active enough to spot the next startup exit.

Earlier this month, the second of two companies that Lodish invested early on exited for a combined total of $575 million: Diapers.com and Milo.com, both of which have Wharton ties.

Like many of the other splashiest Wharton startups in recent years, both Diapers and Milo aren’t Philadelphia companies. The powerful westward pull brought Milo founder Jack Abraham to Palo Alto, Calif., part of the Bay Area that Lodish long recognized as a place that Wharton needed to have a presence in, if it was to remain one of the top flight (and oldest) business schools in the world.

Lodish, a Cleveland native, was part of establishing Wharton West, a satellite campus in San Francisco of which he was vice dean from its 2001 founding until 2009.

Below, we speak to Lodish about the necessity of Wharton West, what he looks for in entrepreneurs, why Milo founder Jack Abraham left Philly and more.

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