Announcement: new events policy, call for reader submissions

Technically Philly will now be accepting paid events to be posted to our calendar and we are opening the doors to you, our readers, to help Technically Philly highlight important events.

Previously, we’ve had a strict policy of only listing free events. However, we have found that this policy left events off of the calendar that we feel could be of value to the community.

Second, we’d like to acknowledge that Philadelphia is home to a large number of awesome events every week. We try to attend as many as we can, but we inevitably fall short. To help fill the gap, we’d like to extend an offer to organizers and attendees to submit reviews of events. To see a sample, read Chris DiFonzo’s post about attending a DreamIt lecture.

You’ll notice we acknowledge that the content is from a reader while shedding light on any conflicts of interest, something that will be mandatory for any post submitted in this way to maintain the editorial transparency that is a core component of Technically Philly’s philosophy.

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Independents Hall gets back to work, experiences growing pains

Independents Hall co-founders Geoff DiMasi (left) and Alex Hillman speak at the coworking space's Town Hall.

Independents Hall co-founders Geoff DiMasi and Alex Hillman just came right out and said it.

“We suck at putting these things on often enough,” said Hillman to a crowd of roughly 30 members of the coworking space that were crammed into the building’s northern wing.

Hillman and DiMasi where speaking at Indy Hall’s third town hall, an informal gathering where the coworking space updates its members and interested public on news pertaining to the space while providing an update of the plans of the Indy Hall leadership.

Yesterday evening, Hillman and DiMasi shared some new policies to help Indy Hall deal with its ballooning membership, new security protocols to address recent thefts and a pledge to return Indy Hall to a hub of social and professional events.

“I feel we haven’t done a great job in returning to the cultural aspects that made Indy Hall awesome,” said Hillman.

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Timothy Allen talks about education innovation at Wharton

Timothy Allen has to clarify.

Timothy Allen of Wharton

The programmer and analyst with Wharton Research Data Services is something of a community organizer to boot and July is busy enough that Allen has to make sure that the record is set straight.

There are three events — “very exciting events” Allen clarifies — happening at Wharton in the coming weeks. These clusters often happen on campuses when most students are elsewhere.

In addition to the East Coast debut of the famed decade-old Supernova conference that, for full disclosure, Technically Philly is co-sponsoring at the month’s end, in two weeks, Wharton is also home to two events dedicated to innovation in education.

Allen says that has something to say about Wharton and what the relationship of the city’s technology community to education can mean for the region’s future.

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Event Highlights for May 17-23, 2010

We like to talk about our community being a growing, developing and diverse collection of smart people who involve themselves with technology and innovation one way or another.

This week’s free events make that seem apparent.

Though, the developers’ happy hour meetup of the Build Guild has been temporarily shelved, Wednesday is looking busy and varied.

First, out in the ‘burbs, Philly.net is hosting a panel discussion on the battle between all those browsers out there and what it means for how we all use the interwebs.

Later that night in town, Philly Startup Leaders is hosting one of their always sensational pitch blitzes Wednesday night, and, yes, as part of our monthly meetup schedule, the same night, we’ll be at Dark Horse to hear from you.

Then on Saturday, the Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby will bring out all the gear heads who’ve been tinkering on their strange and always artistic human-powered vehicles — you know, bicycles with an even more interesting look.

Web developers, entrepreneurs and the DIY crowd are all satiated, and that’s not all for the week.

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Event Highlights for March 1-7, 2010

Updated 3/4, 7:32 a.m.: Fixed a misspelling.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but are there more birds chirping and an opportunity to wear one less layer before we head out the door? Is that Spring coming? We sure hope so.

If you make it out this week, you’ll want to stop by either Ignite Philly 5 or Net Squared Net Tuesday, on, uh, Tuesday evening. Or heck, do both. Who’s to stop you, rebel? On Thursday, hit up the PHP Area Meetup Group, where they’re gonna tell you that Notepad is just, like, sooo not cool anymore; by itself, anyway. Whatever you decide, just remember: the weeks of this cold abyss are quickly coming to an end.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more.

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Black Family Technology Awareness Week luncheon at Northeast High School

A portion of the students, staff and professionals attending the 2010 Black Family Technology Week luncheon held at Northeast High School.

This story also appears on Northeast news site NEast Philly and is reprinted here with permission as part of a content partnership. See more photos here.

More than 200 students, staff, technology professionals and partners listened to the musical stylings of a high school choir last week. But everyone was there to promote technology literacy.

Held at Northeast High School, the sixth annual luncheon was again the signature event of the 11th annual Black Family Technology Awareness Week, which has some lingering events over the next few days.

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Nutter to Chamber: experiment with city biz taxes, retain tech firms

Comcast Exec. VP David Cohen, after introducing Mayor Michael Nutter. Photo by Rikard Larma for Metro

Life sciences, engineering, computer system design firms and the video game industry were among the members of the region’s creative economies whose fates were addressed during Mayor Michael Nutter’s address to the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce this week.

Those mentions, in addition to the rest of his speech, focused on the economy, noting that job creation is a top priority of the coming year and outlining an experimentation with the city’s tax structure. He also warned of another tight budget and tough economic year.

“When I took office one of my top priorities was to transform the way that city government interacts with business, to encourage investment and development, rather than chase it away,” Nutter said. “Now, with many Philadelphians out of work and small businesses struggling to survive, creating jobs and encouraging investment is no longer one of my top priorities, it is my top priority.”

Below, listen to Nutter’s speech.

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Photos from our January Technology Networking Happy Hour

Our second monthly meetup was a success, and now photos of the event have surfaced. Event Organizer Brett Silver of Center City Philadelphia was on-hand to shoot photos of the evening, and we can’t say they could have turned out any better. Look at all the pretty people!

More of the shots are available at the Center City Philadelphia event page.

Spot any buddies? Let ‘em know, or drop their names in the comments. And stay tuned for more information about our February meetup.

Economy League of Greater Philadelphia Turns 100

Click to enlarge.

In 1939, the City of Philadelphia was in a financial pinch. Some were clamoring for the city to privatize its gas works, because natural gas as an energy was in decline and the capital could finally right City Hall’s ship. Of course, there’s a good chance natural gas heats your home today, the city is once again in financial straits and people still talk about privatizing utilities.

That reality is something the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, the nonpartisan policy nonprofit, seemed to know even then, as it offered a report calling ideas to sell the utility “unwarranted.”

It was one in a century-long history of involvement in public affairs by offering analysis of the region’s issues of the day.

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Thanks to all who came to our second monthly meetup

From the bottom of our techie hearts, thanks to all who came out to Public House in Logan Square for our joint Happy Hour with Center City Philadelphia. By our count, more than 45 people braved the cold for a free drink and a chance to mingle with fellow tech heads.

The TP staff saw many new faces and we welcome all the new readers we were able to speak with.

Much like our last meetup, we heard valuable praise, criticism and advice from you, our readers. We will be sure to tweet when the hundreds of photos snapped by fellow organizer Brett Silver are posted online.

We’re liking this whole face-to-face thing, so keep an ear out for our next meetup as we hope to continue the good times in February. Be sure to bring a notepad full of your thoughts on TP, some business cards and – most importantly – a thirst for some brews.