Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak will be keynoting the Wharton Web Conference here in Philadelphia this July.

Wozniak has a long list of accomplishments outside of Apple, but currently serves as the Chief Scientist at FusioniO, a hardware and software solutions company.

The day-long conference which will take place July 10th is designed to bring IT professionals of all types together for a day of education about the latest technologies in the field. Conference sessions will cover everything from data mining to negotiating.

Wozniak’s keynote will start the day off at 9:30am.

To see a full schedule click here.

The cost of general admission is $299. To register, click here.

The kickoff Philadelphia Bootstrappers Breakfast at Elephant and Castle in Center City during Philly Tech Week

Entrepreneurship and investment need not be inextricably linked.

That’s something of the bailiwick of Mike Krupit, the seasoned suburban entrepreneur who is now the general manager of Langhorne-based incubator Novotorium.

Krupit kicked off the Philadelphia Boostrappers Breakfast with a chatty group of 30 entrepreneurs at Elephant and Castle in Center City during Philly Tech Week. The meetup will take place the fourth Tuesday of every month — next time will be May 22 — and the first had a waiting list, so get it on your calendar.

“We’re hear to learn and share and celebrate growing business in a more organic way,” said Krupit, in a clever turn of phrase for a longtime vegan. Krupit had help in the organization, primarily his Novotorium manager Chuck Hall.

Join the Philadelphia Meetup group here. Visit the national group page here.

Started in San Francisco in 2003, Philadelphia is the eighth branded chapter, just the fourth outside of California, but the concept is surely straightforward. Whether it’s the nature of the business you’re in or your own personal tastes, a crew of entrepreneurs grab breakfast together to talk through challenges and find common ground around scaling a business to profitability without outside investment.

“A lot of entrepreneurs learn on their third or fourth business that venture capital isn’t always the right fit,” Krupit said. “We hope to show more people that there are alternatives.”

William Draper III, the famed venture capitalist best known for backing successful companies like Zappos and Skype, among many others, thinks Philadelphia has great energy.

The city has an excitement, he said, that he thinks is now missing in Silicon Valley.

That’s how the investor and author of “The Startup Game” — which he gave away at the event — opened his lunchtime keynote speech at the sold out 14th annual Angel Venture Fair at the Union League yesterday. In a grandiose room tightly packed with approximately 300 people — a mix of angel investors and startup founders — and an introduction from Mayor Michael Nutter, it would have been difficult not to feel the buzz.

“Your innovations are driving Philadelphia’s growing reputation as a smart choice for business,” Mayor Nutter said, addressing the audience at the Union League.

Below you’ll find video of Mayor Nutter offering his introductory remarks:

Over the last few months, Nutter has appeared at numerous local technology events throughout the city to tout the importance of the local industry, most recently judging the Switch Philly demo competition during Philly Tech Week.

Following Mayor Nutter’s remarks, the 35 companies accepted to exhibit and pitch split into two groups and were given the opportunity to present 15 minutes pitches. Angels could wander in and out of pitches as they liked or meander through the maze of exhibition tables talking to founders. Based on the presentations this reporter saw, the average funding ask hovered around $500,000.

Draper offered his keynote over lunch, telling stories about his experiences and doling out advice to both angels and entrepreneurs gleaned from a long career in the business.

Below Draper offers advice to entrepreneurs looking for investment from venture capitalists.

“Be sure that they are supportive, that they are team builders, that they’ve got success in their genes, as well as money in their jeans — a different kind of genes,” Draper said.

Angel Venture Fair Executive Director Marc Kramer — he’s also a professor, author and entrepreneur — said the event is unique because it expands the reach of mid-Atlantic angel investors by exposing them to a cast of startups from all over the world. Kramer told Technically Philly the companies presenting at the fair had been culled from an applicant pool of 110 companies.

“The whole idea is if America is going to continue to be successful we’ve got to get money behind these early stage companies,” Kramer said. “Provide them with the funding that way they can create employment opportunities and grow.”

The Angel Venture Fair, Kramer believes creates something of a virtuous cycle of investment, not only in startups, but for the mid-Atlantic region.

“For the angel investors themselves it means that they have more quality opportunities to invest, which helps them increase their own wealth and they’ll pour even more money back into these companies,” Kramer said. “At the end of the day, it’s really about job creation.”

Even though Angel Venture Forum Managing Partner and Mataron Development Managing Director Marc Mathis is based locally, he confirmed that he finds value in looking at companies from outside the region.

“We are simply located in the mid-Atlantic region, so that is our target market and, of course, my main focus is minority business development, but we look at companies abroad, west coast, east coast, globally, whatever comes to the table that can hit our sweet spot and we see an opportunity,” Mathis said.

On the entrepreneurial side, e-commerce discount designer retail site Kembrel.com co-founder Stephan Jacob said the fair is helping him start conversations with investors who are not typically as interested in retail.

“For us we’re out raising some money and extending our Series A, so it’s a wonderful way to start dialogue with potential new investors,” Jacobs said. “It’s also a great way to simply network and get exposure and gain exposure for the brand in the larger Philadelphia angel community.”

Kramer told Technically Philly that it’s tough to quantify how many deals get done as a result of the Angel Venture Fair, but with so many entrepreneurs swapping business cards it seems like quite a few closed out rounds may just be a matter of time.

The second annual Philly Geek Awards will be held Friday, Aug. 17, announced the organizing Geekadelphia team during Philly Tech Week.

An initial batch of 100 tickets for $15 were made live here.

In making the announcement, the Geekadelphia team, led by co-founder Eric Smith, dropped a new website and announced the categories. The event will be again held at the Academy of Natural Sciences on the Ben Franklin Parkway.

Watch the full video from last year here and see a roundup of attention here — maybe Technically Philly will be nicer this year.

In honor of its annual Entrepreneurship Week, the Empowerment Group currently holding its first-ever Entrepreneurship Training Boot Camp to offer guidance and mentorship to budding entrepreneurs in Philadelphia.

The bootcamp started yesterday and will run until Thursday. Training sessions are focused on personal development, marketing yourself and your business, financial planning and business management.

The entire course costs $50, but you can drop in to a specific program for $15.

To learn more about the programming check out the event page. The entire course will run in Terra Hall (Room 905) at the University of the Arts. The full Entrepreneurship Week kicks off next week on April 16, 2012 with 11 free workshops and networking on all aspects of entrepreneurship, according to a press release. All E-week events are free and open to the public.

Here are a few of the key E-week events you might want to check out:

• Idea Blast: a brainstorming workshop on creative business ideas.
  When: April 16, 2012; 12:00 to 1:30 pm.
• How to Start a Co-Op: exploring cooperatives in Philadelphia. Panel speakers include representatives from Keystone Development Center, the Anti-Repression Resource and Training Alliance and the Kensington Community Food Co-Op.
  When: April 17, 2012; 6:00 to 7:30 pm.
• The Women’s Entrepreneur Circle: Interactive session for local women entrepreneurs to network and develop relationships.
  When: April 19, 2012; 12 to 2 pm.
• Closing Celebration: Ceremony showcasing the Boot Camp business projects as well as a keynote address, a networking session and a “call to action” from Neal Kleinman, Senior Fellow at the University of the Arts’ Corzo Center for the Creative Economy.
  When: April 19, 2012; 7 to 9 pm

Technically Philly co-founder demoes Connect Philly, a tool he led to create that maps free wireless access points, in Conservation Hall in City Hall Thursday.

Digital literacy needs to follow digital access, which followed digital awareness.

If that’s the pipeline for ensuring that the web ensnares each Philadelphian into its powerful grasp, we’re somewhere in step two, but it’s important to keep an eye on step three.

“We need to make sure that we’re making Philadelphians not just digital aware but digital savvy,” said Bret Perkins, vice president for external and government affairs for Comcast, at the launch event for Connect Philly, a tool built by Technically Philly to map and access free wireless Internet hotspots.

See it at ph.ly/connect too.

Following a demo, Perkins was part of a panel discussion that also featured Siobhan Reardon, President and Director of the Free Library of Philadelphia; Brigitte Daniel, Executive Vice President, at Wilco Electronic Systems, Charles Kaylor, visiting Assistant Professor at Temple University and Bryan Mercer of the Media Mobilizing Project.

Broadly, the group acknowledged work left to be done on broadband and mobile adoption — Kaylor revisited the numbers that show somewhere between 40 percent and 55 percent of Philadelphia households aren’t connected — but already there is a sense of urgency to not lose focus on that while access to the web is good, understanding how to use it is better.

Put another way, getting online is an important hurdle — and Connect Philly can be a small help in that — but what Philadelphians do when they get online is the ultimate challenge. (The Connect Philly project was led by Technically Philly’s Brian James Kirk and the tool was built by local developer Jim Smiley.)

“We run the risk of entrenching a digital underclass,” said Kaylor, whose research focuses on web adoption.

The Knight Foundation, which helped support the event and project, was represented by Philadelphia Program Director Donna Frisby-Greenwood, who spoke of her interest in technology impact on community. Also at the event, held in the beautifully adorned Conservation Hall in City Hall, Mayor Nutter spoke about his administration’s interest in the topic.

“As technology becomes more critical in our lives, our city will be held back by those without access,” said Nutter in brief remarks near the close of the event, which drew more than 60 attendees.

During the panel discussion, moderated by this reporter, two recent questions on the scale of digital access efforts in Philadelphia were given some clarity.

Perkins of Comcast addressed the dismal early number of local Internet Essentials accounts — 500 here compared to 5,000 in Chicago, a total he called “okay to so-so” — by saying there were stronger school district partners elsewhere. He specifically named a suburban Atlanta superintendent who drummed up support, suggesting it wasn’t the case here during the ouster of former Philadelphia superintendent Arlene Ackerman.

Also, Reardon pushed back on a recent Pew report that suggested the Free Library system has fewer available web-enabled computers per resident than other cities by reminding attendees that when compared to other larger peer cities — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago — the numbers were more comparable than to newer systems, like Pittsburgh and Seattle. She said more workstations will be added but education and the adoption of mobile technology is more important.

“We have to solve this problem in a variety of ways,” she said.

Knight Foundation Philadelphia Program Director Donna Frisby-Greenwood addressing attendees of an event on Philadelphia distinguishing itself as a leader in social entrepreneurship.

Philadelphia is a big market, has the infrastructure of other leading regions for social enterprise and, oh, the city has a lot of problems.

That’s the value proposition coming out of an event organized last week by the Knight Foundation, the Delaware Valley Grantmakers and Technically Philly and held at the University City Science Center. Spurred in part by a post from this author, the event brought together more than 30 leaders in the region’s nonprofit, investment and socially-focused entrepreneur communities.

Kicked off by a presentation by Cheryl Dorsey, the president of the celebrated New York City-based social enterprise foundation Echoing Green, the event featured a large group discussion and then smaller breakout sessions on how the region might further its reputation for the effort.

There was no shortage of perspective from attendees.

Above, see a presentation this reporter gave at the event.

The conversation on social entrepreneurship — defined largely as putting impact above profit — comes from a sentiment this reporter has seen with increasing regularity, one that says the region needs a broader, more consumer facing distinction. Raising the profile of the existing industry infrastructure could attract more participants and create the type of business proximity that duplicates success elsewhere in Philadelphia, a variety of event attendees said.

Below, find sevent of the most immediate steps that event attendees recommended. See the complete notes from the discussions here [PDF].

1. Host a series of broader stakeholder meetings — Partnering with organizations like the Federal Reserve and other groups touching this space, there is a need for existing players to see the distinction Philadelphia can have in social entrepreneurship.
   
2. Social mapping — As other industries and markets have done, the pipeline of the social entrepreneurship (or entrepreneurship and technology broadly) community should be followed, tracked and shared to see who’s here and find a better way to introduce the ecosystem to itself.
   
3. Investment education — Something that other consumer-facing entrepreneurship communities in Philadelphia outside of life sciences often say themselves, there is a need for organizations like the University City Science Center to continue broadening the awareness of local investors about new opportunities, like social entrepreneurship.
4. Increasing Mentorship — There is a continued need to connect the established, largely suburban ring entrepreneur community and the growing Center City-ring, newer, young entrepreneur community.
5. Work with existing regional groups on incorporating social entrepreneurship as part of messaging, including PCVB, GPTMC, Select Greater Philadelphia, the Economy League, Chamber of Commerce and more. Many existing efforts for longterm regional envisioning should embrace this distinction.
6. Encourage suburban based BLab to see Philadelphia as a place to focus on for growth. Other membership organizations that are already focused on social impact, like the Sustainable Business Network and GPIC should model Philadelphia as being distinguished in social entrepreneurship.
7. Challenge large businesses based in the region to embrace corporate responsibility ethos.

Jonathan Melllinger has experience on both sides of the investment ecosystem, first as a successful entrepreneur and now as a member at Robin Hood Ventures.

Mellinger told an audience of entrepreneurs and angel investors at the Science Center’s Angel Education event that he uses instinct and experience to choose companies to invest in, but he also laid out his model for making early stage investments Tuesday.

The programming is part of an ongoing effort from the University City life sciences research park to broaden its mission and the awareness of regional investors to smaller, more consumer-facing ventures.

First, when Mellinger is looking at a company, he looks at the management team.

“I like to see some experience from the management team in the space they’re going after,” said Mellinger, as he explained why he decided to invest in Onetwosee, which provides TV companion content for mobile devices.

Competition is another important factor. Mellinger looks to see that a company has a “a valid and proven revenue model” that approaches the competition in a new way.

“What I did like about OneTwoSee is when I looked at the competition in general they were attacking their market with the revenue model right up front,” said Mellinger. “Tim Geithner, at some point said, plan trumps no plan. And as an angel investor, revenue trumps no revenue”

Lastly, Mellinger said that having a product that works and is easy to use is an important factor as well.

“What I need to know from a company is what their customers consider a successful product,” said Mellinger.

Companies that can’t answer that question effectively get a pass, he says.

Here’s a short clip of Mellinger summarizing his investment strategy:

Mellinger wasn’t the only one offering instruction to angel investors. A panel of entrepreneurs offered local angel investors advice on how to invest in the mobile startup environment.

From left to right, William Crowder of Dreamit Ventures (moderator), Ilya Braude of Cloudmine, Bob Moul of apprenaissance and PSL, Steve Shea of Ajungo.

“The one thing I love about Philadelphia and it’s why I’m proud to be a Philadelphia is it’s a huge city, but it’s a small community,” said Steve Shea, CEO and cofounder of social vacation planning company Ajungo, regarding how to get started making investments. “I am personally a fan and an encourager of speaking to people.”

Shea, who has made personal investments himself, was joined by Cloudmine founder Ilya Braude and Bob Moul of AppRenaissance and Philly Startup Leaders. The three fielded questions from an audience of about 40 people and offered their inside perspective on the state of the mobile application market as well as where they think the industry is headed.

“It used to be that computing was always a challenge of constraint,” said Moul. “By and large, that’s no longer the case. Now instead of a challenge of constraint, it’s a challenge of creativity.”

James Drobile of Mobile Monday Mid-Atlantic kicked off the afternoon gathering with an overview of the mobile technology industry. The event was held in the Quorum space at the University City Science Center. Angel Education is intended to foster the angel investment community by offering educational programming on emerging technology industries.

Sen. Toomey talks to Rep. Paulsen after the press conference. Rep. Meehan in the background.

As if the Obama Administration’s healthcare bill —The Affordable Care Act — wasn’t under enough fire this week with the start of Supreme Court hearings yesterday, medical technology trade organization AdvaMed held a press conference with congressmen from Pennsylvania and Minnesota to call for the repeal of the medical device tax instated by the bill and herald the release of a new report that benchmarks the competitiveness of the medical technology industry in the United States.

U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (PA), U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach (6th-PA), U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan (7th-PA), Co-chair of the Congressional Med Tech Caucus U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen (3rd-MN), and U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent (15th-PA) joined the University City Science Center’s Stephen Tang, David Nexon of AdvaMed and other leaders of the Pennsylvania bio tech industry at Quorum to discuss the negative impact the new 2.3 percent tax would have on U.S. competitiveness in the global biotech market.

The tax, which is scheduled to take effect in 2013, could apply to a range of medical devices from retail products like hearing aids to advanced medical technology, like MRIs, according to an AdvaMed press release. AdvaMed estimates the tax could result in the loss of up to 43,ooo jobs across the United States and views the tax as a threat to America’s competitiveness in the global medical technology market.

“Now our tax system is so uncompetitive for high-tech manufacturing industries like ours that the taxes our government applies to activities conducted in the U.S. are two and a half times higher than taxes foreign government levy on those same activities abroad,” said Nexon.

All the congressmen present registered their support of the life sciences industry in Pennsylvania. You can view the each of their remarks below.

Senator Toomey spoke of being more “bullish” about supporting life science and medical technology in Pennsylvania.

“We are poised to dominate this field,” said Senator Toomey.

Representative Gerlach said the work he will do with Representative Paulsen on the Ways and Means Committee will support the life sciences industry.

“We have to make sure that we’re incentivizing the investment in this particular industry, the life science industry,” said Gerlach.

Representative Meehan discussed the importance of life sciences to the Pennsylvania economy and the competitiveness of the medical technology industry on the global market.

“When we talk about the growth of the middle class in India and China, I do not want it to be at the expense of the middle class here,” said Representative Meehan.

Representative Dent discussed the impact of “this really devastating tax” on some of the medical technology companies he works with in his district.

Representative Paulsen, who co-chairs the medical technology caucus, discussed why the medical device tax is a threat to an industry he believes to be an “American success story.”

“There is no doubt that it is a tax on innovation,” said Paulsen.

The full report, “The Economic Impact of the U.S. Advanced Medical Technology Industry,” which was prepared for AdvaMed by the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice, is available here.

The #notatSXSW early-comers at Barcade Tuesday night

If anyone in Philly was really sad about missing the actual South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas this year, Barcade’s vintage arcade games — not to mention local techies — were available for consolation.

Technically Philly, Geekadelphia, Indy Hall and Young Involved Philadelphia organized and hosted the Fishtown event, which attracted more than fifty people to chat, have a beer, play arcade games and generally celebrate more on #whyilovephilly and less on #SXSW.

Thanks to the Barcade’s generosity, anyone wearing a #notatsxsw lime green wristlet was privy to the happy hour special — a dollar off drinks — until 9:00pm.

Although the party was for those in the Philadelphia community who passed on the popular SXSW event for one reason or another, plenty of Philadelphians did make the trip to Austin for the week to present and learn from others in the tech community.

Locals who represented Philadelphia there include:

• Voxeo developer Mark Headd spoke about leading two hackathons, one in Philly, another in Baltimore
• Happy Cog led several panels, including one on improving web development RFPs
• DreamIt Ventures hosted a co-founder speed dating
• Our own Sean Blanda spoke about local technology news
• Updated: “Marc Weil from Cloudmine was also on a panel offering advice to startups on picking a co-founder.”
• Digitas Health had tweeted:
  .