Philadelphia to apply for Google’s experimental ultra-high speed broadband

It wasn’t at a press conference or inside the Inquirer editorial boardroom. The city’s announcement to join the rush for Google’s ultra-high speed fiber broadband came during a few minutes of a presentation, backed by dense slides at a technology community event inside a rock venue.

“Let’s light this joint up,” city Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank said, throwing his hands in the air and walking off stage at the fifth Ignite Philly, seemingly surprised by the cheers and laughs the slide earned.

The announcement at Johnny Brenda’s last night, a bar filled with mostly 20 and 30-somethings, came 10 months after Frank first unveiled his $100 million city technology investment vision to Refresh Philly, another young, hip, technology community event staple. Technically Philly urged continued involvement by the community and Frank and, in many ways, that’s continued.

The decision marks something of a marriage between likely the city’s two most prominent officials whom have hands in the region’s technology community: the son of a former mayor and, as City Councilman Bill Green put it last night, “the baddest ass CTO of any city, Allan Frank.”

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Ignite Philly 5 marks age of social entrepreneurs, city’s Google bid

Organizer Geoff DiMasi hands a check to Girls Rock Philly for $1175

Last November, we asked if the Philadelphia technology community was ready to take the next step. Tonight, at a trimmed-down Ignite Philly, we got a glimpse of what those next steps may look like. The event, which forces speakers to cram a presentation into a fast-moving five-minute speech was better attended and was better at holding the attention of attendees than its predecessor (see our humble slideshow).

Fresh on the heels of new technology-based tax incentives, City Councilman Bill Green and Philadelphia CTO Allan Frank kicked off the event by announcing the city’s effort to lure Google’s new Fiber project to the city, an effort that began earlier this week using a #phillyfiber hashtag campaign (much more about the effort here).

Shortly after the rushed Google announcement and after Indy Hall co-founder Alex Hillman’s subtle rebuttal, the night was characterized by a string of presentations focusing on social entrepreneurship.

The event was one of over 60 Ignites taking place on six continents as part of Global Ignite Week. As part of the Philadelphia event, the organizers were able to donate the event’s 235  five dollar ticket sales to raise $1,175 for Girls Rock Philly, a summer camp that helps young girls become musicians.

After the jump we hand out some awards for the event including best quote, best presentation and the “Kids Table” award.

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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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Biggest tech community stories we covered in 2009

Happy New Year, folks.

It’s been an exciting year for us. Though we’ll be celebrating our first birthday in February, we’ve had a chance to take part in Philadelphia’s vibrant technology community for 10 months. We’ve seen the amazing things that this community offered in 2009. Coming up on our 500th published story about this community, we’re proud to be a part of it. And we’re ecstatic to see what lie ahead.

No, Technically Philly has not started its own Mummer troupe. We do, however, want to ring in the new year by taking a look back at our top stories of 2009. Our month-by-month perspective, after the jump.

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Shop Talk: Community leader focuses on Cadence Rowing performance wristwatch business

The Vo3 is Cadence Rowing's flagship stroke rate watch, the first in an expanding series.

In 2002, Vanja Buvac choose a path that would affect the next seven years of his life.

To create a product he had envisioned as an amateur rower in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he would have to become an engineer to design it or a patent attorney to protect it.

Buvac wanted to make it easier for rowers to track performance and saw an opportunity to create a portable device that could record stroke rate, unlike traditional in-cockpit stroke counters. He had a simple solution—incorporate the technology into a wristwatch. Rowers could wear it as a status symbol or strap the timepiece directly onto an oar.

“I thought, ‘do I hire an engineer to help me concoct this thing, or a patent attorney to help me patent it,” the tall, thin entrepreneur says, seated on a couch in his East Arch Street office, overlooking a spacial view of Center City. “I looked at the price of both. Engineers I could get for $40 an hour, patent attorneys were $300. So I said ‘alright, I better learn patent law instead of engineering,’ he says, laughing.

Cadence Rowing was born.

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Ignite Philly 4 hosts Free Library and Mayoral cabinet officials as VGI impresses

Videogame Growth Initiative's Mike Worth gives an energetic presentation at Ignite Philly 4 | Credit: Sean Blanda

‘Let’s continue these great conversations,’ he said in so many words.

Before an intermission of Ignite Philly 4 that could have been easily overlooked, Make:Philly’s Harris Romanoff made a modest call to presenters that the Ignite series has sorely lacked: an opportunity to keep the conversations and inspiration flowing and perhaps create truly definable, actionable steps.

“Make is extending an invitation to speakers past and present to speak and to answer more questions,” Romanoff said to a crowd of more than 250 gathered in the upstairs of Johnny Brenda’s bar in Fishtown.

Though it was apparent that no one was yet booked for Make’s monthly DIY tech/hack meetings, it was a notable recommendation for Ignite, having now surpassed four sold out events since 2007.

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Event Highlights for October 12-18, 2009

I know you stayed up late to watch that Phillies game Philadelphia, but now is no time to lose focus.

October is events season, and this week is no exception. So grab a cup a coffee and join Technically Philly as we pluck the diamonds from the Philadelphia tech events rough.

Monday is a day of rest for our action packed Tuesday. On the 13th, you have your choice of rapid-fire Ignite Philly 4 presentations in Fishtown or chatting with the city’s Linux-heads in Plymouth Meeting. Or, if you have a gullible friend with a car, you can attend both.

The event calendar is sparse until Philly Startup Leaders weekend. Then, the group plans on holding an open hack at Drexel. Rumor has it, the group may break out into some improv comedy.

Check out the details after the jump.

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Technically Not Tech: NxtUp Philly celebrates region’s creatives

It’s a time to celebrate Philadelphia’s creative economy. Two weeks of time, to be precise.

That’s the premise of NxtUp Philly, an open calendar of events surrounding technology, design, multimedia, architecture and others, in this early part of October.

NxtUp kicks off today, with the opening of Innovation Philadelphia’s Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit, ending on October 16th with a conversation with University of the Arts designer and AIGA Fellow Hans Allemann.

Many of the organizations involved have graced this site and our events calendar before, like IgnitePhilly, DesignPhiladelphia, ChefAMe, Philly Startup Leaders and others.

“Great cities are built on collaboration not individual effort,” NxtUp organizer Ian Cross, who is CEO of I-SITE, an Old City-based Web marketing firm.

“Everyone is encouraged to put events in the calendar. NxtUp is not an organization, it’s ideally a marriage of top down experience and bottom up innovation and independence,” Cross wrote Technically Philly in an email.

After the jump, highlights of the technology-related events included in NxtUp Philly.

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Ignite comes to Wilmington for the first time

You could argue that Wilmington is Philadelphia on a two year delay.

Wilmington, much like Philadelphia earlier in the decade, has been experiencing a renaissance in its creative industries. Creatives in the city have recently founded the Lower Market (LoMa) design district and are set to host their very own Ignite event on July 22 (register here) in a city more known for providing a tax friendly location for banks to headquarter.

“We all felt the need for this to happen,” said organizer Lee Mikles, “so we all just decided to do it ourselves.”
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Oh, Ignite Philly 3 where art thou?

Turns out, the Ignite Philly guys actually have day jobs too.

Ignite Philly 3 was over three weeks ago but the videos have yet to be published online. To top it off,  earlier this week, the official site was down for a short bit, displaying a database error. There was a camera crew present at Ignite Philly, and past events eventually posted individual presentations.

Organizer Far McKon said that the reason for the delay is academia.

“The video was done by some UArts students, and they are in finals
crunch right now,” he said in an email.

Ignite plans on releasing raw video first, and then more polished versions in a month or so. We know organizing the Ignite events is a volunteer position and we’ve been in that finals crunch before, so we’re here to do our part and help. After the jump, check out a handful of videos we gathered up from around the web to hold you over.
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