Penn voted sixth best place to work in information technology

A new report by ComputerWorld says that Philadelphia is home to three of its top 100 best places to work in information technology.

The University of Pennsylvania took the highest honors, rated sixth in the country. The institution has 282 IT employees who can receive, as the publication reports, cash bonuses if they are elected to win its Models of Excellence, an employee-recognition program. Not to mention free tuition for employees.

Vanguard was ranked 29th, which focuses all of its custom development in-house and is reportedly planning to spend $30 million on training this year.

Temple University was rated 67th, and among its lucrative bonus incentives, it offers full tuition remission for employees, half-off tuition for spouses, and free tuition for children.

Did the report miss anyone’s workplace which they feel should have been nominated locally?

Friday Q&A: Entrepreneurs Forum rebuilt to connect with startups, veterans

Dan Ross is proud to say that some Philly companies have done well during the past year in what many economists say is the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

And he’s got proof.

On Wednesday, 100 companies in the Philadelphia region were awarded at the Entrepreneurs Forum of Greater Philadelphia‘s Philly 100. It wasn’t an arbitrary designation; these are companies that were able to meet the contest’s stringent restrictions: real growth in sales and revenue figures year-over-year, among others.

“We know of a number of award programs, top 25s or top 50s, they were not able to fill their quota. The good news is that we were able to achieve our top 100 with some great firms,” Ross said in a telephone interview early this week.

Of course, the gains are modest, but they’re gains, found by companies that are staying current and nimble in concerning times.

“We don’t see some of the hugely dramatic numbers that we’ve seen across the board, but they’re growing. They’re making it through the economic times and continuing to thrive and grow employment.”

Since retiring, Ross has been steering the Forum as Executive Director for six years, volunteering 20 to 30 hours a week to help young businesses connect with veterans. The service — which is funded by business sponsors and the Forum’s monthly events — is offered free of cost.

Like the businesses it recognizes, the Forum, too, has refocused its efforts to stay current. After a series of focus groups, it has launched its fiscal 2011 event series, “True North,” which focuses on young, early-stage businesses and high-growth late-stage companies. And it’s now offering an “experts on-demand” advice service that any entrepreneur can take advantage of.

After the jump, Ross talks about the Philly 100 winners, the region’s information technology growth, and about the Forum’s newly found strategy.

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Superior Technology integrated IT solutions eases logistics at local beverage producer

Even for small beverage production startup Cintron Beverage Group, based in South Philadelphia, tracking inventory was, in a word, chaotic.

“There were so many orders going in and out, and the ability to track inventory in real-time didn’t exist,” says Chief Marketing Officer Donna Davin, who handles production, operation, product development and marketing, a tall order.

So when the 20-employee company—which produces a line of energy drinks, iced teas and fruit-flavored beverages—was pitched by its logistics provider DF Young on a new IT solution that could ease the process and consolidate having to manage multiple tech vendors, things were bound to get easier.

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Mobile, frameworks, focus of 2010 Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise

More than 100 folks packed the room for the "Refactoring legacy applications for SOA using Spring Technologies" session led by Oleg Zhurakousky.

On Thursday, about 450 software developers, IT managers and business executives from around the world ventured to Old City for Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise, a locally-organized, two-day conference for high-level enterprise software development discussion.

Patrons packed the Society Hill Sheraton’s outdoor patio, breaking from sessions—comprised of mobile, frameworks, agile development, management, infrastructure and languages tracks—talking and fielding phone calls beneath the stunning pink blossoms of Cherry trees. The hotel offered more space than last year’s conference, held in Conshohocken.

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Nutter proposes “unprecedented” $120 million IT budget, moves toward paperless

Mayor Nutter has announced plans to significantly invest in city information technology and pursue paperless government efficiencies in an attempt to improve tech infrastructure, cut costs and streamline city services.

“We may not be completely paperless, but we will use less paper,” Nutter said in his budget address to City Council this morning before a packed crowed that filled the historic Council chamber’s floor and balcony seating.

If City Council approves the budget, Nutter says that an “unprecedented” investment in city technology will provide $120 million to improve IT over the next five years, including $25 million in FY11.

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City Council bill would make IT permanent part of city government

Councilman Bill Green and five members of City Council have co-sponsored legisilation that would create a permanent Charter position for a Chief Information Officer and would consolidate all of the city’s Information Technology resources under the Division of Technology.

The legislation would require the CIO to report directly to the Mayor and to create an annual IT strategic plan that includes productivity enhancements to help the city utilize paperless services. It also gives the CIO more oversight over city department technology appropriations.

“When they wrote the Charter in 1952, no one imagined there could be a paperless system,” Green told Technically Philly during a telephone interview this morning. “[The legislation would] make investment in and continual upgrade of our technology a permanent part of city government.”

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Shop Talk: NPower PA ITWorks graduates first class

Last November, the trains that normally shot South in regular intervals on the Broad Street Line were at a standstill.

But as SEPTA’s transit workers—at strike over wage and pension issues—were busy on the picket lines, nothing was going to stop Eric Harper, bound to a wheelchair, from making it to class. Harper, living in North Philadelphia, trekked more than 40 blocks to Drexel University.

Harper is one of ten students that graced the stage at Drexel’s Mitchell Auditorium Tuesday morning to receive his diploma for ITWorks, an Information Technology job-training program for disadvantaged young adults. Harper is a member of the first graduating ITWorks class, a program put together by NPower PA, a nonprofit that does IT work for other local nonprofits.

Through a collaboration with the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, NPower helped identify a need for a cost-free training program to help young high school or equivalency graduates that were neither employed or seeking post-secondary education, whom were getting by on part-time work. It was as much an opportunity to to support the community and it was to support NPower’s partner organizations, who were seeking more hands in their IT departments.

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Report: Atlantic City government IT outsourcing “inefficient, ineffective”

Atlantic City doesn’t have a single city employee overseeing its IT infrastructure, resulting in “inefficient, ineffective and unsecure processes,” according to a report by the New Jersey state comptroller [PDF].

Since 2006, the city has outsourced its IT functions to Newark’s New Jersey Institute of Technology, paying $2.47 million over 4 years for services covering the city’s networked PCs, servers and desktop support, GovTech reports. The comptroller recommends that hiring two IT staff members could allow “substantial savings and a full-time dedicated staff available on a daily basis to serve all City departments.”

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State grants and local investment fund $300k into IT training

Information technology job training is coming for unskilled workers in Philadelphia.

More than $300,000 in state grants and matched local funding is being divvied out to training programs for tech support, Web design, programming, networking and a variety of IT vocations.

The grants and matching funds are a part of a larger investment of $760,000 in grants and $510,000 in matched funding for a total impact of $1.25 million, according to an announcement made last week by the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board.

The funds are being distributed to improve industry competitiveness and to address workforce needs in the region in logistics and transportation, advanced manufacturing, higher education and the allied health fields.

The most significant IT investments include Cheney University, with grants equaling $73,875, Pierce College, with $69,000 and Lincoln Tech, with $58,642.

“We know only 30 percent of the jobs in Philadelphia are unskilled, so this investment will play an integral role in keeping people employed and helping businesses to improve productivity,” Investment Board CEO Sallie A. Glickman said in a statement.

According to the organization, 70,000 workers have participated in the program since 2005, resulting in a 6.6 percent average wage increase.