Women in Science: panel of female science leaders explain pathways to success [VIDEO]

The panelists (left to right): Susan Rohrer, Gwendolyn Binder-Scholl, Jane Hollingswoth, Deborah Crawford.

It’s not always easy to be a women in field traditionally dominated by men, but four female leaders in science industry gathered at Quorum yesterday to offer their perspective on how to be successful in the field.

Merck senior director of licensing and external research Susan Rohrer, Adaptimmune vice president Gwendolyn Binder-Scholl, NuPathe CEO Jane Hollingswoth, and Drexel University senior vice provost for research Deborah Crawford joined moderator Sandy Pfeffer, a director at Deloitte & Touche, to participate in the Smart Talk Q&A as part of Philly Tech Week and the Philadelphia Science Festival events.

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5 business lessons from Startup 101: investment, IP, outsourcing [VIDEO]

Skyline view from the Pyramid Club where Startup 101 was held during Philly Tech Week. Photo by Sean Blanda.

Ever wanted to found your own startup? There’s a lot more to it then just a great idea.

Startup 101, organized in conjunction with Philly Tech Week, introduced about 50 participants to the need-to-know business basics of venture capital, intellectual property law, telecommunications, IT and marketing.

Afterward, the panelists — Meidlinger Partners co-founder and Managing Principal Kevin Brophy, Volpe and Koenig IP lawyer Joe McNamara, Ecomm consultant Don Campbell, PFIT, Inc. CEO Fred Bender, and Dreamscape Marketing president Dan Gemp — fielded questions about everything from SEO to whether or not to found your business in Philadelphia or Delaware.

The Pyramid Club hosted the event and offered a sky-high — 52 stories high — setting to learn exactly what it takes to start a business these days.

After the jump see video of each panelists’ introductory remarks and five specific takeaways from the event.

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Grassroots Game Conference: companies to spend more than $2.5 billion on gamification, says Gabe Zichermann [VIDEO]

Gamification, says expert, author and editor Gabe Zichermann, is all about “changing human behavior.”

And Zichermann says companies are willing to shell out big money in order to bend human behavior to their bottom line, Zichermann explained in his keynote, citing a Gartner Group report that said companies will spend more than $2.5 billion on gamification a year.

Zichermann’s keynote for the Gamification for Nonprofits Day of the Grassroots Game Conference offered a comprehensive explanation of gamification to an audience of more than 50 game developers and nonprofit workers gathered at Univeristy of the Arts’ Hamilton Hall.

The day was organized by Nathan Solomon, founder of the Philadelphia Game Lab and hosted by the Corzo Center for the Creative Economy in conjunction with Philly Tech Week, presented by AT&T.

Watch Zichermann define what gamification is — “a constant ongoing process” — and what it isn’t in the video below.

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OpenAccess Philly Showcase: 8 lightning talks on public-private partnerships [VIDEO]

Software developer Mjumbe Poe gives a lightning presentation during the OpenAccess Philly Lunchtime Series at WHYY.

The first Philly Tech Week lunchtime series was the OpenAccessPhilly Showcase, an hour of lightning presentations on important public-private projects that impact Philadelphia.

Each of the eight presenters had five minutes to present a slide deck about their particular initiative and close with a six-word summary of their work. It was a tighter format of the day-long OAP event last fall.

After a brief introduction from Comcast Director of Local Media Development Paul Wright and Jeff Friedman, Manager of Civic Innovation and Participation in the Office of the Philadelphia Mayor, the presenters approached the podium rapid fire over the course of the lunch hour at WHYY in Old City.

Check out video of each presenter and his or her six-word summary after the jump.

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Philly Tech Week 2012 officially kicks off with presentations from Brigitte Daniel, Adel Ebeid, and Rob Wonderling

With a morning breakfast and presentations from three Philadelphia technology leaders, Philly Tech Week presented by AT&T is officially underway.

Nearly 100 attendees arrived at WHYY at 8:30 a.m. to watch Wilco Electronic Systems Executive Vice President Brigitte Daniel, City of Philadelphia Chief Innovation Officer Adel Ebeid, Chamber of Commerce CEO Rob Wonderling and Technically Philly kick off a solid week of more than 80 technology events.

After introductions made Technically Philly co-founder Christopher Wink, Daniel spoke about the progress Philadelphia has made in bridging the digital divide and spoke of what the technology community still must to do to make computing and broadband accessible to all of Philadelphia’s citizens.

“On the other side of the digital divide, on the other side of what we’re doing, it’s not all digits and ones and zeros and code, but it’s people,” Daniel said in her presentation.

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First ever Women in Tech Summit brings nearly 200 regional women technologists [VIDEO]

The first Women in Tech Summit attracted about 200 women from the local technology community.

The Women in Tech Summit, part of Philly Tech Week Kickoff Weekend, drew about 200 women to Wharton’s Jon Huntsman Hall in University City on a warm, sunny Saturday.

Both panelists, presenters, and audience members alike discussed lessons learned, offered professional advice, and gave hands-on workshops on a variety of topics relevant to careers in technology.

AboutOne founder Joanne Lang announced the launch of beta version of the online household organizing application for Windows, adding a telling example of success to those attending the first Women in Tech Summit. The application, which has been widely covered, is designed to help organize household information, such as financial, medical and other personal details, all in one place. Lang told the audience that the updated version of the app went live at 5:30 a.m. that day.

Here’s video of Lang announcing the launch of the AboutOne Windows application.

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Philly Startup Weekend kicks off Philly Tech Week presented by AT&T

Cloudmine's Mark Weil demonstrates an ideal pitch in front of the PHLSW attendees.

Last night over 150 people met at Hamilton Hall at the University of the Arts with a simple but ambitious goal: create a startup in a single weekend.

Kicking off the first day of Philly Tech Week presented by AT&T, Startup Weekend challenges designers, developers and “non-technical” attendees to put their heads together to create as many functioning companies by Sunday night. Then the companies will pitch to a panel of judges to determine the winner.

Now in its third iteration locally, the attendees spent Friday night meeting one another and pitching their ideas to one another in rapid fire 45-second speeches in front of the entire group. The attendees will then determine which startups they’d like to help with and team up to make them a reality by Sunday.

The winner, of course, gets a invitation to demo at Switch Philly 3.

We’ll have more Startup Weekend coverage later this weekend.

After pitching, attendees wrote their company names on a sheet of paper to attract signups.

Only 48 hours left to get Switch Philly 3 + Signature Event early bird tickets

Philly Tech Week is less than a month away, but we’re rewarding the folks that plan ahead with two specials:

• Get Switch Philly 3 tickets for $5 (saving of $5)
• Signature Event tickets for $20 (saving of $10)

Get your tickets now to two of the marque ad Philly Tech Week events and save a few bucks. However, both deal end on April 1st. If you’re on the fence, here’s what’s in store:

Switch Philly 3 (4/25 @ 6:00 p.m.) Mayor Michael Nutter, First Round Capital managing partner Josh Kopelman and Robin Hood Ventures Exuctive Director Ellen Weber will judge five startups and determine who will win an awesome prize pack. Thanks to our friends at Novotorium, Morgan Lewis and the Corzo Center at the University of the Arts for this one. [GET TICKETS]

The Philly Tech Week Signature Event (4/27 @ 6:00 p.m.) is a cocktail reception with robots, local video games and lots more. Chat with all of PTW’s sponsors and participants and other members of the community while you grab a bite to eat and drink at the open bar. Thanks to all of our signature sponsors for making this night rock. [GET TICKETS]

Check out all of Philly Tech Week’s events here.

Open call for events and sponsors for Philly Tech Week 2012 presented by AT&T

It’s that time again, Philadelphia.

Technically Philly has officially launched the open calendar of events for Philly Tech Week 2012 at PhillyTechWeek.com.

Events will take place Monday, April 23 through Saturday, April 28, 2012 with a kick-off weekend taking place April 20 through 22. We’re excited to launch the calendar with dozens of collaborative partners already onboard, and we’re eagerly anticipating the events that will come from Philly’s great tech community.

Philly Tech Week 2012 is presented by AT&T, the debut title sponsor, and is organized by Technically Philly. The annual week of events is intended to grow the impact of this innovative region through programming focused on technology, collaboration and improving Philadelphia. This year’s theme: “Making a better Philadelphia through technology.”

“AT&T is proud to be the first title sponsor of Philly Tech Week. We’re always looking ahead and we know our customers are too. They want to be amazed by ‘what’s next.’ It’s our job to support events and organizations that promote innovation and creativity in technology,” said Tiffany Baehman, vice president and general manager, AT&T, greater Philadelphia. “We recognize all that the Philly tech community has to offer and we are excited to see what the week brings.”

Technically Philly turned to Jarvus Innovations to develop PhillyTechWeek.com after the web development firm created the inaugural Philly Tech Week website and mobile application in 2011. The firm works with organizations like Consumer Reports, Philadelphia Eagles, The Roots and TEDxPhilly.

We’re launching with 23 events on the calendar, and several anchor events are confirmed thus far for Philly Tech Week 2012, including:

• A daily lunchtime speaker series at WHYY will take place again this year
• The week will be kicked-off by Startup Weekend, the entrepreneur bootcamp, followed by a block party hosted by globally-known coworking community Independents Hall
• Philly Tech Week’s Signature Event, a gala cocktail party, will gather hundreds of leaders in Philadelphia’s technology community
• The second annual Philly Robotics Expo will be held at Drexel University
• OpenAccessPhilly will provide lightning presentations on public-private partnerships
• Five Philly startups will compete for a prize pack at demo event Switch Philly
• The fourth annual BarCamp News Innovation, an annual, one-day unconference on journalism innovation, and the Open Gov Hackathon will be held at Temple University

To learn how to get involved with Philly Tech Week, read more after the jump.

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Philly Geek Awards: Geekadelphia to honor geek, technology communities Aug. 19 at Academy of Natural Sciences

The team behind Geekadelphia, the playful geek culture blog, has announced the first ever Philly Geek Awards to take place Friday, Aug. 19 at the Academy of Natural Sciences.

Free tickets, with a suggested donation of $5, are now available, as co-founder and lead organizer Eric Smith announced last week.

“A black-tie, red carpet event, we’re taking this ‘jawn’ seriously. Think of it as the local Daytime Emmy of the Webby Awards. Presenters will take to the Academy of Natural Sciences’ stage to talk about the nominees, open up an envelope to announce the winner, all that good stuff.  Expect beautiful trophies/plaques,  a fantastic pre-awards cocktail hour  thanks to National Mechanics and DrinkPhilly, and lots of laughs.”

[Full Disclosure: Geekadelphia has nominated Philly Tech Week and work we've done with the National Constitution Center; we can only assume to throw pie at us.]

Philadelphia Geek Awards
Friday, August 19th, 2011
www.phillygeekawards.com

Academy of Natural Sciences
1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 299-1009 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (215) 299-1009 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
www.ansp.org