Which, of course, means you have no reason to not attend any events on our jam-packed calendar this week. Every day has a worthy event, though we can only pick three. So take this chance to brush up on your programming, your business savvy or at least mooch off of some air conditioning.

This week get the inside scoop behind visitphilly.com, learn how to get your startup off the ground from the experts and celebrate the return of Philly Build Guild. Though two of these events happen on the same day. Ah, choices.

Monday, June 14th – Refresh Philly get together to chat with the folks at Happy Cog East, the folks who designed the VisitPhilly website. The company will reveal the ideas behind the code as well as breakdown how made Philly look so damn awesome. RSVP is required to get past the Comcast security desk. 6:00 p.m. Center City. RSVP. [view more events]

Monday, June 14th – If Web design isn’t your thing, PSL is getting down to business. Having a techie co-founder is often essential the success of tech startups. Problem is, the people with the business idea often can’t write a line of code. PSL plans on exploring how non-techies can hook up with the right developer to create the next hot startup, or at least get your idea up and running. 6:30 p.m. University City. INFO. [view more events]

Wednesday, June 16th – It turns out that reports of tweeted:

Ah we long for the the good ol’ days Philadelphia.

You know, the days when Lower Marion only spied on one child, McNabb was still an Eagle and the Phillies were awesome. Wait, the Phillies are still awesome? Then we’re alright then.

In between watching Roy Halladay and enjoying this great weather, there are lots of events on our calendar that Technically Philly recommends you attend. You know, on the days when number 34 ain’t pitching.

This week: The Empowerment Group is going all out with nearly a dozen events that are sure to satisfy your entrepreneurial itch, Refresh Philly reveals the secrets behind one of the largest e-commerce sites the earth has ever seen and we shamelessly self-promote BarCamp NewsInnovation, the event that will solve all the media’s woes in six hours. Or at least spur we journalist-types to share some interesting ideas.

Ready? Jump.

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

Monday, April 19th – Refresh Philly’s April event is at a new time, and looks like it was worth the wait. Jared Spool spent some time researching the ins and outs of Amazon.com’s ugly but super-effective design and will offer some advice based on his findings at National Mechanics on Monday. The event is held along with PhillyCHI. 6 p.m. Old City. INFO. [view more events]

All Week – Okay, we’re cheating a bit here as the Empowerment Group’s Entrepreneurship Week is really a series of events. From the launch party on Monday to the morning workshops there’s a lot to digest. Be sure to go to our event calendar and click the downwards arrow to filter for entrepreneur events. All week. All over the place. INFO. [view more events]

Saturday, April 24th – Just like last year, Technically Philly is gathering together media junkies from all over the East Coast to discuss ways to innovate the news. Representatives from big media brands like the New York Times, Philly.com and Gannet have registered as well as news startups. Even if you’re not a journalist, come and tell us all why the media sucks. 9 a.m. Temple University. RSVP. [view more events]

If you have an event that you think we should be listing, email us or fill out our submission form for best results. We promise that no submission falls in to the contact form netherworld.

All in favor of giving the city that can claim to be the birthplace of this nation an extra day off for Independence Day say “aye.”

Great. Now that we gave ourselves an extra day for the weekend, you’ll be delighted to know that this week’s calendar features BBQs, hacking and happy hours galore.

Refresh Philly is taking a short break from trying to solve our city government’s technology problems to get together for a happy hour at Triumph. Come for the fellowship, stay to measure the huge brewing equipment to see if you can fit it in your basement.

The happy hours continue on Wednesday with Center City district‘s Sips event. PANMA and various marketing groups will be on hand to help you join the association that is right for you on what is the self-proclaimed “happiest happy hour.”

You will have to finish working on your time machine by Thursday as Philly Startup Leaders host a BBQ (previous coverage here) at the same time the Philly Cocoa Heads hold their monthly meetup.

And on Saturday, cap it all off with relaxing stroll through The Hacktory at the group’s Open Hack event.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more information, or follow us past the jump.

Monday, July 6: Refresh Philly gets together for their bi-monthly happy hour giving new members a great chance to come out and get acquainted, while current members can catch up with one another. The event is being held at Triumph Brewery, which has the best burgers in Old City apart from the Snow White diner (yeah, I said it). One strange aspect of the happy hour: it’s being sponsored by a Washington DC-based Web design firm. 6 p.m. Old City. RSVP. [view more events]

Wednesday, July 8: Drink specials abound as Center City’s creative associations gather for a happy hour at Lucky Strikes. Though I personally believe bowling alleys to be the 5th circle of the underworld, the event will also feature free appetizers. Groups like PANMA, The Greater Philadelphia Film Office and various marketing and advertising associations will be in attendance waiting to accept you with open arms and $4 cocktails. 5 p.m. Center City. RSVP. [view more events]

Thursday, July 9: Philly Startup Leaders are celebrating summer in the city with a BBQ on South Street. Come for the community, and stay for the door prizes, which include an iPhone. See our complete coverage of the event from last week for more details. 5:30 p.m. South Street. RSVP. [view more events]

Thursday, July 9: If the holiday gave you enough BBQ to hold you over for a couple of weeks, head on over to the old Indy Hall for a the monthly meetup of the Cocoa Heads. The crew from TweetDeck will be on hand to talk about their trials and tribulations in porting the app onto the iPhone. The group is admittedly more suited for beginners, so come out and get a head start on developing the next iPhone app that doesn’t involve bodily functions. 7 p.m. Old City. RSVP. [view more events]

Saturday, July 11: Kicking around in my brain somewhere is a fan fiction where MacGyver discovers the Hacktory and we finally get the flying car, the cure for cancer and a way to buy Septa tokens at the Tioga El stop. The nonprofit is holding an Open Hack, which is exactly what it sounds like: a loosely structured block of time where the Hacktory opens up its space to all those interested. At the very least, go to congratulate  them for their $10,000 grant. 1 p.m. Fairmount. RSVP. [view more events]

Allan Frank, city CIO

Here’s a test.

Just how innovative and influential, forward-thinking yet practical is the technology community in Philadelphia? Because you’re being challenged.

We’re still reeling from a presentation that Allan Frank, the city’s chief information officer, gave at a meeting of Refresh Philly Monday night.

The Nutter administration is investing $100 million during the next four years into city technology, including a complete overhaul of Phila.gov, as he told 75 mostly professional, tech-savvy 30 and 40-somethings in a modern, white-walled conference room on the 45th floor of the Comcast Center yesterday.

How best to do it, he isn’t sure, admitted the former corporate careerist with a beard that could double for Wolf Blitzer’s. So, the next step, he said, could be a meeting with five or 10 members of Philadelphia’s tech community whom he’d like to bring suggestions for the future of the city’s technology infrastructure.

But, it was less a detailed plan than an open invitation. So will the vanguard of our tech community do something about it?

“It is incredible I found this group,” Frank said last night of the six-month old Refresh Philly. Why not make him realize just how powerful Refresh and all the other parts of our community can be?

Because he came to Refresh, we implore leaders like Roz Duffy, whom we’ve interviewed, and others to coalesce such a small group, reflective as it can be of the community.

It’s worth creating a real dialogue because Frank’s heady suggestions of a city with high-tech enterprise zones and complete broadband coverage were as grandiose as they are indefinite. Indeed his lofty hypotheticals seemed impractical without hard details.

But, gosh, we sure like the sounds of them, and, to be fair, Frank made clear that most of what he addressed was nothing more than dream-sourcing.

He should be commended for answering frankly — with no’s — to many audience questions directed at the city’s level of planning, even when they seemed to come from listeners unknowing of the vagaries of local government.

His request for direction and interest from the disparate factions of tech seems dangerously broad. His August federal stimulus deadline is for broadband only, but plans in Philadelphia seem to linger, fade and die, especially without explicit deadlines. Keep in mind that his big boss Michael Nutter seeks reelection in 2011 and will have to start much earlier if the economy continues to cannibalize city services.

So, does Frank just want broad ideas for a better functioning Phila.gov, or ways to span the digital divide or does he want to fight for technology that cuts bureaucratic waste — like supporting paperless government legislation and creating more user-friendly methods for paying parking tickets, requesting permits and other reasons people go into the city’s Municipal Services building and never come out. Maybe he wants less, or more?

We must keep in mind that the city is much bigger and more diverse — racially, socioeconomically, even politically — than the tech community. There are Internet stars in North Philadelphia, but in neighborhoods along North Broad Street and in West Philadelphia, the working class communities of South Philly and the Northeast are unlikely to have laptops or iPhones, to be on Twitter or using e-commerce.

The future of our city — how it is seen, how it treats us and how we interact with it — must be inclusive and fair-minded, but mindful of the future.

Can our community of innovators follow through to create sensible, responsible and possible steps — targeted, prioritized and agreed upon as necessary — and ship them to Frank?

What should the plan look like? Can a collection of Philadelphia’s tech leaders appoint five to hold Frank and the Nutter administration to the promise of a more tech friendly city?

So often technology communities speak of how rarely those in real power give them an ear. Here is one. This is a time for our community to shine.

“Philadelphia has a heck of an inferiority complex sometimes,” said Frank, who grew up in Allentown and has been in the Philly region since 1977. “But all it takes are passionate people and we can make anything.”

Who are those passionate people who will carry a sensible and possible message of innovation from our tech community to city government?

PhillyCHI chair Dave Cooksey and human-computer interaction PhD holder Kellie Rae Carter open Refresh Philly session before city CIO Allan Frank takes the stage.

The Nutter administration will invest $100 million during the next four years in city technology, according to plans unveiled tonight by Philadelphia Chief Information Officer Allan Frank.

How they will is far less clear.

Frank unveiled his vision for a Digital Philadelphia Monday evening in front of a crowd of more than 75 members of the Refresh Philly design and developer community, as rain mist drifted past wall-length windows on the 45th floor of the Comcast Center.

The CIO hopes to employ a strategy that would procure federal broadband stimulus dollars to fund a longterm initiative overhauling the city’s technology infrastructure and its Phila.gov Web site.

“I basically want to blow the damn thing up,” he said to members as they clapped in support.

Frank said he’ll be open to input from the Philadelphia tech community leading up to a rough deadline to submit a proposal for federal stimulus dollars on August 15.

The city will hold large stakeholder meetings in June with city agencies, venture capitalists, education and health care institutions and business leaders in the Philadelphia technology community, he said.

Frank included few details but offered hypothetical scenarios of his vision, including a high tech enterprise zone, a government-underwritten broadband network to bridge the digital divide, and Web mashups that would give users access to city archives housing historic photographs, property records, and more.

Earlier, PhillyCHI chair Dave Cooksey and human-computer interaction PhD holder Kellie Rae Carter opened the session�focused on user experience and ways in which to improve Philadelphia�with a lecture detailing how governments have retooled vital services though complex design trials.

On three projector screens positioned in the room, Cooksy and Carter showed slides that detailed Philadelphia’s budget shortfalls, which Frank played off of later as gray skies cleared and lights dotted the North Philadelphia skyline.

“I look up North Broad Street and I see a textile industry that doesn’t exist anymore. I see the cycle of life. This is just how it happens,” he said, peering over glasses perched on the tip of his nose.

“When I look up there I think about Big Jobs. An opportunity to really think about building and fostering a new economy.”

Frank called the technology plan a “tremendous opportunity,” given current economic conditions, mayoral support and burgeoning technology community.

“What I’ve got is the best burning platform I could have,” he said, shaking both his fists emphatically.

Frank asked the crowed how to connect with citizens in the electronic age, sharing plans to continue embracing trending social media platforms like Twitter, and fielded questions from the largely digitally connected audience.

He deflected questions about city’s stance on open source technologies, Web site user experience testing and mobile device adoption.

“We need your help,” he told the crowd.

“Sign on with me for the Digital Philadelphia vision. You can define this.”

Staff writer Christopher Wink contributed to this report.

Sure you can.

While this week’s events are weighted on Tuesday when ten local tech organizations will celebrate the Mexican holiday, there’s some exciting things happening the rest of the week.

Don’t miss the city’s Chief Information Officer Allan Frank tonight at Refresh Philly. While we know philly.gov phila.gov has a few, uhm, design issues, take it easy on Mr. Frank. He has feelings too, you know.

Tuesday’s a mouthful. Say it with me now: PANMA, Philly ALT.NET, Philly PRSSA, Philly Net Tuesday, Ideablob, Philadelphia SPIN, Central New Jersey Drupal meetup, Philadelphia Standards Organization. Phew! That’s a lot of Philly (and a little bit of Jerz).

Tinker with the Hacktory‘s Open Hack! on Saturday or learn a little Cocoa with the launch of IndyHall-U. While we don’t normally include paid events on our calendar, Technically Philly is watching the launch IndyHall’s new education center.

All this week’s eventy-goodness, after the jump.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more information, or follow us past the jump.

Monday, May 5: Refresh Philly has been trying to nab Philadelphia CIO Allan Frank for weeks, and kudos to their ability to do just that. Refresh organizer Roz Duffy tells Technically Philly that Frank is very interested in the meeting and has some progressive ideas for the city. He’ll be making an appearance tonight along with user experience practitioners Kellie Carter who’s garnered a PhD in human-computer interaction, and Dave Cooksey of PhillyCHI. 6 p.m., Center City. RSVP [view more events].

Tuesday, May 6: We have an inkling that most of the discussion Tuesday night� when ten organizations will host Cinco de Mayo festivities� will be less about technology and more about Corona.

That won’t keep 10 organizations from trying to keep things civil. Alex Hung, co-founder of New York’s ALT.NET user group wants to help get you started developing for the iPhone at Philly’s ALT.NET meetup. Philly PRSSA will attempt to Break Boundaries concerning social media and has able panelists to help do just that: Comcast’s Chief Blogger Scott McNulty, GlaxoSmithKline’s PR head honcho Michael McTique, Steve Lubetkin of Professional Podcasts and more. If that’s still not enough social media for you, Philly Net Tuesday will discuss nonprofits and Twitter. We’ll skip jokes about Twitter being a “nonprofit.” All evening, various locations. [view the complete listing on our calendar].

Saturday, May 9: The Hacktory throws down its normal Open Hack! event on Saturday after organizers there helped pack the house at Johnny Brenda’s for Ignite Philly 3 last weekend. 1 p.m. Fairmount. Details. [view more events]

Last, now that IndyHall has officially moved into new digs on Third and Church in Old City, its old space on Strawberry Street ain’t gonna collect dust. The old space has been turned into a dedicated events and education center and launches its first class on Saturday. Andy Mroczkowski of Neat Receipts (which just dropped a new Mac version of its document scanning solution) and organizer of PhillyCocoa will lead the Mac Programming Foundations Workshops on May 9 and 16. 1 p.m., Old City. Details. [view more events]

Net Tuesday Philly will be focused on GIS and maps this month, and have invited Robert Cheetham, founder and president of Avencia, a No Libs-based geographic software design company that works often with the public sector. Learn how GIS can help your non-profit. And if you’re for-profit, sneak in anyway. You’ll at least be able to ask someone how to work that darned GPS you’ve been toting around.

Brian Frantz and Jon Graves of Center City West-based The Neat Co. will be talking clean code at the Foundation Series Workshop Wednesday night, and Thursday has a burgeoning NJ and Philly Tech meetup. Be there. And by “there,” we mean at every single event.

Events listed in our highlights are free to attend. Please check our Events calendar for more information and read more after the jump.

Monday, April 6: Refresh Philly will be eschewing their normal meetup for a happy hour social at National Mechanics. Join the oft-crowded bunch for drinks and meets at the popular Old City digs. There is homework though, kiddos. Bring your best ideas for ways in which Philly could be improved by design and technology. Oh, and take our advice: some of the best ideas come after tasty beer and cocktails. 6:00 p.m., Old City. RSVP. [View more events]

Tuesday, April 7: If maps are your thing, or you’re just looking to get started in GIS, Net Tuesday Philly will have Robert Cheetham, founder and president of Avencia, a No Libs-based software design company that develops geographic analysis tools and services for government, nonprofit, commercial and research organizations. Cheetham has used his GIS background as an employee for the City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Police Department and gets around on the lecture and research circuit—he’s been involved with Penn and Penn State University. He’ll be there to discuss ways to better non-profits with mapping. Don’t fret, for-profit orgs. We’re sure there will be value information to go around for non-non-profits, as well. 6:00 p.m., Old City. RSVP. [View more events]

Wednesday, April 8: Brian Frantz and Jon Graves of Center City West-based The Neat Co. (makers of popular and unique scanning software for receipts, business cards, and more), will be speaking at the Foundation Series Workshop, discussing ways to create the cleanest object-oriented code around. Learn how to follow S.O.L.I.D. design principles so you can keep your aesthetic principle and deliver Clorox-coated code even on deadline. 6:00p.m., Fort Washington, Montgomery Co. Details. [View more events]

Thursday, April 9: The hosts of NJ and Philly Tech say that their meetup is growing, so maybe it’s time to take the ride over the Ben Frank to Cherry Hill to see what’s going on. Consider it a show-and-tell for startups, investors, entrepreneurs, or anyone just looking to grab a drink with some techies.7:00 p.m., Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Details. [View more events]

Every Monday morning, Technically Philly will preview the best free tech events in Philadelphia and the surrounding region. See others here. Check our comprehensive events calendar here.