In June, IBM was host to 150 academic, business and government leaders in the region for its Smarter Cities event, a discussion of how technology will play a role in Philadelphia’s future.

As IBM spokesperson Michael Rowinski wrote of the event for us, an important focus of the event — and Philly’s technology investment — is in encouragement of youth technology education and the development of skilled workers from communities throughout the city.

And for all that it’s looking into the city’s future, IBM has had a large presence here, providing significant resources to key community programs, for decades.

Local leaders at the corporation have been involved with the Center for Literacy, Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, the city prison system, School District of Philadelphia, Minority Enterprise Develpment and more. Most significantly, IBM has donated $3.5 million in equipment, software and education to the School District of Philadelphia since 1995.

It’s goal? To help create the next-generation workforce at the well-known corporation.

After the event, we spoke to Ed Quinn, IBM’s Philadelphia Senior Location Executive, in charge of community outreach in the region. Our Q&A with Quinn, after the jump.

What’s your background? How did you get involved with the company?

I grew up in Philadelphia. Went to La Salle College High School, Temple University and Drexel University. I was involved with technology at an early age. I got into IBM in 1989 doing systems development and database development and got into the application layer. I worked all over the U.S.

Now, I’m very heavily involved with IBM’s financial services and in Philadelphia my responsibility is outreach the business leaders. We have a model that’s industry-driven as well as geographically-driven. At Temple, I’m an advocate for the university within IBM, involved with Fox School around some of the technology.

IBM’s partnership with the School District of Philadelphia began a decade and a half ago and has included $3.5 million donations. What kind of measurable impact have you seen from that partnership?

A prior chairman had selected them as one of the places that we would invest technology resources and people. We built out technology programs for people at a higher level. We also help with adult literacy, helping them use computers and technology. Certainly, reinventing education is a key strategy of IBM over the last 15 years. The school district has been a flagship.

The organization is very involved in philanthropic ventures around the region, helping at Mural Arts and with the Philadelphia Prison System – how does IBM’s mission – and technology in general – play into those partnerships?

The reality is that as a business we live, work and invest in the community to build next generation of leaders at IBM. We’ve done it for close to 100 years. That’s been our strategy all along. I think as more technology companies get involved in the community, the community will reflect this as a technology center.

How large is IBM’s presence in the Philadelphia region?

I think we’re one of the largest secret force of people. We represent well over 1,500 people in the area. We are looking to expand that base of work – our population is big, but it’s pretty diverse in what roles we play here. What makes this group unique is our involvement with the volunteer programs and outreach in the city. We run things that are much more geared toward improving the environment around us. In comparison, when I worked in New York, everybody is from somewhere else. [In Philadelphia,] there’s an ownership of civic pride.

Tell us about IBM’s Smarter Cities initiative, hosted here in May.

IBM spends about $5 billion a year on research and as we start to look at trends, there’s ubiquity of technology. You look at things like developing roads, redeveloping infrastructure—it can’t be this hard.

In Philadelphia, [I-95], built in the 50s, it was obsolete before it was done. They didn’t understand the population shift to the suburbs. Now, that kind of knowledge is out there when we look at where the world is going.

Philadelphia is often criticized as slow moving when it comes to technology. Why do you think that it is behind the curve?

I view it as the opposite. I think its an untapped resource. I spend a lot of time in New York, Boston. They’re monolithic in what they do. Philadelphia’s business base is so diverse there’s no one dominant industry. Look at the strengths of location, skills, cost of doing business. There are some favorable costs of doing business here.

Students walk down the hallway in between classes at the Science Leadership Academy.

In partnership with Temple University’s Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab, the university’s capstone journalism class, students Chelsea Leposa and Jared Pass will cover neighborhood technology issues for Technically Philly and Philadelphia Neighborhoods through May.

At the Science Leadership Academy the students are treated like adults, says junior Cody Nichols.

Built in partnership with the School District of Philadelphia and the Franklin Institute, the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) is a new student-oriented, project-based program. Put away your No. 2 pencil at SLA, there are no standardized tests aside from the state required PSSAs.

Students work closely together and with teachers to create a variety of projects. Student projects even contribute to the school’s daily activities. SLA’s help desk, for instance, is one of the largest student projects, says Chris Alfano, tehe school’s system administrator and computer support specialist.

“We have about 12 students who are assigned to come here, and they pretty much take care of all the school’s repair needs,” Alfano says. All 10th and 11th graders at SLA are required to have an internship that meets once a week.

Students conduct original science experiments, build tools for green energy in engineering classes, conduct simulations of historical moments and trade video Spanish lessons with a school in another country, Principal Chris Lehmann says. “There are all kinds of rich, engaging and powerful projects kids are doing.”

SLA’s one-to-one laptop program is one aspect that makes the comprehensive student projects possible. Every SLA freshman receives an Apple MacBook to use throughout his high school career. The only cost to students is an $85 insurance fee.

Providing students with a laptop allows teachers to harness the Internet for assignments and student discussions. “It really changes the playing field,” Alfano says. SLA Web servers also harness open source tools like Moodle, which provides a home base and virtual school for students to interact beyond class time.

SLA's principal Chris Lehmann hands out report cards to students.

Student interaction with teachers is the most important aspect of SLA, in accordance with the school’s mission. In order to preserve the interaction between students and teachers the school must remain small, Lehman says. “We’re a small school by design. We’re not going to get bigger than 500 students.”

There are only 125 spots available for new freshman students next year. According to Lehmann, SLA has already received 2,000 admission applications and conducted 850 interviews for the limited amount of freshman seats.

In order to be admitted to SLA, students must go through an interview process and present a project they’ve created. Interviews are conducted by teachers as well as current students. The school currently has 484 students including its first graduating class of 117 seniors. Many seniors plan on going to college after graduation.

Although he is only a junior, Nichols is looking at colleges like Carnegie Mellon University, Drexel University and the University of Delaware. Nichols, like other SLA students, receives assistance with his college selections from a counselor.

According to SLA’s counselor, Karina Hirschfield, “Colleges in the area and outside the area seem to be excited about the program we have at SLA. Students have received close to $1 million dollars in scholarships, and we’re expecting our students to get well above that.”

SLA has made great strides towards its goal of inquiry-based learning since its inception in September 2006. ts popularity is shown in the attitude of its students.

“SLA is a great school because it brings out the best in everyone,” said Nichols.

Below, a video shot by Technically Philly contributor Jared Pass.

After the School District of Philadelphia said in a statement to Technically Philly yesterday that it was investigating how one of its computer peripherals ended up in a landfill in Ghana, Fox 29 reports that the City Controller’s office is also looking into the issue.

John Atwater added good reporting to our piece from yesterday concerning the district’s e-waste. Most importantly, and as we suspected though couldn’t confirm, Atwater reports that Regentech, the district’s current technology recycler, wasn’t on the job in 2004, when the shipment that ended up in Ghana appears to have left Philadelphia.

As tweeted:

Refurbished computers in a technology recycling warehouse in Fairmount.

How at least one School District of Philadelphia computer monitor ended up in a massive e-waste landfill in Ghana remains unclear.

But, after a PBS Frontline documentary camera spotted the hardware and Technically Philly made repeated followup inquiries, the district has announced it will launch an investigation, according to a written statement given by district spokesman Fernando Gallard.

“The School District of Philadelphia does not encourage or condone the illegal dumping of any school district property anywhere in the world,” read the statement, given first to Technically Philly. “As a result… [we are] currently investigating the source and disposal record of the equipment found in Ghana.”

The computer monitor, which had a district sticker on it, was just a brief moment in the explosive PBS Frontline report on e-waste that was released last month. Likewise, the monitor is just a small part of the hundreds of millions of tons of e-waste that flood the West African country and other developing nations each year.

When old technologies from Western nations, like the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom, are “recycled,” they are increasingly finding their way to places like the Ghanaian urban fringe of Agbogbloshie, which Frontline reports has become one of the world’s largest digital dumping grounds.

Watch the first half of the documentary below, where you’ll find the district computer in at roughly 3:40. Find the second portion here.

SCHOOL DISTRICT POLICY

What hasn’t yet been made clear is how a Philadelphia school district computer made it there, and whether it’s an isolated piece or suggestive of the hundreds of pounds of old technologies that the district is forced to discard annually.

Since 2006, the district’s Educational Technology Office has maintained a “green” policy for the disposal of computers and technology equipment, the statement says.

Schools and offices are asked to identify obsolete equipment, file asset removal paperwork and contact the district’s technology help desk. The help desk, in turn, contacts Clifton, N.J.-based computer recycling vendor Regentech, which is contracted to pick up the equipment — at no charge to the district. They then can refurbish, redistribute and resell any equipment as they see fit, as long as they meet U.S. Department of Environmental Protection standards, which the PBS documentary characterize as lax.

A Regentech spokesman did not return repeated calls for comment.

“This process has worked very well, and we are pleased with the performance of Regentech, Inc. Computer Recycling,” the district statement continued.

OTHERS AND THEIR SOLUTIONS

Like the district, most other large education institutions in the city do not ultimately handle the final destination of their recycled technologies.

“We rely on the third party vendors to do the responsible thing,” says Mark Aseltine, the executive director of the Technology Support Services at the University of Pennsylvania. “If we had any indication that they were not, we would stop using them right away.”

Penn offers tutorials on wiping memory clean and disposal options, but in the end, their junk gets carted away by an independent company, which is ultimately part of an industry that the PBS documentary suggests is “shadowy” and under legislated.

Yet, even those who are particularly active in the removal of unwanted technologies often use these outside contractors.

A program initiated at Temple University won the praise of a small feature in the June issue of University Business. The university has its own department to handle obsolete equipment, which is then stripped, updated, reused or otherwise redistributed. Putting some 1,800 old computers back into service is estimated to have saved the school nearly $1 million in the program’s six years of operation, but still models are eventually in need of recycling.

That’s the part of the tale that the PBS documentary suggests gets hairy, despite some federal intervention.

“There are alternatives to dumping old technology on the first person who will take it, and we are one of them,” says Steven Feldman the hardware manager of Fairmount-based Nonprofit Technology Resources, which boasts it is the largest computer refurbishment operation in Philadelphia.

Limiting the e-waste output can happen locally, too, Feldman says of NTR, which refurbishes and redistributes much of the hardware it receives at low or no cost to low-income Philadelphians. The school district has donated computers to NTR in the past, Feldman says.

While the nonprofit also uses an outside company to recycle some of the most outdated equipment it receives, Feldman says, “we remain vigilant, take tours of their facilities and methods.”

He declined to speculate on why the district would primarily use a vendor from outside the region for a no-cost solution. Regentech, like NTR and the third-party recycling companies used by Temple and Penn, is certified by the EPA.

The certification requires Regentech to maintain EPA disposal manifests for all equipment that is removed from the district. Those manifests were not yet obtained by Technically Philly, however, according to EPA documentation, Regentech (EPA ID # NJD 048351043, for those interested in further researc) has no significant violations alleged against them. They are also compliant with EPA inspection guidelines.

The details of the district’s announced investigation were not immediately available. Technically Philly will continue its coverage. As always, contact us with any insight or leads.

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Below watch a short report from Good magazine on e-waste

[Full disclosure: The author of this story is a graduate of Temple University]

Every Wednesday, Shop Talk shows you what goes into a tech product, organization or business in the Philadelphia region. See others here.

A compter labeled "School District of Philadelphia" pollutes a Ghanaian city. This screenshot is taken roughly three minutes and 55 seconds into a PBS Frontline video report.

Computer waste from the School District of Philadelphia is polluting the urban fringes of Ghana.

But then, the computer, depicted above and tagged for having come from the district as seen in an explosive PBS Frontline report on e-waste, is just a small part of the hundreds of millions of tons that flood the West African country.

The rapid transfer of technology has developed a shady, poorly regulated electronic waste recycling industry, Frontline reports, sending computer goods to developing nations, often with easy port access. When old technologies from Western nations, like the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom, are “recycled,” they increasingly are finding their way to places like Ghana’s Agbogbloshie, which Frontline reports has become one of the world’s largest digital dumping grounds.

Often, the report suggests, sensitive information remains on hard drives, which is a particular issue when the materials find their way to Ghana, which is listed by the U.S. State Department as one of the top sources of cyber crime in the world.

The report sent reporters undercover to a West Coast e-waste facility where they were assured their materials would be disposed of safely and locally. In their research, they found, instead, their recycled technologies ended up in a pile in a Hong Kong port.

The report suggests that companies label the e-waste they transport as donated materials, evading additional costs and oversight. As little as 50 percent of those shipments are able to be sold, a Ghanaian e-waste dealer interviewed by Frontline said, likely lessening any impact outdated Western technologies may have in lessening the digital divide.

The rest piles up, where, in the Ghanaian example, children burn the plastics to salvage and sell the copper and other metals. Until then, waste, like Philadelphia school district computers clog the waterways and lives of those in developing nations.