What Does The Philly Tech Community Hope To See In 15 years? A Larger, More Inclusive And More Robust Ecosystem

Eight local leaders look back, and forward, in honor of Technical.ly’s 15th anniversary.

What were you doing in 2009? That February, Chris Wink, Sean Blanda and Brian James Kirk launched a blog called Technical.ly Philly aiming to cover the growing technology ecosystem in Philadelphia.

Since then, Technical.ly has watched and reported as a community of technologists and entrepreneurs came together alongside growing companies and other tech-focused organizations. Our work started in Philadelphia, but over the years we’ve expanded to Baltimore, DC, Delaware and Pittsburgh, where fledgling tech communities have made their own mark.

Our local coverage over this decade and a half has included organizations that have been in the Philadelphia region for many years, such as Comcast and Ben Franklin Technology Partners, but also new companies and groups such as Amplify Philly and 1Philadelphia.

To recognize how far Philly tech has come, we asked members of the tech community to look back at what they were doing 15 years ago and what has changed since then, and to look forward another 15 years. Here’s what eight people had to say. These responses have been lightly edited for clarity or length.

What were you doing 15 years ago?

Michelle Freeman, CEO of Witty Gritty: I was starting my freelancing career (early days of what would become Witty Gritty). I was in Philadelphia wrapping up my tenure at Campus Philly and involved in Young Involved Philadelphia. I was primarily involved with civic tech around that time.

Eamon Gallagher, director of the Center for Law and Transformation Technology at Drexel University: In 2009 I was transitioning from my first career, as a technical recruiter working with companies in growth mode, and touring law schools to prepare for my next career. Ultimately, I decided to go to Drexel Law based on the strength of their Business & Entrepreneurship concentration, which has paid dividends repeatedly in building my career in the Philadelphia startup ecosystem, from the Drexel Entrepreneurial Law Clinic to Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic to Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Seed Philly/Philly New Tech Meetup, etc.

Andrew Buss, deputy chief innovation officer at the Office of Innovation and Technology at the City of Philadelphia: Fifteen years ago I was working with a large group of cross-institutional stakeholders to help the City win an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant for public technology centers, later branded as Keyspots. It was an authentically collaborative process, and I still think one of the most creative things the public sector has done.

Sevile Mannickarottu, director of technological innovation and entrepreneurship at Penn Engineering: I managed Penn’s Bio-MakerSpace and was very involved with teaching people about tech.

Rick Nucci, CEO of Guru Technologies: This time 15 years ago I was the cofounder and CTO at Boomi, and it was 18 months before the company would be acquired by Dell. It was an exciting time. We were busy building our “integration platform as a service” offering which we had launched as a beta in late 2007.

Read the full article here 

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