Philly Tech Week returned on May 5th - 13th featuring a week-long celebration of technology and innovation in Greater Philadelphia. The week-long series was comprised of in-person and virtual events organized by dozens of partners and led by Technical.ly, a news organization that serves a community of tech professionals. Tech Week brings together tech and tech-adjacent professionals from all over to connect, network, and show off their latest ideas.
Pennovation Works was thrilled to participate in Tech Week once again this year as well as host various events throughout the week. We enjoyed exchanging ideas and meeting with our peers in the tech community again this year.
A recap of the events Pennovation Works participated in as well as some of the events hosted at the Pennovation Center are outlined below.
The Future of Wearable Technology: Trends and Innovations
Tech Week at Pennovation kicked off on May 9th with a panel discussion titled "The Future of Wearable Technology: Trends and Innovation," organized by the Penn Center for Innovation (PCI) + Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies (PACT) at the Pennovation Center. The panel featured representatives from Penn spinouts Cogwear and Luminosity Wearables, who provided insights into the opportunities and challenges of wearable device adoption.
Speakers included:
- Brian Litt, MD, Professor of Neurology at Penn Medicine and co-founder of Penn Health-Tech, discussed how wearable technology can help doctors further improve treatment for their patients, and touched on new innovations that are changing the wearable tech industry.
- David Yonce, CEO of Cogwear, presented on Cogwear's headband, a lightweight, wearable device that send signals from your brainwaves to an app. He mentioned the headband's future applications in monitoring behavioral health issues, Alzheimer’s and more.
- Amanda Watson, Postdoctoral Fellow at the PRECISE (Penn Research In Embedded Computing and Integrated Systems Engineering) Center at Penn and founder of Luminosity Wearable explained how her watch device can track glucose levels and help people lead healthier lifestyles.
3rd Philly Hardware Meetup
On May 10th, the 3rd Philly Hardware Meetup was held at the Pennovation Center, attracting over 40 hardware professionals from the Philadelphia area. The event offered attendees a chance to meet other hardware professionals as well as share current projects and ideas during the community open mic session. Attendees heard from industry leaders such as Jessie Garcia, CEO and Founder of Tozuda, Inc., and Daniel Foy, co-founder and CEO of AgriGates, a Philly-based food animal AgriTech company.
Technical.ly’s Builders Conference
On May 11th, representatives from Pennovation Works attended Technical.ly’s Builders Conference. The event was a convergence of Technical.ly’s community of technologists, entrepreneurs and other innovators in Philadelphia and beyond. During this conference, Denita Henderson, Managing Director of Pennovation Works, spoke on a panel discussion titled "How Are Tech Economies Growing Now? : RealLIST Startups." The panel discussed the institutions, services, and infrastructure of commercializing science and invention, emphasizing the importance of exposing young people to science and technology early on so that they may start their own companies in the future and actively connect with funders or other key people within the tech ecosystem.
Signature Event
Directly following the Builders Conference, Pennovation Works sponsored Technical.ly's Signature Event and enjoyed an evening of networking with representatives from various players in the Philly Tech industry.
Aerospace Robotics Competition (ARC) 2023 Greater Philadelphia Inaugural Competition
Tech Week concluded on May 13th with the inaugural Greater Philadelphia Aerospace Robotics Competition (ARC) held at the Pennovation Center. Students from three local high schools showcased drones they designed to accomplish semi-autonomous tasks, displaying the exciting potential of robotics in the field of aerospace.
