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This week in Pittsburgh, Black and Mobile plans a visit, the Q2 venture capital numbers and more.
Read on for Technical.ly’s weekly roundup of top news in the region.
📰 News Incubator: What else to know
• Multiple projects that were announced at Sen. Dave McCormick’s Energy and Innovation Summit last week were already underway before Trump took office in January. [WESA]
• City Council approved expanding the special zoning district near Bakery Square, allowing Walnut Capital to grow its development by 14 acres into Larimer and East Liberty. As part of a community agreement, the developer will help fund a $25 million plan to build or rehab 100 affordable homes in the East End. [TribLIVE]
• Two downtown revitalization wins this week: BNY recommitted to Pittsburgh with a new and improved office building on Ross Street, and a new grocery store called Well Well Market will be coming to downtown in 2026. [Axios/TribLIVE]
• Plexision, a Bloomfield-based biotech company, received a $365,000 investment from the Richard King Mellon Foundation to integrate AI and machine learning into its cell-based blood tests that are used to improve predictive accuracy of complex transplants. [Press release]
• A Picklesburgh anniversary shirt stirred controversy this week after it was revealed to be partially AI-generated. In response to the backlash, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership pledged the $10,000 in profits to a future public art installation downtown. [Pittsburgh City Paper (by former Technical.ly intern Gavin Petrone!)]
• A computer science curriculum created by two professors at Carnegie Mellon University enrolled its 500,000th student. Since 2017, the free CMU CS Academy program has been used by 30,000 students in Western PA and half a million across 66 countries. [CBS News]
On the Calendar
🗓️ Join the scientist meetup group Terminus:PGH at Ascender on July 25 for a town hall discussion on new AI program support in the region and how to build Pittsburgh into a stronger science hub. [Sign up]
🗓️ Enjoy a panel discussion, networking and light refreshments on July 29 to celebrate the local startups that participated in PGH Labs’ 10.0 Cohort. [Register]
🗓️ Hackers Guild PGH is inviting the public to participate in its Show & Tell event on July 29. This casual meetup is an opportunity for technologists and artists to share their ongoing projects and potentially collaborate. [Get tickets]
🗓️ Does generative AI understand statistics? PyData Pittsburgh will explore that question at Carnegie Mellon University on July 30, digging into the limits of AI and how to make it more useful across various fields. [Attend]
🗓️ The early bird discount deadline for WITCON 2025 — an October conference focused on women in tech — is July 31. Act now if you plan to attend. [More info]
