On display at Start. Stay. Grow.: 20+ reasons to love Philly’s tech scene

Philadelphia is not Silicon Valley.

On our list, that’s reason No. 1 to love Philly’s tech scene.
But even though we’re not the center of the startup universe, technologists, founders and other tech folk choose to be here anyway. That’s reason No. 2.
That was how we introduced the Philly tech scene to 150 students and tech community members at Wildbit’s gorgeous offices in Old City last week. It was another iteration of the Start. Stay. Grow. Summit, a Technical.ly and Philly Startup Leaders event series that aims to fight brain drain by showing college students the depth of the area tech scene.
Attendees, like AllHipHop.com founder “Grouchy” Greg Watkins, gatherDocs cofounder Bruce Marable and Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman Kate Hagedorn, packed into Wildbit’s top floor event space for the event. (It has really nice skylights.)

Brain drain isn't a necessity: @StartStayGrow has 100+ college students and another 50 community members @Wildbit HQ pic.twitter.com/HX9KaMeWqO

— Technical.ly (@Technical_ly) October 21, 2015

So here’s what we listed as reason No. 3 to join the Philly tech scene: it’s more than just startups. To show that, we invited 18 different organizations to give one-minute pitches.
There was Corey Acri of civic hacking group Code for Philly. Acri and his team on biking app CyclePhilly recently won a Code for America Technology award.

Learn how you can change your city through technology with @CodeForPhilly #startstaygrow @TechnicallyPHL

— Corey Acri (@AcriCAA) October 21, 2015

Courtney Wilburn of Lesbians Who Tech invited lesbian technologists and allies out to the next event (not listed on their meetup page yet). Wilburn, a developer at O3 World, recently participated in the White House LGBTQ Tech Summit.

Holla at my @o3world buddy @cjwilburn about to talk about @lesbiantechphl at #StartStayGrow. https://t.co/FSzrhJTKJP

— Giao Dang (@taoofgiao) October 21, 2015

Ather Sharif (aka Philly’s current Geek of the Year) talked about his web accessibility work with EvoXLabs. He hosted an accessible wearable tech hackathon later that week at coworking space Benjamin’s Desk.

Excellent turnout and pitches at #StartStayGrow. Thanks @TechnicallyPHL for letting @EvoXLabs be a part of this awesome event!

— Ather Sharif (he/him) (@athersharif) October 22, 2015

Kotaro Fujita invited students who were interested in iOS development to Philly CocoaHeads meetups at Indy Hall and the Rittenhouse Square Apple Store. His group also organized the recent CocoaLove conference, now in its second year.

Thanks @TechnicallyPHL for allowing us to do our 60 sec pitch! Interested in making apps? Check out https://t.co/0G9k59wZmD #startstaygrow

— phillycocoa (@phillycocoa) October 22, 2015

Find a list of all the presenters below.

1. Blackstone Launchpad
2. Campus Philly
3. Code for Philly
4. Comcast
5. EvoXLabs
6. ExCITe Center
7. Girl Develop It
8. Hive76
9. The ITEM
10. Lesbians Who Tech
11. NextFab
12. OpenAccessPhilly
13. PennApps
14. Philly Cocoaheads
15. Philly Startup Leaders
16. TechGirlz
17. University City Science Center
18. Young Involved Philadelphia
19. Green Philly
20. SEPTA Youth Advisory Council
21. Summer of Maps

After the pitches, student entrepreneur Rajat Bhageria took the stage and talked about how building his company Third Eye has taught him more than his classes at Penn have.