4 Philly leaders win Nucleus Awards for tech and science advancements

For Philadelphia to continue to improve, leaders from all sectors need to work together according to executives from the University City Science Center, including research, capital, education and equity. 

That assertion was made clear at the packed Science Center on Tuesday night to honor science and technology professionals working in those fields during the 2024 Nucleus Awards winners. The awards recognized four Philly tech leaders for their work in local innovation. Each winner offered a call to action for the crowd after receiving their award, asking the audience to think big about where it wants Philly tech to go. 

“I think we need to recalibrate on what we think this city could be,” honoree Danae Mobley said during a live Q&A with WHYY show host Maiken Scott. “I know we love to be an underdog, but … we’re the boss, as far as I’m concerned.” 

The awards recognized efforts ranging from investing financially into diverse companies to increasing access to tech education and creating a career pipeline for local youth. The winners came from diverse backgrounds and organizations, but the awards recognized a common effort to propel the ecosystem forward. 

The future of healthcare requires creative problem solving 

Bon Ku, program manager for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), won the commercialization award. To solve problems in Philadelphia and beyond, we need to think creatively and use our imagination, Ku said. 

“I encourage you to set apart time of your day,” he said. “Where it’s unstructured time where you get to just let your creative juices flow to solve problems.”

Ku’s lab at Jefferson University focuses on how to better design services and products in healthcare to better health outcomes. He is fascinated by how design can influence a patient or caregiver’s experience, he said. 

One of the problems he’s working on at ARPA-H considers how where you live can determine how healthy you are. For example, rural areas have a lower density of healthcare facilities, and Ku aims to bring better healthcare to them via mobile medical units that can run tests that people would’ve had to go to the hospital for. 

“Inequity is dying earlier from a disease because you were born in a certain neighborhood, and that should not exist,” Ku said. “How can we bring that world class care directly in our own backyards?” 

Problems linger in cities, too, and Ku said he’s also thinking about how to address health inequity in the city of Philadelphia. 

Not all ideas will translate into successful startups 

Michael Burychka’s investment firm Longview Innovation pairs science and finance experts to figure out what early-stage technologies should be invested in. He won the capital award for his work investing in diverse early-stage startups. 

“It’s about finding the technology that, even if there’s still some uncertainty, if this works, this isn’t a substitute for something else or an incremental improvement,” Burychka said. 

But only some ideas will translate well into growing and successful startups. Other innovations are better as add-ons for existing companies, he said.  

Researchers and founders tend to have a lot of passion, but they should look for honest feedback about whether their technology is big enough to be a standalone company, he said. Investors want to hear about revenue tangible success, so companies should have validating revenue within three to five years to show that their product will have commercial impact.

Philadelphia is in the mix with top tech ecosystems, especially with life science, he said. The region ranked No. 25 on Startup Genome’s annual Global Startup Ecosystem Report this year and is consistently among the top 10 markets in the country for life sciences talent. Cell and gene therapy stars like Spark Therapeutics also call Philadelphia home. 

“There’s an opportunity to expand that into climate tech, into semiconductors, into robotics,” Burychka said. “There’s a lot of areas that we could really kind of leverage off of the success of life sciences.” 

Consistent support will build up early career technologists

Dan Rhoton, CEO of tech workforce development nonprofit Hopeworks, started his career as a teacher at a detention facility. He loved working there, but left because there was more work to do to help young people find gainful employment, he said. 

He earned the cultivator award for his work with the nonprofit, which trains young adults in tech careers and connects them with job opportunities after completing the program. The nonprofit launched in Camden in 1999, but expanded to a space in Kensington in 2022. 

Building young people up isn’t just about learning to code, it’s also about building soft skills. Companies should want employees who know how to problem solve and bounce back from setbacks, he said. 

“If you want [people] to thrive, treat them like people and help them deal with the emotional, social and professional barriers that they’re facing,” Rhoton said. 

Some of Rhoton’s students were in the audience and he encouraged the crowd to network with them. Talking to the next generation of tech workers, he said, will make you feel hopeful.

Philly invests in its youth to be the next gen of tech leaders 

Mobley, executive director of tech equity org 1Philadelphia and CEO of tech education program Coded by, has a career background is in education. Her people focused approach to the tech ecosystem helped her win the convener award. 

“I’m not a technologist by trade,” Mobley said. “So when I think about this work, I think about technology as a conduit to opportunity, and I think about it as a space that gives other people access that they wouldn’t normally have.”  

Coded by, which just celebrated its 10-year anniversary, teaches young people tech skills like coding, but also offers entrepreneurship opportunities like its Tech and Innovation Internship program. 

Mobley would like to see Philadelphia showcase its wins more, she said. Using that as inspiration, the tech community can think big about how it wants to grow. 

Young people need to be exposed to technology earlier in their lives and once they are exposed, there needs to be opportunities for them to become industry leaders, she said. It has be a conscious effort to make sure underrepresented Philadelphians are leaders in the industry. 

“Philadelphia tech,” Mobley said, “should look like Philadelphia.”