These Pittsburgh and Philly tech leaders want to see their cities collaborate more

Geographically speaking, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are hours and a few hundred miles apart. But what both cities have in common — besides a governor, industrial roots and, er, passionate sports fans — is that their economic and tech leaders believe it’s long past time for the cities to go from being neighbors to partners.

To discuss ways to make this happen, members of Philadelphia’s tech industry ventured to the Steel City to tour facilities such as Magee Women’s Research Institute, LifeX and Mill 19 to see firsthand where the cities’ tech economies differ and what they have in common. Statewide advocacy org Life Sciences PA, public-private partnership InnovatePGH and the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Commerce all contributed to planning.

Individuals from both cities spoke at length about what could be done to bring the two cities together, especially when it comes to life science innovation. (Recall that where Pittsburgh faltered in gaining Tech Hubs designation from the US Economic Development Administration this fall, Philadelphia succeeded, bolstered by regional collaboration.)

Rally together

Jamelle Price, the external relations manager in the Office of Strategy and Business Development at the University of Pittsburgh McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, said he’d like to see more support from the state to make an easier relationship between the two cities sustainable.

As it stands, there’s a lot of untapped potential between Pittsburgh and Philly, Price said, and part of the reason why  comes from a tendency for the cities throughout the state to view each other as competition as opposed to allies. A real commitment to working together from leaders at all levels in the commonwealth could change that.

“To be more intentional, I think our legislative delegations have to be more active and more committed to working together. I think we’re still doing a lot of fighting and sometimes being territorial,” Price said. “But I think once they realize in Harrisburg that our regions have a lot of this going on and there’s potential for a lot of collaboration going on, then I think they’ll be able to coordinate in Harrisburg and help rally us together.”

Better access

From InnovatePGH Executive Director Sean Luther’s perspective, something that has kept the two cities from working more closely has been, simply, the distance between them. Noting the seven-hour train ride it takes to get from one city to another, Luther said he thought that making physical access less of a headache could go a long way.

Technical.ly has heard this concern from Pittsburgh startup founders, too: It’s just a pain to get to and from the city.

In the meantime, one of Luther’s takeaways from the day was that the workforce development programs in Philadelphia had a lot in common with the programs in Pittsburgh and could benefit from collaborating in the future.

More conversations

Tempest Carter, the Philly commerce department’s director of business development and strategic tech initiatives, founder herself pleasantly surprised at how much the two cities have in common when it comes to advances in medicine and science, she said.

To become better partners moving forward, Carter believes it’s a matter of being willing to bring Pittsburgh and Philadelphia’s different resources together for shared positive outcomes. More events like the one held on Tuesday could go a long way.

“I think that we need to do more things like this thing, essentially,” Carter said. “By that I mean, take the time out to spend time with each other in each other’s cities and see other sectors to build up what we’re doing at our specializations, but to figure out how we can work together.”

Recent wins

We’ve noted two recent steps in that direction: Last week, the four arms of the statewide, state-backed Ben Franklin Technology Partners linked to launch the GO PA Fund to invest in Pennsylvania startups. And this week, leaders from the regional tech councils Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technology (aka PACT) and Pittsburgh Technology Council met in Harrisburg to announce the expansion of tech apprenticeship program Apprenti.

More to come? These local leaders hope so. We’ll keep an eye out.

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.