This first wave of speakers for PTW19’s Introduced conference will have you seeing orange

By now, you’ve heard of Introduced — Philly Tech Week’s one-day conference with something for everyone and reflecting our daily editorial of both Technical.ly and Generocity.

Whether you attended yourself in 2018 or have heard about the inaugural year through friends or colleagues, we want you at this year’s event — or we at least want to make sure you experience some FOMO if you’re not there. (Just kidding … kinda.)

The PTW19 team is working hard behind the scenes to top last year (which will be difficult, to be honest). And while we’re not quite ready to announce a full schedule, we want to share a first look at some of the speakers we’ve confirmed.

These awesome speakers are already confirmed to participate:

• Ryan Cody, DirectLync
• John Fazio, N3rd Street Gamers
• Wayne Kimmel, SeventySix Capital
• Brian Musburger, Vegas Stats & Information Network
• Alex Rappaport, Flocabulary 
• Anisha Sinha, West Philadelphia Alliance for Children
• Tiffany Yau, Fulphil

In really exciting news, we’re organizing a panel discussion with the brains behind the now-beloved Gritty. The marketing team behind the Philadelphia Flyers’ mascot will share their process and how they’ve handled and built off of the viral success of the Flyers’ mascot:

• Lauren Capone, Digital Media Coordinator
• Joe Heller, VP Marketing and Communications
• Christine Mina, Digital Media Manager
• Lauren Robins, Digital Media Coordinator
• Sarah Schwab, Director Marketing and Communications

🎶 I’m just a Grit and I’m on FIREEEEEEE 🎶 pic.twitter.com/lFFqZnlOgl

— Gritty (@GrittyNHL) February 24, 2019

A unique piece of Introduced is that, similar to Philly Tech Week’s community calendar, we allow community organizers to program a select number of sessions within Introduced. We at Technical.ly know we’re not the experts on everything, so this helps us to get diverse perspectives and make our sessions that much more interesting and collaborative.

More exciting news about the day:

• We’re working with Sara Mohazzebi who was previously the editor-in-residence for the launch of the digital division of Reese Witherspoon’s production company Hello Sunshine. Now launching her own media and production company, Think Free, Sara will bring together a panel to discuss storytelling and digital content.
• Hopeworks (which brought you a conversation on equity in tech last year) is rejoining us to take the conversation one step further. Hopeworks alumni who have entered the tech field will join their current supervisors to describe what making the tech workspace diverse really looks like.
• NeuroFlow, a new participant this year, will be organizing an important and timely conversation around mental health in the workplace.
• Another returning organizer, Navigate, will continue a focus on design thinking, this year with a case study with Devetta James, the senior VP for customer operations at AmerisourceBergen.
• Our friends at ImpactPHL are also getting on the Intro train, organizing a discussion around social entrepreneurship and impact investing.

Plus stay tuned for speaker announcements from some of our incredible sponsors of this year’s event. We’re cooking up lots of exciting ideas with these groups that we’re hoping to share with you soon.

• Comcast and the LIFT Labs team
• EMSDC 
• Harmelin Media
• Relay
• Think Company
• Vanguard Innovation Studio

Interested in getting involved in this year’s Introduced?

• Are you a potential sponsor? Go here.
• Interested in speaking? Check this out.
• Possible demo? Fill this out.
• Interested in being a mentor or taking one-on-one meetings as a purchaser, investor or founder? Email me at catherine [at] technical [dot] ly

For all of the ways to be involved in Philly Tech Week 2019 presented by Comcast, refresh yourself with this handy guide.

Get tickets to Introduced