Pittsburgh weekly roundup: Regional job increase; Duo’s Treehouse; CMU-Pitt team up on autonomus robots

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This week in Pittsburgh, how SBIR/STTR funds changed Pittsburgh innovation, lessons from social media giant Duolingo on how to go viral and more.

Read on for Technical.ly’s weekly roundup of top news in the region.

📰 News Incubator: What else to know

• Abridge CEO Shiv Rao cited “hypergrowth” as the reason why the AI startup is shifting its expansion focus to San Francisco, sparking debate in Pittsburgh’s ecosystem over local talent acquisition challenges. [Technical.ly]

• Pittsburgh’s job figures have steadily increased over the last five years, with the city adding more than 45,000 jobs since June 2020, according to recently released census data. Despite some losses due to the rise of remote work, downtown remains the region’s largest job center. [Axios]

• Two local recycling startups, Reclamation Factory and RoboLoop, are making the case that Pittsburgh is ahead of the curve on technological advancements for recycling. [NEXTPittsburgh/Technical.ly]

•  Duolingo launched Duo’s Treehouse, a bilingual learning space for children at The Kingsley Association in Larimer. As part of the company’s Early Learners First social impact program, it has pledged to invest $1 million annually in early learning and childcare in the Pittsburgh region. [Pittsburgh City Paper] 

• Pennsylvania’s pioneering Generative AI Pilot Program found that government employees saved an average of 95 minutes per day using ChatGPT for writing, research, summarization and IT support, but human oversight is still necessary. [Government Technology] 

• Researchers at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh are teaming up to design autonomous robotic systems that can assess injuries and monitor vital signs after disasters or emergencies. The effort is for the DARPA Triage Challenge, a three-year federal contest where the team could win $1.5 million. [Axios]

🗓️ On the Calendar

• Is AI right for you? Learn how to ethically incorporate AI and other tech tools into your work with journalism professor and communications consultant Sara Bauknecht on March 24 at Duquesne University. [Details here]

• Unleash your entrepreneurial spirit and pitch your business idea at a What’s Your Business Idea? event on March 26 at Avenu: Atwood. [More info]

• Join Heather Lum of Branching Design on March 27 at the Pittsburgh Technology Council for a workshop on human-centered collaboration methods. [Get tickets] 

• Celebrate AI-driven innovation at the University of Pittsburgh’s Data Science Day 2025 at the O’Hara Student Center on March 27. [Register]

• Meet other local founders and learn about the resources in Pittsburgh’s startup ecosystem at the Pittsburgh Technology Council’s first Ecosystem Insights series event on March 27. [RSVP]