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Tech leaders on collaboration: Better, together

Gathering 19 leaders of Philadelphia’s technology community wasn’t all about a photoshoot, bagels and coffee. It would have been a shame to let them slip out of the room with only a cover photo to show for it.

Bashi Rose. Photo credit: Bruce Weller for the Open Society Foundations.
Gathering 19 leaders of Philadelphia’s technology community wasn’t all about a photo shoot, bagels and coffee. It would have been a shame to let them slip out of the room with only a cover photo to show for it.

Instead, we took the rare gathering as an opportunity to hear about the focus of Philly Tech Week: collaboration.
No one could have created a week of programming like Tech Week alone. We relied heavily on the impactful organizations and individuals that make this city’s tech community great.
So we turned to those often well-known leaders to see what collaboration means to them. And we hope it’ll mean more of it.
Thoughts from those leaders, after the jump.

“We at the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce put a high premium on collaboration… because quite frankly that’s how jobs are created – and, particularly, jobs for the 21st century.”
Rob Wonderling
President, Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce

“Collaboration is what’s going to make the difference if we’re going to be a major center of technology innovation and compete against our home-base rivals…they’re all working together as a community, and that’s where we really need to distinguish ourselves in Philadelphia.”
Steve Tang
CEO, University City Science Center

“Without collaborations with universities, private investors, venture capitalists, angels, attorneys and accountants, you know, all those parties that make up the ecosystem, we wouldn’t have a vital community here in Philadelphia.”
Terrance Hicks
Vice President of Investment Group, Ben Franklin Technology Partners

“When you’re writing a blog and generating content, it’s important to collaborate with your readers…because if I was only doing things that interested me, chances are, the site wouldn’t have grown as much as it has, and people wouldn’t be that interested.”
Eric Smith
Co-Founder, Geekadelphia

“What’s really exciting about this tech community is that we’re almost a coffee shop…the size and the intimacy of the community means that there’s a really energetic cross- fertilization of ideas.”
Chris Bartlett
Executive Director, William Way LGBT Community Center

“There’s a lot of organizations out here that are doing good work, but we’re siloed, and having that cross-communication helps us bring up new ideas and helps us solve some of the issues that we’re facing here in Philadelphia.”
Tracey Welson-Rossman
Board Member, Philly Startup Leaders

“It’s very, very important as the city’s ecosystem for technology and commercialization grows that there be collaboration, because none of us is able to do everything that we need to do to get a business going.”
Steve Goodman
Partner, Morgan Lewis

“In Philadelphia, specifically, putting the technology and life-science worlds together is really an exciting prospect for us…I just think it makes the whole region stronger; it makes all of us stronger because we gather ideas.”
Jane Hollingsworth
Co-Founder and CEO, NuPathe

“I’ve lived here off and on most of my life, but you can learn something from a person who’s new to the city by giving you a different perspective…it’s always important to exchange ideas and not always have a singular view.”
Tayyib Smith
Publisher, two.one.five magazine

And the full list of names in top photo:
BACK ROW, From L to R: Breadboard Curator David Clayton, Azavea Founder Robert Cheetham, City of Philadelphia Division of Technology Chief of Staff Jeff Friedman, Morgan Lewis partner Steve Goodman, SEER Interactive Founder Wil Reynolds
MIDDLE ROW, From L to R: Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce President Rob Wonderling, Morgan Lewis partner Jeff Bodle, phrequency.com editor Leah Kaufman, Nupathe CEO Jane Hollingsworth, Geekadelphia Co- founder Eric Smith, Ben Franklin Technology Partners Investment Group Vice President Terrance Hicks, William Way LGBTQ Community Center Executive Director Chris Bartlett
FRONT ROW, From L to R: BrainRewards CEO Jane Hoffer, Philly Startup Leaders Board Member Tracey Welson-Rossman, Indy Hall Co-Founder Alex Hillman, two.one.five magazine publisher Tayyib Smith, Temple University Center for Design and Innovation Director Youngjin Yoo, P’unk Ave Co-founder Geoff DiMasi, Uni- versity City Science Center CEO Steve Tang

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