Kick off the seventh annual celebration of innovation and technology on the first ever Philly Tech Week 2017 presented by Comcast Innovation Crawl this Friday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. We took all of the elements of the traditional kickoff — food, drinks, fun, games, makers and community programming — which we’ve done on the Parkway and at Dillworth Plaza in the past, and this year, decided to deconstruct it to be spread out in cool venues and workspaces all over the city.

This way you’ll get to see all the innovation that Philadelphia’s tech scene has to offer — one stop at a time, rain or shine. Start where you want, when you want and map out your route according to your interests! Each stop will have food and beverages available, so you can skip happy hour and crawl through the innovation. See you in the streets Philly!

As always, the kickoff is free.

Here’s our guide to the stops, with a list of local demos to expect. It’s not a finalized list and more will be announced as this week progresses.

Technically Media HQ: #PTW17 Headquarters

Hit 12 on the elevator keypad and ride all the way up to what we like to think of as the penthouse of the Curtis Center to check out the sweet view from our office and for all things Philly Tech Week 2017. Think of it as the “home base” for the crawl. It’s a great place to start or end, and the only place to see the newly decorated Technically Media office. Get yourself a Philly Tech Week magazine so you have a handy guide and a keepsake to remind you of the amazing time you’ll have this year. This is also the only place you can purchase a #PTW17 T-shirt to complete your collection. 

• Quadratron Games
  • Super Rock Blasters (& more from their studio)
• Island Officials
  • Queen of Space: Coronation
  • RPG Arcade
• OpenDataVote voting booth
  • A cooperative effort between Azavea, Tech Impact, Technically Media, Code for Philly, City of Philadelphia and others gives the public an opportunity to vote for the data sets they believe their government should release as open data and local nonprofits a chance to win prize money.

PhillyCAM: Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality 

The first floor of PhillyCAM will be devoted to live demo AR and VR and gaming. The second floor radio/ TV station and green screen room will be open for touring. Come check out PhillyCAM’s new community radio station and the capabilities of this nonprofit community media center. Play with the best local AR/VR teams in the city!

Food provided by Verts Mediterranean Grill and beverages by QC Mercantile and Sparkling Ice.

• The Greater Philadelphia Virtual and Augmented Reality Group
• VRPHL
• VeeR Goggles
• Milkroom Studios

The Yard: Gaming 

Peruse The Yard’s spanking new coworking space, which we first told you about last year. Come up and check out the views from our rooftop and join them for delicious drinks, bites and video games to kick off Philly Tech Week right.

• Rob Shields Illustration
• Bobby V. Klein Games
  • Bouncy Box Yeah

CultureWorks: Inventor’s Alley

Experience some of the newest innovations while learning about World Intellectual Property Day from The US Patent & Trademark Office and The American Intellectual Property Law Association. Featuring two companies from our realLIST: XEED and LIA Diagnostics.

• Gregory Hanuschak, Smack Innovations: Smart steering wheel cover for controlling the functionality of a smartphone.
• Rob Weber and/or Albert Charpentier, AgileSwitch: Programmable gate drive boards for use in power control modules.
• Karan Parikh, Big Bright Monster:  Augmented reality software for gaming
• Debra Travers, Polyaurum: Gold nanoparticles for diagnosis and treatment of disease
• Bethany Edwards, LIA Diagnostics: Flushable pregnancy tests
• Sade Oba, XEED: Wearables for Parkinson’s patients
• Yasmine Mustafa, ROAR for Good:  Wearable sexual assault prevention device
• Dan Martino, Urban Turbine: Wind turbines for rooftops and boats
• Divyansh Agarwal, Sanguis: Cell counting device for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy
• Rob Webb, DatumX1: Data analysis, data integration and migration, data intelligence, visualization, conversion and mining

Benjamin’s Desk: Fun and Gaming

Head to the 12th floor of the classic Sun Oil Building for a round of beers and a round of games. Featuring activities from Delaware’s The Fun Department as well as local game developers

• Faza
• Shapes The Game
• Celestial Spinz and Troupe
  • Instructional Hula Hooping: Learn some cool hooping skills to try at the beach this summer.

Hot tip: Ben’s Desk is offering free coworking for #PTW17 attendees at 601 Walnut so you should come preview the digs during the crawl, since that’s where Technical.ly HQ is, and come through to cowork with some amazing startups from May 1-5, between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

WeWork: Impactful Orgs

• Plas.md
  • Experience fundraising of the future with a VR relay.
• BonBids
  • Making fundraising innovative for nonprofits.
• Philly FoodWorks
  • Transforming the way Philly sources local food.

MakeOffices: Makers Corner & Food Innovation

Mix and mingle with MakeOffices’ innovative community and see the city all the way from the 25th floor space.

• Tiny Docs
• Lightning Packs
  • A backpack that generates 30W-40W of electricity through kinetic energy while walking!

PHL Next Stage Med @ Schuylkill Yards: Sciences

Featuring ActiveProtective, one of our realLIST picks.

• Workshop School
  • 3D Printer
  • A student-built automobile
• Active Protective
  • Wearable airbags for older adults
• Quantified Care
  • Manage your health destiny

Here’s that registration link, in case you missed it the first time.

If your demo fits into any of these themes and you’d like to participate please reach out to me at alexandria@technical.ly by Thursday, April 27.