What happened in Delaware this year? See the top 10 Technical.ly stories of 2021

Reflecting on the top tech and business stories out of Delaware this year can hint at what the state wants to see in its future.

Every December, we at Technical.ly like to look back and see which stories published that year were the most read. It’s a combination of reader insights and a walk down memory lane.

Note: To formulate our best-read roundups each year, we remove our curated RealLISTs, as they’re often our most read stories but don’t tell us a ton about trends. But it is notable that readers love to know who won in our inaugural Techncial.ly Awards as well as who made the RealLIST Startups, our list of promising young companies, and the RealLIST Engineers, our list of influential local technologists. It tells us you want to stay up to date on the “who’s who” and keep an eye on the people on the precipice of real influence.

And, as always, highly read posts from previous years — such as 2020’s Delaware Black-Owned Business List, which still lots of reader love — do not appear in the top 10.

So, for 2021, here they are, in descending order:

10. Tech apprenticeships may just be the future of workforce development

In November, as part of Technical.ly’s How to Get a Tech Job Month, we looked at tech apprenticeships, including CompTIA’s Apprenticeships for Tech program and Accenture’s apprentice career track. We explored: Is this very old type of career development the future of tech workforce development?

9. Meet Leadership Delaware’s 30 new fellows for 2022

Y’all love lists. This one tracked Delaware’s latest crop of up-and-coming professionals going through the yearlong mentorship and networking program. The goal is for these young leaders to grow their careers, while working to grow Delaware. We spotted plenty of familiar tech orgs represented in it, including CSC, NERDiT NOW and Delaware Data Innovation Lab.

8. What are you doing for Juneteenth? Here’s how to celebrate in Delaware

Events posts, which are finitely relevant, generally don’t get high readership over a year, but this Juneteenth post was an exception. It was published one day before President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth Bill, making the celebration of the end of slavery in the US a federal holiday.

7. Delaware Libraries just launched 3 telehealth kiosks in Sussex County, with more to come

In May, telehealth became a bit more accessible in Sussex County. The kiosks, where community members could virtually meet with healthcare providers and receive mental health care, launched at Seaford Library, Milford Library and Laurel Library.

6. Wilmington’s quirkiest intersections get the minimalist Barely Maps treatment

Seattle-based artist Peter Gorman’s Barely Maps (that’s bare-ly, not barley) showcase the interesting intersections he’d seen during a cross-country bike ride. In April, they gained a little notoriety on the Delaware subreddit after releasing a Wilmington version that includes intersections like Market, 30th and Danby, and MLK, Madison and Maryland.

5. Medtech grows in Newark as Siemens Healthineers invests $32M in facility expansion

This article from September has everything: economic development, medtech, and new STEM jobs for Delaware.

4. I tried the Lewes-based ‘Shark Tank’ therapy dough

Y’all love “Shark Tank.” After Lewes entrepreneur and therapist Nancy Rothner appeared on the ABC show in March and walked away with a deal for $300,000 for 7% equity with investor Robert Herjavek, I decided to purchase and try her product, Pinch Me therapy dough, in a rare product review-style story.

3. How I Got Here: From entry-level to senior software engineer, 5 devs talk career trajectory

Part of Technical.ly’s How I Got Here series tracking tech career trajectories, in February, we asked Delaware software engineers Brian Patterson, Kate Bayard, Devon Smith, Samuel Sheldon and Erwin Bautista to share their stories.

2. Inside NERDiT Now’s quiet, impactful growth over a challenging year

A major update from NERDiT Now, the device repair and IT company based in Newport that was initially hit hard by the pandemic, before things turned around this year, spurring growth in multiple directions. More recently, NERDiT Now’s story continued to evolve with the addition of Roger Chaufournier as CFO in November.

1. Delaware cyberstalking case to be featured on discovery+ ‘Web of Lies’ series

The most-read story this year involves a Delaware true crime case being featured on a documentary series. It’s not the first time the story has gotten the doc treatment, or your eyeballs: In 2018, a recap of an episode of Netflix’s “Dirty Money” involving an HSBC Bank whistleblower working out of an office in the Penn Mart Shopping Center in New Castle topped the most-read list for the year.

In April, discovery+ series “Web of Lies” featured the 2013 courthouse murders of Christine Belford and Laura Mulford, which led to the first-ever convictions on charges of cyberstalking resulting in death. The case was also featured in an episode of the podcast Danger on Delmarva in June.