Philly Tech Week – 2012
In my opinion, yes. Fast Company believes so as well.
Philadelphia is ripe for the tech industry, as mentioned in this article. We have a growing population of young professionals and entrepreneurs, we have some of the best colleges/universities in the world, and living here is a lot more affordable than New York, DC, and Boston. In other words, we’re a perfect city for start-ups.
DuckDuckGo founder Gabriel Weinberg states, “I think we’re riding the global trend here, but also we’ve had great community leaders as well. Our community is very tight-knit, which means it is very easy to connect with the top people in the scene.”
Philly has always been a city that feels a lot smaller than it really is. Maybe it’s our dense neighborhoods, or the fact that most natives choose to stay here rather than move. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact reasons, but as any local knows it’s very easy to get to know people in Philadelphia; and the booming tech scene has made that even easier.
I personally believe that people who move to Philadelphia from other places are our biggest assets. It’s easier for them to see all that our city has to offer than it is for those who have lived here their entire lives. I’m not saying that locals take our great city for granted (I sure don’t), but we tend to get complacent and set in our ways; just like any other big city native would. Although local tech expert Sean Blanda (co-founder and writer at the news blog Technically Philly) is from the general area, it’s still someone from the outside looking in.
Blanda states, “Philly is the greatest city in the country. This city is real life. It has real problems and real people, which give us all a tremendous opportunity to make a dent.”
