EVENTS & INITIATIVES

Event Archive

2012 Pittsburgh STEM Summit – August 29, 2012

Thank you to everyone who attended, sponsored, and contributed to the 2012 Pittsburgh STEM Summit. It was a huge success! We had a packed room of 220 people and 15 vendors!

In an effort to keep the conversation going we have put all of the presentations online for you to download using this link: www.pghtech.org/Docs/pdf/Presentations.zip Please download the file and unzip it onto your computer.

Our next STEM Summit will take place in late April or early May 2013!

The 2012 Pittsburgh STEM Summit can help your company find a highly qualified workforce now and in the future.

This one-day experience connected companies with successful education and industry partnerships throughout southwestern Pennsylvania. The STEM Summit featured innovative partnerships between local education and technology companies that demonstrated their real world impact on the lives of future STEM workers.

Keynote speakers for the event included the new CEO of Bayer Material Sciences, LLC, Gerald MacCleary and the Director of Programs from New Tech Network, Paul Curtis. These two speakers will discussed STEM programs that are making an impact across the nation and how they could be implemented regionally.

Attendees were able to learn, network and connect with education leaders, nonprofit executives and business leaders from across the technology ecosystem! Join us next year and you could do the same!

For the most up-to-date information about the STEM Summit, visit the conference site at: http://stem.pghtech.org

Venture Out: Making an Exit – August 17, 2012

The final installment of this year’s Venture Out series focused on making a successful business exit. Attendees learned about exit strategies from those that have been in the trenches, including Sam Landman, Partner at Comcast Ventures, Raul Valdes-Perez, Co-Founder of Vivisimo and former President and CEO of Respironics Jim Liken. This panel discussion was moderated by Jeremy Garvey, Shareholder at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney.

When any entrepreneur considers making an exit from their business they need to consider what this means for themselves, their employees, and the longevity of their company. This panel not only shared their own experiences, but collectively engaged in a dialogue with the audience and answered many questions about making an exit.

2012 Pittsburgh Technology Council Golf Outing – August 8, 2012

Our Council members enjoyed a day of golfing at Quicksilver Golf Club on August 9, 2012. They enjoyed a great day of networking on the fairway and a wonderful cocktail reception afterward. Prizes were given out to those with the best score, longest drive, closest to the pin and others. Some members brought their peers, prospects, customers and potential business partners for a day of networking and fun.

If you didn’t join us this year, we hope to see you on the green next year!

Venture Out 2012: FORE Systems Reunion – July 10, 2012

We took a trip down memory lane while learning valuable tech business building lessons with former FORE Systems founders and execs.

This session of Venture Out featured Onat Menzilcioglu, Founder, VP Engineering and President; Francois Bitz, Founder; Eric Cooper, Founder and CEO turned Chairman of the Board; Thomas Gill, President and CEO; and Mike Green, Global VP of Sales. This lively discussion was moderated by Craig Heryford, Shareholder at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney.

This team helped build the company from a CMU spin out to a $4.5 billion exit, marking it as one of Pittsburgh most prominent success stories.

Attendees learned how they navigated their growth in Pittsburgh (including raising capital and building their team), what they learned along the way, and the effects they have had on Pittsburgh’s current entrepreneurial community. We learned about the many companies that have spun out of FORE and the involvement that the leaders of FORE continue to have in local investment and entrepreneur scene.

Strategic Talent Management Series Featuring Susan Suver, VP, Human Resources, US Steel – June 12, 2012

Whether you call it strategic talent management, human capital management or simply HR, the risks and rewards of leading people and driving organizational strategy have never been higher. That’s why the Pittsburgh Technology Council, HR Leadership Forum of Western PA, and the Pittsburgh Human Resources Association joined forces to present the latest, most innovative best practices and thought leadership in strategic talent management.

The latest event in the series featured Susan Suver, the Vice President of Human Resources from US Steel. US Steel is one of the region’s largest employers and has been an anchor company in this region since the early 20th century. Susan spoke about her approach and leadership style at US Steel and how she plans on continuing the success of this historic company.

Legislative Update from Mark Leahey, the President and CEO of theMedical Device Manufacturers Association – June 11, 2012

Mark Leahey, President & CEO of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA), came in Pittsburgh to provide medical device companies with an update on some important federal issues. Specifically Mark spoke about the Medical Device User Fee and Modernization Act and FDA reform legislation, the Medical Device Tax and 510(k) reform. The MDMA is a national trade association based in Washington, DC providing educational and advocacy assistance to innovative and entrepreneurial medical technology companies since 1992.

2012 Design, Art and Technology (DATA) Awards and Interactive Exhibition – June 7, 2012

Celebrating Innovation and Creativity in Technology, featuring special guest, J. Moses, Founder of WeChi Social Media Game and Co-Founder of UGO Entertainment.
It’s that time of year again: the Pittsburgh Technology Council is raising the roof, and raising the bar, at Pittsburgh’s biggest creative tech party of the year. Join us, and some of the hottest art and techies around, for an awards ceremony like no other. Get ready for a streaming mash-up of networking, interactivity and inspiration! With an all new format, the 2012 event features: “Pop-Up Awards” every 20 minutes, for a full night mixing and mingling; “Technology Drive” Interactive Exhibition space, featuring 40 of this year’s most innovative and creative tech projects; the all-new “People’s Choice Award” Tour and Tweet – an interactive exhibition juried by you live via Twitter; plus door prizes, dancing and the sounds of DJ Tracksploitation.

Media industry guru, J. Moses, joined the PTC from New York City to talk about the next generation of Social Media, and his new WeChi application. J. has worked around the globe in his many roles, including: Director on the Board of Take Two Interactive Software; President of BMG Interactive – where he ‘greenlighted’ Grand Theft Auto; President of MTV Russia; Co-founder of UGO Entertainment; and Executive Producer on an array of film and television projects.

Click here for a list of the 2012 winners.

Venture Out 2012: Prototyping and Protecting – June 5, 2012

This next iteration of Venture Out featured a group of experts with years of experience taking an idea from prototype to product launch and how to find the seed money to fund their ideas. Additionally, this group has learned how to navigate the long cycle of developing an idea, working with legal issues, and how to bring a product to market.

The panel included Matt Beale, President and CEO, Daedalus; Adele Oliva, Partner,Quaker Partners; and Nick Kuhn, President and Chief Business Officer, ALung.

The Creative Technology Network’s Innovator Series Presents Roger Martin: Gaining Competitive Advantage with Design Thinking – May 22, 2012

On May 22, 2012 one of the most influential business professors in the world joined the Pittsburgh Technology Council to share leading-edge ideas on innovation. Roger Martin is a world-renowned expert on business design and integrative thinking, leading organizations and companies to innovate and create better solutions to complex business problems. Currently the Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, his work focuses on Integrative Thinking, Business Design, Corporate Social Responsibility and Country Competitiveness. He is a regular columnist for Business Week Online's Innovation and Design Channel, and is a graduate of Harvard Business School. He has written numerous articles and books, including The Design of Business and Fixing the Game. In 2011, Roger Martin was named by Thinkers 50 as the sixth top management thinker in the world. In 2010, he was named by Business Week as one of the 27 most influential designers in the world.

Design Thinking balances analytical thinking and intuitive thinking, enabling an organization to both exploit existing knowledge and create new knowledge. A design-thinking organization is capable of effectively advancing knowledge from mystery to heuristic to algorithm, gaining a cost advantage over its competitors along the way. And with that cost advantage, it can redirect its design thinking capacity to solve the next important mystery and advance still further ahead of its competitors. In this way, the design-thinking organization is capable of achieving lasting and regenerating competitive advantage. Roger is devoted to helping companies, who tend to be ruled by analytical thinking, integrate into their thinking pattern the best of intuitive thinking, which is typically the thinking pattern of artists and designers.

For more information on programming at the Pittsburgh Technology Council, contact Brian Kennedy – Vice President, Government & External Relations.