Latest news with #Philly-based
Technical.ly
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Technical.ly
ARM Institute welcomes a longtime Pittsburgh entrepreneur as its new CEO
Power Moves is a recurring series where we chart the comings and goings of talent across the region. Got a new hire, gig or promotion? Email us at pittsburgh@ Every year, Pittsburgh's universities train a new wave of talent, and while some stay to build locally, others take their ideas elsewhere. A longtime robotics entrepreneur with decades of experience shaping Pittsburgh's tech scene is sticking with the city as he assumes a new leadership role at the ARM Institute. Meanwhile, two early-stage founders from the University of Pittsburgh are heading to Philadelphia to grow their startups, and the cofounder of a well-known autonomous trucking company has taken on a new leadership role at General Motors to support its push into self-driving vehicles. Read on below the chart for more on these power moves and other professional changes in the region. ARM Institute appoints robotics entrepreneur as new CEO A new chapter begins at the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute today, as its newly appointed CEO officially steps into the role. Jorgen Pedersen, a local robotics entrepreneur, has contributed to the growth of the Pittsburgh robotics scene for more than 25 years. He was one of the founders of Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Center and later founded RE2 Robotics, a leading developer of human-like robotic arms for unstructured environments. Pedersen succeeds Ira Moskowitz, who recently retired from the position after being appointed to the role in 2020. When RE2 was acquired by Sarcos Robotics in 2022, Pedersen worked as Sarcos' COO for a year during the transition. He then joined the board of directors for the Pittsburgh-based manufacturing consultancy Catalyst Connection and the Pittsburgh Robotics Network, where he was eventually appointed president. After that, he became the Robotics Entrepreneur in Residence at Innovation Works ' Robotics Factory, where he mentored early-stage robotics founders. 'We're at a pivotal moment where robotics and AI are no longer future technologies — they're ready to transform US manufacturing today,' Pedersen said in a prepared statement. 'I'm honored to join the ARM Institute in its mission to drive innovation, strengthen our industrial base and prepare a workforce ready to thrive alongside advanced technologies.' The ARM Institute is structured as a public-private partnership of over 450 member organizations. Pedersen will continue the ARM Institute's work of fostering collaboration between government, industry and academia to make robotics, automation and AI more accessible to manufacturers. Pittsburgh loses two founders to Philly-based fellowship program Two researchers at the University of Pittsburgh are leaving the city to develop their innovations across the state. Molecular pharmacology graduate student Olayemi Grace Akinyele and AI health researcher Thomas Tam have been selected for the University City Science Center 's year-long Founders Fellowship program in Philadelphia. The life sciences builders will receive hands-on experience on tackling challenges related to aging populations. Akinyele will work on developing her bioengineered platform that would preserve mitochondria, the parts of the cell that produce energy, even after they've been removed from the body. Since mitochondria have emerged as a biomarker for early detection of Alzheimer's, the new technology could make it easier to research the disease in the future. Tam will also leave Pittsburgh to continue working on his AI-powered medication guardrails, which aim to fix the current error-prone process of tracking medications across different care settings. Tam's venture was previously supported by Carnegie Mellon's Project Olympus Incubator Program and the Pittsburgh-based Patient Safety Fellowship. Cofounder of Aurora leaves for General Motors Aurora cofounder Sterling Anderson announced his resignation as the autonomous trucking company's chief product officer in May, following the launch of Aurora's self-driving trucks in Texas. The news was made public in a regulatory filing, where the company said Anderson's departure 'did not result from any disagreement with the company concerning any matter relating to its operations, policies or practices.' During the company's first-quarter earnings call, Anderson said Aurora's recent launch gave him the confidence to leave the company at this time. 'Aurora has reached a critical inflection point; product strategy is firmly established,' he said. 'The technology is on the road, the team is in place to scale it, and the momentum we've created in the industry is palpable.' A few days later, General Motors announced Anderson as the company's new executive vice president of global product and chief product officer. Anderson joins the team as General Motors works to incorporate autonomous technology into its vehicles. Later that month, Aurora made the call to put 'observers' back in the front seat of its autonomous trucks, per a request made by Paccar Inc., the company that manufactures the trucks. More power moves: North Shore-based aluminum producer Alcoa named Thomas J. Gorman as its non-executive chairman of the board in May. About 105 Leviathan Energy employees will lose their jobs as the company closes its Monroeville and Canonsburg offices following the $1.8 billion acquisition of Olympus Energy. Innovation Works eliminated its portfolio executive role, cutting three team members. Based on founder feedback, Innovation Works says it updated its service model to give portfolio companies direct access to managing directors, a mentor network and a new service desk to route, track and manage requests. California-based defense tech company Anduril is hiring for several software roles in Pittsburgh, despite not currently having a physical presence in the city. The company develops autonomous weapons used by Ukraine. Point Park University appointed Shari Payne as the permanent provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. Payne had served as interim provost since January. Kristen Martin, a former professor of IT and technology ethics, will serve as the next dean of Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College starting in July. After the local software firm Smith Micro had a 50% drop in revenue last year, it brought back Tim Huffmyer to resume his former role as CFO and take on the COO position as well.
Technical.ly
05-06-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
‘Be yourself:' VCs want founders to tell authentic and urgent stories
There's no such thing as a perfect pitch — but there is such a thing as a forgettable one. At the 2025 Builders Conference, three venture capitalists with varied investment backgrounds joined a refreshingly unstructured conversation about what makes a founder's story resonate. Moderated by Ken Malone of Baltimore-based Early Charm, the 'VC Roundtables: Telling Your Story to Investors' panel featured Ryan Bednar of Orange Collective, Rob Brown of MVP Capital and Anthony George of Ben Franklin Technology Partners (BFTP). Despite their varied areas of expertise and interest, the three Philly-based investors largely agreed that founders need to lean into their own unique qualities when telling their stories to potential investors. Bednar, a founder and Y Combinator alum whose firm specializes in other graduates of the prestigious accelerator, framed it as giving the funder a sense of being in on something exciting. 'I think the best pitches,' Bednar said, 'are where you're kind of letting the investor in on a secret.' That secret isn't always about the product. In fact, as much as the panelists all believed in the value of a founder's passion, one of them cautioned against being too focused on those products or solutions, instead of the problem that birthed those products. 'Your solution should always be changing, your product should always be changing,' said George. 'But if you're obsessed with the problem, you're going to stick with it even when things get difficult.' Relationships over transactions, no matter the personality While the Elon Musks and Travis Kalanicks of the world might suggest that the most outgoing entrepreneurs are the most successful, several panelists said that it's entirely possible to build the right connection with a VC without that kind of personality. 'I think you can totally build relationships with VCs and investors as an introvert,' said Bednar, adding that he found success in online networking and email outreach when he was a founder. Brown said that the depth of a relationship matters more than how much a founder puts themself out there. 'You don't necessarily have to be a conference junkie,' he said. 'You can find one-on-one ways to interact. It also goes back to the idea of time: I find that I have introverted tendencies myself, and I find that over time, the more time you spend with someone, the more extroverted you become with that specific individual.' That said, the panelists also believed in the worth of a pitch that can hook someone in on the first interaction. 'The last half-a-dozen deals we've done, almost all of those were where the pitch didn't happen over Zoom or on Powerpoint,' Brown explained. 'The pitch happened in person, talking to them, meeting them for the first time. That was the real pitch.' For bootstrapping founders — especially those building in hard tech or from cities outside the usual VC hotspots — the advice was practical. Conserve cash. Do your research. Find the right kind of capital for your business model. And don't assume geography is a limitation. 'You can also build relationships out in Silicon Valley,' Bednar said. 'I don't think you should limit yourself to a particular geographic area.' What (not) to do Building relationships that lead to investment may not be a perfect science, but the investors still had actionable tips for what every founder can do (and should avoid) when seeking venture capital. While entrepreneurs often conflate story with pitch, panelists drew a line between the two. The story is personal, emotional and evolving. A pitch is structured, strategic and designed to answer key questions like who you are, what you're doing and why. But one needn't be fully separate from the other, and the panelists also shared tactical advice for making that story stick. For instance, George of BFTP suggested founders create a 90-second pitch video to share with funders, especially if they can't meet a VC firm's principal immediately and need to give something representative to that firm's associate or analyst. That video could incorporate the story, which must be unique to the founder's particular journey. Either way, 'don't copy it out of a book,' he warned. Asked about the 'wrong' way to build investor relationships, panelists agreed: pushiness and rigidity are quick turnoffs. A founder who can't pivot raises red flags. The speakers also advised against flooding pitch meetings with more than one team member and pitching ideas that don't fit an investor's stated interests. 'We are a bit generalist,' he said. 'But when I say, like, 'Listen, we don't do life sciences' … they typically get the message.' George also said that founders too often skip a critical piece of their story: not just why they're building a company, but why now. Context matters, he said, because timing — from technological readiness to macroeconomic tailwinds — can make or break an investment. Through all of these themes and the many audience questions that guided the discussion, the investors revolved around one primary consideration: authenticity. 'This sounds trite, but be yourself,' Brown said. 'If the end result of this is … potentially a 10-year-long relationship, you can't fake it for 10 years.'
Technical.ly
22-05-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
Pittsburgh Public Schools seeks $2M software deal with FSH Tech to rethink cafeteria logistics
A Philly-based startup is reaching across the state with a proposed $2 million software deal to modernize operations at Pittsburgh Public Schools. The potential 10-year contract with Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) food services would provide custom-built software for the department, helping it bring five million meals to students annually. FSH Technologies would turn the complex, paperwork-based process of food distribution into a more modern endeavor, putting all the logistics onto one platform. 'The public sector has long been underserved, especially in technology,' Lilly Chen, founder and CEO of FSH Technologies, told 'They deserve access to modern technology with modern [user experience] and [user interface] that actually work for their process, because every single town, city, school district has their own unique way of operating.' PPS food services' current system involves using multiple software programs and manual methods like Excel spreadsheets and PDFs for various tasks, according to the director of the department, Malik Hamilton. With about 22,000 meals to serve daily, along with after-school snacks, school dinners and catering contracts with local private schools or daycares, the food services department needed a system that could integrate all its needs, Hamilton said, including regulatory compliance, production records, menu planning and forecasting. 'We have a lot of paperwork, a lot of things that we have to keep track of,' Hamilton said. 'We were looking for [a software program] that is more robust than what we're currently using and that could help us grow into some of the things that we want to do moving forward.' The new platform that FSH Tech is building has a unified database, so the department can share data about menus, ingredients, vendors and more, Chen said. When schools place food orders with the district's central kitchen, the platform allows them to select the menu item, how many need to be made, when it's being served and if the item is a main dish, side or dessert. The system automatically figures out what ingredients and how much of each are needed, placing the order with third-party vendors when the menu is made. Although the food services budget is not part of PPS's recent deficit issues — because the department funds its operations through meal sales — the cost of the platform was still a key factor in choosing FSH, Hamilton said. FSH 'did not come in as the lowest bidder,' Hamilton said. But he was optimistic the program would ultimately help the department save money because, as food costs rise, it would allow them to 'closely monitor financial decisions that are being made in each building.' The PPS board will vote on the proposed contract on May 28. Chen and Hamilton both said they are confident it would be approved. Software 'assembled to order' for public-sector needs FSH's goal was to create a system that used food efficiently and was easy to use for the district's employees because it impacts students' ability to access food, Chen said. 'There's a realness to what software does,' she said. 'It serves real people who have lives.' The wider problem of outdated workflows or software platforms that don't totally align with an organization's operations isn't unique to the Pittsburgh school district, Chen said. It's a common issue often caused by budget constraints — especially in the public sector. A former machine learning infrastructure engineer at Meta, Chen's interest in public sector technology sparked while she was volunteering for Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker's Open for Business initiative. She was helping to build a tool that would be a one-stop shop for Philadelphia businesses to access resources and grant information. That experience showed her how long and inefficient the process can be for developing government technology tools. 'It kind of shocked me,' she said. 'Everyone is so well-intentioned, so motivated to help, and yet we aren't getting solutions delivered to the people that we promise that we're going to deliver them to.' Most software is 'opinionated software,' she said, meaning that it's built to work a certain way using a specific method, but every unique city and agency has its own way of doing things. Instead, FSH focuses on composable software, pieces with specific functions that can be 'assembled to order,' with a specific focus on municipalities, she said. The private sector doesn't offer enough products for the public sector, she said. It builds tools that work for them and government agencies have to try to make them work, despite having different processes and serving unique groups of people. With the PPS contract, FSH learned what the needs of the school system are, the roles that employees play and designed the platform to check those boxes. 'We always say,' Chen said, 'that we build technology for people first that works for your process.'
Technical.ly
15-05-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
This entrepreneur from Ireland is helping US farmers wield analytics
Entering the large US market can be intimidating for some immigrant founders, but international experience can help give them a competitive edge. For Daniel Foy, cofounder and CEO of agtech startup AgriGates, leaning into his identity as an immigrant and his connection to agriculture helped him find support for his business. Foy grew up in the world of farming, food production and entrepreneurship in his home country, Ireland. His family is made up of farmers and his parents owned a local supermarket in his small town. He didn't choose to take on either of those businesses, instead going on to study pharmacology and microbiology in Scotland. Foy found himself returning to his childhood experience when he pursued food tech and worked with dairy and food companies to increase safety, nutrition and marketability. While he was working for a company that makes wearable technology to track livestock health, essentially 'Fitbit for cows,' he said, he was introduced to the North American market and American agriculture and agtech. In 2016, Foy moved to the US and went on to learn about the challenges the agriculture industry is facing, including how to use the data they were collecting about their livestock. There was no unified reporting system that connected all of the technologies farmers were using, he said. He started Philly-based AgriGates in 2020 to help farmers collect and analyze their data in one database, but ran into low-quality information. So, he pivoted to developing a hardware and software system that gathers high-quality data about individual animals throughout their lives. Foy's company uses machine learning to produce insights about the animals that farmers can use to make decisions about their business, he said. In this edition of How I Got Here series, Foy discusses how his experience as an immigrant has helped him navigate the agtech space in the United States and why he's excited about the impact technology will have on the food production industry. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. What have you learned from your experience as a founder? You build a lot of confidence as you go. Do you believe you can do it at the start? Yes, but there are all these new unknowns that challenge you to keep moving. I'm a subject matter expert, but sometimes what business and funders want is different from being a subject matter expert. So you have to have your business case. You have to understand how it applies, how it's going to scale, what's the value. I'm at five years, and I would say, in the last year, I've become more confident in those areas. I hear a lot of companies in agtech talk about how much they're going to save farmers, but have never proven that in their use cases. We're really working to try and build trust and reliability into data. How has being an immigrant impacted your entrepreneurial experience? If you're coming in and you don't have an understanding of the US, you have to operate somewhere where it's hundreds of times bigger. That challenge as an entrepreneur, if you're coming into the market, should not be underestimated, because America is ginormous. In the last 12 months, the amount of support I get locally is astounding. People are cheering us on in Pennsylvania, which is so encouraging. And even being an immigrant, they want me to do well, because that is the viewpoint of success in America. It resonates with a lot of people, and I find that quite exciting. One of the things I have to my advantage is that I do come from a rural community. I have an understanding of rural life that excites people, because people imagine what Ireland's like, green fields and dairy industry. My native identity is associated with agriculture. I think partners are very willing to say, well, here's somebody who's come here who wants to help us have a better system in place. We should at least listen and support them, because there's a new possibility. As an outsider, it has not been negative. It's actually been really encouraging. What's next for your company? Our emphasis on welfare is really getting people excited, because if we can improve the lives of animals, and we can still have a profitable industry, we can have nutritious products and feel like we're paying a farmer and they're getting rewarded. But we're also able to have peace of mind that this animal has had a good life, and it's still supplying nutritious products to us. I'm just so excited about machine learning coming, or AI coming, to assist us with that. The foundation infrastructure and what we're doing with machine learning are about to blow that apart in our space. What excites you right now about the agtech industry in general? If farmers can actually have these metrics that we're talking about on their farms, they'd be standing in front of the milk and cheese and butter sections to promote their products, because they're so proud that they need more tools to help them be able to demonstrate that to the consumer. When that relationship is really digitized, and consumers can really look at a product and go back and maybe take a QR code and see where it came from, that's going to create a whole new understanding of where food comes from. That will get the consumer connected back to basic food, because we're so far removed. We want to build trust. Whatever part of the world you're in, you like going to markets. You like going to your butcher. You like going to these places, creating those opportunities for the consumer with technology from the farm level. I think it's so exciting for us as consumers and the industry itself. What advice would you give a fellow entrepreneur? Speak to everybody. If there is a goal, I will always communicate with people to find new ways to solve these problems. Lifting up your phone or writing to somebody and telling them what you need, how it would help, I think that's been one of the most valuable things I've ever done. Continuing to communicate with people about the challenge and what we're doing, you can't underestimate that. You have to plan. Don't hope that somebody's going to call you and help with your idea. You go out there and do it and keep going forward until you get what you need, and people communicate with you. Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
New York Post
05-05-2025
- New York Post
Philadelphia cops investigating ‘f–k the Jews' sign at Barstool Sports bar as Temple student suspended
Police are probing an antisemitic incident at a Barstool Sports bar in Philadelphia after video of a hateful sign went viral. A female server appeared to hold up a sign reading 'f–k the Jews' in the clip filmed at Barstool Sansom Street in Center City on Saturday night. 'We are currently looking into this matter,' a Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson told The Post. 'A video has surfaced showing a sign at the Philly Barstool bar, located at 1213 Sansom Street, reportedly from Saturday night. We are working to gather more information and will provide an update as soon as possible.' 3 Cops are probing an incident at Barstool Sansom Street in Center City, Philadelphia, after a sign reading 'F–k the Jews' was held up by a server. Instagram One of the people involved in the video is reportedly a student at Temple University. Students at the Philly-based school 'were involved in an anti-Semitic incident at an off-campus location,' the university said in a statement on Sunday. Other horrified patrons said they left the bar after seeing the sign. 'It was just like, 'Whoa,' it threw everybody off guard. Everything was so tense at the time,' Nyia Clark, who was in the bar that night, told NBC Philadelphia. 3 Barstool Sports founder and owner Dave Portnoy responded to the controversy. @stoolpresidente/X She and a friend decided to leave, appalled not only at the actions of the young students, but also at the fact that the server appeared to have endorsed it. 'Of course, some dumb college kids are going to do some dumb, stupid stuff, ask for stupid stuff, but I'm thinking, how did the workers sit there? They have to write the sign,' Clark's friend Sarah Noakes said. 3 Disgusted patrons left the bar after spotting the sign inside the bar on Saturday night. FOX29 One student believed to have been involved in Saturday's shocking scenes has been identified and placed on interim suspension, Temple University said, without identifying the student. naming the individual. 'In the strongest terms possible, let me be clear: antisemitism is abhorrent. It has no place at Temple and acts of hatred and discrimination against any person or persons are not tolerated at this university,' school president John Fry said. Anyone else found to have been involved 'will face strict disciplinary action,' including possible expulsion, the school said, adding that its Division of Student Affairs is investigating. Barstool Sports' founder and CEO Dave Portnoy, who is Jewish, had earlier released a furious video reacting to the incident at the bar. Hours after Saturday night's incident, Portnoy held what he called an 'Emergency Press Conference' in response to what happened. 'Tell me, how do I make this f–king right?,' Portnoy said in the video. 'What I'm saying is I'm getting the names. I'm trying to be a little responsible. I'm trying to keep it together, but I'm on it.' But hours later, he said he planned to send the pair to a tour of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland in an attempt to educate them, instead of ruining their lives. 'The more I thought about it, it's like, these are young f–kin' morons who did this,' he said. 'They're drunk. Do you really want to ruin somebody's life?'
