Tech

Key insights for building a better innovation ecosystem in 2024

Immerse yourself in the vibrancy of the neighborhood. Make apprenticeship programs welcoming. Foster direct connections. Celebrate your online community. Define your target audience. You get to tell your own story. A/B test!

These themes and more emerged as hundreds of people from across the country gathered at the Technical.ly Builders Conference in Philadelphia on May 9 to discuss growing startups, supporting entrepreneurship, developing the workforce and other elements of building a better innovation economy.

Sessions held throughout the day explored the forces driving regional innovation and encouraged commonalities in the name of progress.

In his keynote, Technical.ly CEO Chris Wink said, “Don't ask people why they believe something.” That puts them on the defensive. Ask them how they came to that belief.

In the age of independent media, finding common ground is not easy. In 1969, nearly one in five people alive had stopped what they were doing to watch the moon landing, Wink said. He pointed out an often overlooked milestone of this historic event:

That's when the term software engineer was coined.

Margaret Hamilton was a programmer who helped the various machines on the Apollo 11 rocket communicate with each other. That software ultimately saved the day, opening a way to save enough fuel that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin could take a module to the moon and still have enough gas to fly 250,000 miles home. It is now possible.

Before proof of concept, Wink said, software was considered administrative. It was considered a woman's job, more of a bookkeeping job than a world-building one. But as software evolved into the backbone of what most of us would call modern technology, Hamilton's terminology proved prescient.

This story served to set the stage for the three themes Wink presented at the conference. 1) Once something becomes familiar, it is no longer technology. 2) Entrepreneurs need housing more than taxation. 3) Who works is determined by how you work.

A panel discussion followed, kicking off a day of case studies and story sharing, workshops and networking, food and drinks, learning and fun.

Scroll down and click through the highlights of each session as documented in Slack by the Technical.ly team to read a detailed summary.

There is a mismatch between economic indicators (almost all positive) and sentiment (life sucks)

Keynote Panel: The Future of the Innovation Ecosystem: What's Changed and Where's It Going? Theresa Singleton, Federal Reserve Bank; Laura Plunkett, Comcast LIFT Labs; Troy Lemire Stovall, TEDCO; Kyle Samuels, Creative Talent Endeavors. Moderated by Christopher Wink, Technical.ly.

Despite positive economic indicators such as increased entrepreneurship and rising wages, there is a disconnect between these statistics and people's actual experiences. Leaders need to better understand and address this disparity As many people increasingly prioritize work-life balance and quality of life over a higher salary, local boosters and corporate Leaders need to focus on these factors if they want to attract talent. Generative AI is becoming a fundamental tool in every field, so accelerating its adoption without creating barriers could be transformative.There is a huge opportunity to strengthen the technology workforce by investing in apprenticeship training and supporting recent immigrants and returnees.