New apps. Digital art. Sustainable technology. Open data.

The just-completed Philly Tech Week covered a lot of ground. Through six days and 65 events, the series showcased the significant progress made and challenges remaining for the technology industry in Philadelphia. With Technically Philly envisioning the week and updating the schedule, tech-minded attendees made it out to events ranging from "School 2.0" to "Technology and Innovation Policy in Philly". Because each event was independently organized, the quality remained high throughout.

While events that appealed to practitioners of a particular craft were packed, like Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise (for programmers) and BarCamp NewsInnovation (for journalists), we're focusing on events that conveyed the state of a sector to an outside audience.

With that caveat out of the way, here's a look at five major themes from Philly Tech Week:

Policy and Technology
The week kicked off with a lunch event at WHYY announcing a newly developed site to catalog all open data sources and applications that have Philadelphia information. City Councilman Bill Green emphasized the importance of the ongoing open data effort, saying "Anything that's a public record should be available to the public". The site catalogs both governmental data sources and private APIs.

GIS firm Azavea built the site on a pro bono basis as a part of the multi-organization, collaborative Open Access Philly Task force. At the data unveiling, Azavea employee Tamara Manik-Perlman emphasized "making it easier to find data and making it easier for other people to share data" for the ecosystem at large, and for Azavea as a company. The company is actively looking for a partner organization to take on the hosting and ongoing maintenance responsibilities.

Another civic priority that launched during the week was the City's Freedom Rings Partnership, with the opening of a computer center at Philadelphia FIGHT (1233 Locust). The City's Manager of Innovation and Civic Participation Jeff Friedman stressed the need for adoption, training, and hardware technology that would reach the 41 percent of city residents without access to Internet in the home. The City has secured $25 million in federal funds to open 77 computer locations and provide digital literacy and workforce training.

Takeaway: Web developer and open data advocate Mark Headd emphasizes the role of civic participation for government transparency. To a group consisting largely of government and non-profit employees at the Philly Progressive Thinkers lunch, he repeated "If you have some information you want to see, go home and add it to the site" as suggestions rolled in.

Sustainable Tech
In addition to the OpenDataPhilly site, Azavea also rolled out PhillyTreeMap.org to track the species and location of all the trees in the Philadelphia area. PHS and Greenworks partnered on the project. The site launched with information from separate surveys done by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the City of Philadelphia, and Lower Merion Township.

Users can directly add any trees that are newly planted or otherwise missing from the site. Said Sarah Low of Greenworks, "People will get excited about trees in their neighborhood, backyards, trees they just planted last weekend, and they will want to share the excitement." The ecological impact, monetary savings, and greenhouse gas benefits of each tree are calculated and displayed on the site.

Web design firm P'unk Ave hosted a discussion on the future of shelter, featuring modern architecture designer Brian Phillips and co-founder of Postgreen Nic Darling. One of the core ideas of the evening was how to bridge public, private, and semi-private spaces in cities. Alex Hillman and Geoff DiMasi, co-founders of Independents Hall, also announced a partnership with Postgreen to build a house on a currently vacant lot in Kensington. The house will have small rooms and large common areas to encourage collaboration (cohousing) between residents.

Takeaway: The Greenworks goal is to increase tree cover within the Philadelphia city limits from 20 percent to 30. Help get there by becoming a tree tender. And don't forget to mark your trees.

Art and Technology
"Augmented Reality Check" was the sole event co-listed on the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, Philadelphia Science Festival, and PTW calendars. Through the use of augmented reality, artists can make three dimensional holograms visible to users who have a smart phone with GPS enabled and the appropriate software.

During the month of April, 24 artists placed 36 holographic art pieces throughout the city of Philadelphia. Creative team Manifest.AR has used the process worldwide for a variety of different ends, including making origami doves visible near Mt. Fuji and protest tweets visible next to Mummar Qaddafi.

Hosting an event with digital art, beer, and free food will draw a crowd. Throw in a chance to win an iPad2 and you have a party. Thirty five thousand artists have uploaded 400,000 pieces of artwork to local website artician.com since launching in early 2009, but founder Eric Zhivalyuk felt they could do more to become known locally. The party featured multiple screens rotating 1,000 hand-selected works from the site.

Takeaway: From San Fancisco, the Philadelphia Code for America fellows contributed to PTW by releasing a Mural Arts app. The application shows which murals are nearby, using your smart phone's GPS system. Use it. Enjoy.

Indy Tech + Entrepreneurship
In addition to overseeing the week, Technically Philly also planned a couple of events. Switch Philly, an entrepreneurial showcase for software startups, featured five startups at various stages of their development. Jason and CC Laan of Laan Labs demoed the application that has been their most successful to date - Tap DJ, for the iPhone - which was recently a top 10 app in the iTunes store.

The youngest presenter was Joseph Cohen, a sophomore at Wharton. He showed off his product Coursekit, which is designed to be an educational software tool with a friendly user interface. According to Sean Blanda, host for the evening and co-founder of Technically Philly, several of the companies were approached after the event by interested investors.

Coworking space Independents Hall hosted an event resembling a geeky frat party - complete with a keg, beer pong, and newly developed iPad games and software. Mike Zorn, leader of CocoaHeads, noted the growth in the developer community. "Five years ago, if we had five people out for a game developers meetup, that was a good showing. Now we regularly get 20". For those who want some competition, Matt Monihan and Zach Kozac of Devnuts ran the table at the beer pong championship.

Takeaway: Going to New York or DC by public transportation and want to know the most direct route? Catapulter, which also was demoed at Switch, gives point to point directions for ground travel and allows you to sort by price, exclude certain modes of transportation, and specify your level of time flexibility.

Schools and Tech
Science and Leadership Academy's philosophy of project-based learning and student empowerment lent itself to a powerful PTW presentation. Teacher Doug Herman explained how he manages a student film group that travels to professional gigs. Last year, he drove up to New York with 3 of the high school's students and $15,000 worth of filming equipment. Jeff Kessler, a student, manages the school's official twitter account.

Central High School also had a powerful showing, organizing a Robot Expo on Drexel's campus. Coach Dan Ueda was looking to raise money for their Robolancers team when Technically Philly co-founder Brian James Kirk suggested holding a Robot Expo during PTW.

Students have a large role in running the team, none more so than CEO and senior Alex Thompkins-Johns. Johns cited "time management and team skills that you learn through robotics and take onwards in your life" as the most rewarding component of the program. Three of the four graduating seniors will go to Drexel in the fall, and all expect to major in mechanical engineering.

Takeaway: The Robonova programmable robot made several appearances throughout the week, at high school as well as college events. At Dr. Youngmoo Kim's MET-Lab at Drexel, a computer deciphered the beat of songs and sent signals to the robot to move at the appropriate times - a dancing robot.

SALAS SARAIYA reports on the technology community for Flying Kite. Though he's had a license for more than a decade, his next car will be his first. He loves Philly for its micro-brews, roof decks, and independent spirit. Connect with him through twitter @salasks. Send feedback here.

Photos:

The Azavea team

Robert Cheethan

Grant Hartman and Dr. Youngmoo E. Kim

Mark Headd speaks with colleague Jeff Friedman

Guest speaker Richard Negrin

Just a few of the signature event attendees

All photographs by Michael Persico