Philly’s tech community is on the map. Literally. On January 28,
Philadelphia Startup Leaders (PSL) and
WeWorkInPhilly (WWIP) launched the
Philly Community Map and Directory, a GIS-enabled open-source guide to the individuals, companies, coworking spaces, resources, organizations and investors that make up our growing startup economy.
Based on the WWIP directory created by Linus Graybill and Alex Hillman (cofounder of
Indy Hall), the resource is intended to be "used by all, owned by none." Its development brought together a team of disparate techie founders including Hillman, Chris Cera of
ArcWeb, Brad Oyler of
W3Portals, Mel Baiada of
BaseCamp Ventures, Brian Kirk of
Technically Philly, Elliot Menschik of
Venturef0rth and Bob Moul of
appRenaissance.
"A lot of people are interested in finding better ways to interact with the tech community," says Cera. "[The Community Map] is a minimum viable product we did collaboratively to prove that we can all work together even though we have different goals and different stakeholders."
Member listings can include revenue, customers, number of employees and job postings. Cera points out that the project is not solely focused on the commercial aspects of the tech community -- new members can register companies or sign up as people.
Moul, who is president of PSL, expects the map will help entrepreneurs, startups and businesses promote themselves, while also making the local tech economy more attractive to inside and outside investment. The
Economy League of Greater Philadelphia,
Select Greater Philadelphia,
PHL Convention & Visitors Bureau,
University City Science Center and
Startup PHL plan to host the resource on their websites.
As of January 28th, 852 people and 328 companies have signed up via WeWorkInPhilly. PSL encourages anyone with a stake in the local tech scene to
consider joining.
Source: Chris Cera, Bob Moul, Philly Startup Leaders
Writer: Dana Henry