The first thing you need to know is that Alex Hillman is dangerously awesome. He is the Pied Piper of the tech community. And he had a lot of competition onstage at Ignite Philly 8, which took place before a packed audience on Thursday (Sept. 22) at Johnny Brenda's in Fishtown.
Anyone who creates slide presentations needs to attend the next Ignite Philly. That would be you. Aside from 12 presentations about incredibly cool initiatives taking place in Philadelphia, the most inspiring part was the creative way presenters used Power Point. Makes a geeky girl sigh with pleasure.
The evening, hosted by Geoff DiMasi, David Clayton and Dana Vachon, began with Melissa Morris Ivone's
Operation Nice. Talking about the inception of her blog, Ivone told the story of one morning commute during which she was cut off by another driver, but the day turned around when a stranger was nice to her on an elevator. That tiny act bloomed into the Operation Nice blog, which sports the tagline, "Encouraging individuals to be proactively nice." Kind of a pay it forward for the intelligentsia.
Did you know that Philadelphia has an
Art Hotel? Krista Peel and Zak Starer run an artist residency located in East Kensington. Each year, the hotel accepts 10 residents free of charge. Chirstian Kunkel is bringing an entrepreneurial spirit to Philadelphia public school students with
Startup Corps, which has already helped 70 young entrepreneurs in 6 schools, with the help of 150 mentors. Kunkel's dream is to offer an opportunity to start a business to every public school student in Philadelphia.
Hillman and DiMasi presented
K'House, their coworking and cohousing experiment now under construction in Kensington. A last minute addition to the lineup, Hillman and DiMasi's presentation was created by
drawing on bar napkins, taking iPhone pictures of the napkins, and building a brilliant slide show that had the crowd roaring. "I never know how the talks are going to turn out, but they always seem to exceed expectations," comments DiMasi, who counted 300 people in the capacity crowd.
Danielle Redden took us boating on the
tidal Schuylkill; Michelle Bland invited everyone to
Nerd Nite Philly; Theresa Rose, Jordan Rock and Brett Mapp explained the
Philly Stake dinner concept; Mira Adornetto and Joel Fath planted the idea of
Philly Seed Exchange; Tristin Hightower and Nicole Kline told the story of
Philly Girl Geek Dinners;
Greg Hoy made an argument for why Sansom Street should be confined to pedestrian traffic in his talk, "Less Garbage Juice, More with Love xoxo;" Gabriel Mandujano and Joel Hommes encouraged sustainable cleanliness with their business
Wash Cycle Laundry, and Sarah McEneany talked about the latest developments along the
Reading Viaduct.
The majority of the night's proceeds were awarded to a former Ignite Philly Speaker, the
EVX West Philly Hybrid X Team, which won $1,000 toward teaching high school students to build hybrid cars.
Source: Geoff Di Masi, Ignite Philly
Writer: Sue Spolan