Philly Tech Week, now in its fifth year, is a celebration of Philadelphia’s thriving and engaging tech scene. This week-long festival features hundreds of events reaching a variety of topics related to technology in Philadelphia including: Creativity, Access, Civic, Media, Business and Development. All of the past Philly Tech Weeks have had map or geography related events and this year is no different. Below is a round up on this year’s maptastic events at Philly Tech Week.
Build
On April 22nd, join GeoPhilly for a Balloon Mapping Launch at Penn’s Landing ($5)! Balloon mapping is a low-cost, easy, and safe way to capture aerial images and stitch them together to make high resolution maps. This grassroots technique has been used by journalists and community groups all over the world. One of the most interesting balloon mapping projects involved capturing images of the damage caused by the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The event will kick off in the morning on the Delaware River Waterfront (in front of the Independence Seaport Museum facing the water) to launch the balloon and camera kits and collect our aerial imagery. This meetup has a second evening part on the day of the launch where you can help to stitch together the photos taken from the morning or build your own camera rig. You don’t need to attend both events, but if you’d like to, you will need RSVP for both. RSVP for the second event here. Browse stitched photos at the Public Labs archive.
Connect
The Innovation Mapped event on Sunday April 19th is a great opportunity to connect to other tech aficionados across the city. Attendees of this event will be given a very cool poster of a map of tech innovators in Philadelphia, which includes Azavea’s location at the Wolf Building at 12th and Callowhill!
Learn
The 4th annual Women in Tech Summit with the theme Inspiring Women to take a Chance, features numerous opportunities to learn and connect. Azavea’s Sarah Cordivano with Stacey Mosely of City of Philadelphia will be teaching a workshop on Mapping the Future: A Primer in Visualizing and Analyzing Open Data. If you are attending the sold-out summit, do not miss their workshop!
Hack
The #OpenGov hackathon will be a fantastic opportunity to build new and innovative projects that support civic engagement and technology! This event will engage the tech community in building tools and resources to help citizens track the spending of tax dollars and better understand and engage in the operations of government agencies. Open data, especially spatial data, will play a strong role in fueling the imaginations and resources built at this event!
Compete
Query Quizzo featuring Open Data is an opportunity to use your analysis expertise and the wealth of open data in Philadelphia to compete for cash prizes (while enjoying a few beers with your friends). Attendees will work in teams to answer three rounds of questions, all which can be answered from open data provided by the School District of Philadelphia! Don’t miss this fun event!
Take a moment to explore the entire lineup of 2015 Philly Tech Week and find which events inspire you! We hope to see you there!