speaking – Christopher Wink

Remarks: Tech meetups shape economic mobility

Below are my notes, and video, from the remarks I offered to kickoff the second day of our Technically Builders Conference, which also doubled as the closing of the 15th annual Philly Tech Week. It informed this story we published on Technically. My slides are here.

Starting in 1975, the Homebrew Computer Club was a regular gathering of tech enthusiasts in northern California.

The group was made famous for inspiring Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. But hundreds of computer clubs emerged around the country then. The Philadelphia Area Computer Society (PACS), for example, was first organized in spring 1976.

You don’t have to care about a few dozen computer nerds getting together 50 years ago. How they did has shaped the work we do, though, and has a few lessons for our future.

Keynote: The case for storytelling (for entrepreneur-led economic development)

A few lessons from the 15th annual Klein News Innovation Camp

We were back. Audience was great, I enjoyed my lunchtime keynote interview with Wired editor Steven Levy.

To fill an early-morning slot, I crowdsourced a session (in old school unconference style!) on creators as distribution partners, and creators of news. (The topic has been on my mind!) In a crowded room

Below are a few notes from the daylong unconference on the future of news for my own memory.

Keynote: What marketers need to know about the creator economy

The creator economy may be big, or not. The numbers are somewhat divided because definitions are still evolving.

I took what I did know from covering, living and curating creator campaigns, and gave a keynote on the topic for the Philly Ad Club’s annual conference. They had roughly 150 marketers on site at the cozy innovation space of Independence Blue Cross’s headquarters.

Find my slides here. A rough audio recording of the presentation can be found here (or here).

I published here a piece on Technical.ly informed by this work.

Why are there so few tech apprenticeships?

Backed by a research project on tech workforce development that I am leading with Technical.ly for our client Accenture, I got the chance to share high-level findings.

Ahead of National Apprenticeship Week, I gave a 10-minute talk, which was broadly about apprenticeships but included a bit of general tech workforce and tech economy basics and some Philadelphia-specific detail. Find the slides here, and a story I wrote on the topic here.

Entrepreneurship is bipartisan

Informed by reporting I’ve done, I’m keen on making the case that entrepreneurship engagement and tech workforce support are bipartisan issues.

I led a workshop session on the topic at the Young, Smart, Local conference. Find my slides here. Below is the session abstract I roughly followed. (After the daytime conference, there was an evening reception, at which I am depicted below with my friend and collaborator Damon McWhite, photo by Sana’i Parker!)

Storytelling and data work together for ecosystem building

Too often when tech, startup and local economic development leaders I know say they want more “storytelling” about their “ecosystem,” they just mean “I want more people to know about my stuff.” They mean marketing and promotion alone.

But when we evoke the word “storytelling” we need more meaning. All the brain science makes clear, storytelling works when the audience learns something about themselves. With the help of strong data-backing, today storytelling can mean: Using fact-finding and people stories to help a community identify the closest approximation of its truth. It sounds like my old definition journalism.

This idea of marrying data with storytelling for local economic organizers was the focus of a keynote, and subsequent discussion, I led at SuperConnect, the user conference of Baltimore-founded startup Ecomap. It was informed in part by the “ecosystem stack” concept I’m tinkering with.

My slides are here. Earlier this year, I presented a webinar for the firm, and those slides are here.

My Technical.ly Builders Conference keynote May 2024

Well the video crew somehow damaged the file of my speech, but I gave the keynote at Technical.ly’s annual Builders Conference back on May 8.

I published the themes on Technical.ly here, here and here. I wanted to share the full video here, but no luck. I do have my full notes below.

For regional startup cities to stand out, be true to yourself

I joined Chattanooga Tennessee Mayor Tim Kelly, and Joe Kirgues, the cofounder of the startup accelerator provider gener8tor, for a discussion at COLLAB. It’s the well-polished mobility- and quantum-themed conference produced by that city’s entrepreneur support organization.

Our theme? How do small city’s stand out. My push? Talk to each other, find a consistent narrative. Be authentic, honest and repeat those people stories.

I ended up filing this story after the conference and a quantum piece here. I also hosted a webinar on the U.S. Southeast’s entreprenuership activity.

I was honored with the 2024 IBIT “Innovators Award”

I proudly accepted Wednesday the “Innovators Award” from the Temple University Fox School of Business’s Institute for Business and Information Technology. The award is “given annually to a person or persons for innovation in applying IT to create business opportunity.”

The award was timed with the launch of the 14th annual Philly Tech Week, which I founded, and the 15th anniversary of Technical.ly, a local news org that has adapted in this strange economic period for community journalism. The transfer of Generocity.org last year was also a relevant example of my work.I was proud that my references for the award were my friends journalist-turned-college-dean David Boardman and entrepreneur Bob Moore. I formerly emceed these very awards, which are led by the thoughtful and analytical Munir Y. Mandviwalla and Laurel Miller. Knowing what they put into these awards made it all the more special. I was certainly in good company: My fellow award-winner was Jeff Hamilton, who was the CIO of Pfizer while the company rolled out its covid-19 vaccine.

Below, I share my remarks from the award event.

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