TECHNOLOGY!!

UPMC Brings Telemedicine to Rural County Hospitals from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

"magine living in a rural county but getting the expertise of doctors at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh without having to travel to the city. A webcam and Internet connection that debuts on Monday will allow that to happen for parents who take their children to one of five hospitals, courtesy of UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences. The Outreach program, short for Optimizing Utilization and Rural Emergency Access for Children, brings telemedicine to UPMC Northwest Hospital in Venango County, UPMC Horizon Hospital in Mercer County, Washington Hospital, Armstrong County Memorial Hospital and DuBois Regional Medical Center in Clearfield County."

CMU Continues to be an Incubator of Innovation from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
"Romibo, like hundreds of other products, concepts or ideas, was spawned on Carnegie Mellon University's 100-acre Oakland campus. More than 300 companies have gotten their start there since the mid-1990s. The spinoff companies represent about a third of companies established in Pennsylvania based on university technologies in the past five years. The school nationally is the “gold standard” for developing viable ideas and turning them into marketable companies, said Rich Lunak, a Carnegie Mellon graduate and president and CEO of Innovation Works, a South Oakland-based tech incubator. The Governor's Manufacturing Advisory Council last year commended Carnegie Mellon as a model for having “a highly effective practice of commercializing research into new companies, processes and products.”"

One of the Planet’s Greenest Buildings – in Pittsburgh – Opens to Public from Imagine Pittsburgh Now
"The city and the entire 10-county Pittsburgh region of southwestern Pennsylvania are globally recognized for innovation in sustainability and green building techniques and products, as they relate to energy – one of the region’s key economic sectors – and its efficiency."

New Supercomputing Program “Sherlock” Unveiled Friday; Keeps Pittsburgh in High-Performance Lead from Imagine Pittsburgh Now
"The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center is about to take its cutting-edge capabilities to a whole new level. On Feb. 1 the Oakland-based center will unveil Sherlock, a high-performance data handling system that will allow researchers to discover otherwise hidden patterns among what can amount to massive amounts of data."

Pittsburgh Tech Salaries Fastest Growing in the Nation from the Pittsburgh Business Times
"We’ve already touched on how the talent wars in Pittsburgh are heating up, especially for technology talent, and now it looks like Pittsburgh’s tech professionals saw salaries increase at the fastest rate in the nation year-over-year."
The 'talent wars' article referenced here can be found HERE.

ECONOMIC REPORT!!

Financial Times’ fDi Magazine: Pittsburgh Has “Turned Its Fortunes Full Circle” from Imagine Pittsburgh
"Marking the difference made by three decades of vision and collaboration – which resulted in a re-imagined and re-made region – is the retrospective, “Pittsburgh’s Progress:  Rust Belt City Reinvents Itself.” It’s a six-page report in the current (Dec. 2012/Jan. 2013) edition of the Financial Times’ magazine of globalization, fDi (Foreign Direct Investment)."
Here's the report referenced in the article.

RADIO PROGRAM!!

Advances in Medicine and Robotics from WESA's program, Essential Pittsburgh
"We’ll learn about a new development in robotics with the potential to offer autonomy to quadriplegics and more!"

Post-Gazette Series Pt. 2

Pittsburgh's Road to Tech Success Wasn't the Smoothest from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"... nearly 30 years after creation of the tech-driven Ben Franklin Technology Partners program, stakeholders say the state might never have recognized one of its greatest assets if the economy hadn't forced legislators to take a leap into the unfamiliar. "By that time, our unemployment rate hovered around 15 percent. We were in desperate straits and we had to try something different," said former Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburgh, who held office from 1979 until 1987."

Butler Manufacturer Survived Decades-long Churn of Skills, Tech, Economy from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"The ability of Buffalo Township-based Oberg to adapt to changing markets and technology are the main reasons the company has thrived."

Corbett Provides Spark to New Industry Drive from the Pitt News [of the University of Pittsburgh]
Gov. Tom Corbett on Tuesday doled out a portion of Pennsylvania’s $5 million contribution to a $70 million public-private partnership that government and industry officials hope will spark a manufacturing renaissance in the state. Corbett said two Pittsburgh companies and one in Bucks County will get state funds to hire graduate students from Carnegie Mellon University and Lehigh University to help the companies with projects involving additive manufacturing, a technology that is expected to revolutionize manufacturing."

Pittsburgh Entrepreneurs Work to Make Rust Belt States Centers of High-tech Innovation from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Over the course of three trying decades, the Rust Belt has scraped off years of oxidation and is in the process of polishing itself into a shining new landscape of technological advancement. But try telling that to the rest of the country."

Philadelphia’s Energy Industry Hits the Reset Button from the Pittsburgh Business Times
"Philadelphia’s energy sector may be moving closer to the cutting edge than it has been in some time. The reasons include new owners for its oil refineries; its proximity to the Marcellus Shale; its legacy in power-grid management; and a federal effort to support energy-efficient building technology."l

Tech Council Highlights the Pittsburgh Pivot from the Pittsburgh Business Times
"For a quick look at the evolution of the Pittsburgh tech scene, the Technology Council has a slick video produced by Wrecking Crew Media up on their Youtube channel, embedded below."
The video can be seen HERE.

Pittsburgh's Newest Immigrants: The Region is Unusual in Both the Number and Nature of its Newcomers (Christine H. O'Toole) from the Pittsburgh Quarterly
"Although only 3 percent of the region's residents are foreign-born, they comprise the most highly skilled immigrant group in the entire country, with a concentration of expertise in science and engineering. Like Tek, over 53 percent (30,542) hold a bachelor's degree or higher. "

Pittsburgh GiveCamp to Offer Technological Boost to Nonprofits from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
"A Downtown nonprofit that teaches business skills to youngsters from low-income neighborhoods would like to enable online coaching but is wary of the pitfalls, an official said. Entrepreneuring Youth requires its volunteer business professionals to pass security clearances before they get matched with sixth- through 12th-graders for supervised sessions..."

Duolingo Receives $15 Million Round of Funding from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Oakland-based startup teaches languages on the Web."

What's The Difference Between Wet And Dry Natural Gas? from StateImpact Pennsylvania
"Nat­ural gas is nat­ural gas, right? Not quite. There are two types of gas locked inside Pennsylvania’s Mar­cel­lus Shale: “wet gas” and “dry gas.” Here’s the dif­fer­ence, and why it matters:"

Survey Shows Pittsburgh Region’s Universities Exceed $1B in Research from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
"The region’s universities spent more than $1.1 billion on government- and industry-sponsored research last year, according to a survey released Monday. The Association of University Technology Managers’ 2011 survey includes research spending at the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon, Duquesne and West Virginia universities. The amount nearly doubles with the addition of almost $805 million in Penn State University research."

EVENT!!

Robots Destroy Each Other, Build Fans at Consol Arena Event from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
"The Lockmans were among about 500 children ages 6 to 14 who attended the event Sunday with their parents. Sponsored by the Pittsburgh Penguins Foundation, FedEx Ground and Consol Energy, the event allowed youngsters to watch presentations of robots and chat with their high school makers while a NASA robot called the Curiosity rover explores Mars. The goal is to encourage more children in technology, engineering, the art, math and science."

Mars Rover Powered by ‘Little Bits’ of CMU from the Pittsburgh Tribune Review
"When NASA’s newest rover, “Curiosity,” lands on Mars early Monday, it will carry a byte or two from the ‘Burgh. The rover, about the size of a Mini Cooper, will use navigation software developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Carnegie Mellon researchers also did traction studies on the vehicle’s wheels."