The launch of the Philly Renaissance Faire took over the cover of the Philadelphia Weekly in May, and brought with it a single weekend of swordplay, giant turkey legs, and The Mountain from HBO’s Game of Thrones.
Tired of trips to other towns and states, Patrick Rodgers launched the festival to give Philadelphia its very own celebration of the medieval, and was spotlighted by WHYY’s NewsWorks, Philly Mag, Uwishunu, CBS3, and found photographs showcased in places like Getty Images.
A wonderful addition to the geek community, it’s an event we’ll be talking about for a long time, and will generate stories and lasting memories year after year.
With an April Fool’s Joke that took the Internet by storm, Analog Watch Company’s Ant Farm Watch found itself in plenty of local media outlets, getting showcased and discussed on Philly Mag, Technically Philly, and Geekadelphia… but made waves all over, tricking blogs around the world.
Showcased (and in some cases, fiercely argued about) on websites like TechnaBob, Design Taxi, Beautiful Decay, Complex, Fast Company, TechCrunch, and listed as one of the Best April Fool’s Pranks of 2015 by The Telegraph, Yahoo, Analog Watch Company’s joke didn’t just make us laugh and think. It brought attention to Philadelphia and this awesome startup in a fun, quirky way.
Analog Watch Co. is focused on creating sculptures for the wrist that are inspired by nature and developed through the lens of material innovation. From wood to marble, Analog aims to solidify itself as a Philadelphia’s premier boutique watch brand. With a showroom and studio on East Passyunk, the team focuses on creating wearable art.
When it came to the Ant Watch, the team just couldn’t ignore one of the best holidays of the year and decided to relish in the potential to go viral on every geeks favorite playful holiday.
Earlier this year, The Philadelphia Cultural Fund was at risk of having its funding cut by 40 percent in FY2016. Less than a month ago, City Council approved an amended budget that maintains the Cultural Fund budget at $3.14 million. The decision to maintain the budget was due, in large part, to the efforts of GroundSwell, the advocacy and community engagement arm of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.
Working in collaboration with the Cultural Fund, GroundSwell organized a number of campaigns to protect the Cultural Fund’s budget allocations, which included the second Annual Philadelphia Arts Advocacy Day at City Hall, an online push for supporters to send emails to City Council members, and a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #SavePHLarts.
Avoiding a cut in funding to almost 300 cultural organization, GroundSwell’s campaign that blended social media and in-real-life protests to help save Philadelphia’s art scene, something we can all be thankful for.
University of Pennsylvania researcher Jordan Miller and Hive76 hacker Chris Alfano have been doing amazing work by printing sugar to unlock how to print organs using technology developed at Hive76 and Penn. Miller brought more attention to the story by presenting at local events including Ignite Philly, Nerd Nite and Science on Tap. The innovative project made headlines on NBC and ABC News and CNET, and was a hit overseas on the BBC.
The National Security Agency’s PRISM scandal upset a lot of people. After finding out data wasn’t safe, hundreds of thousands of web searchers descended upon DuckDuckGo, an anonymous search engine, and the site surged with an additional one million searches a day, becoming the go-to alternative for other engines. The service and news went on to be spotlighted in The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Business Insider, The Guardian, CNBC, and popular geek/tech websites including Geekosystem and The Next Web.
A Guinness Book of World Records attempt to create the largest Rube Goldberg machine, this awesome event took place during the Philadelphia Science Festival and took the media by storm. While the machine didn’t quite make it, the story thrilled and delighted geeks throughout Philadelphia.
When Old City’s tech business corridor was officially renamed N3RD Street by the City of Philadelphia, the neighborhood celebrated. Places like Indy Hall, SEER Interactive, Impact Hub, Jarv.us, WebLinc, and the nearby Philly Game Forge were thrilled to be recognized in the historic name change.
Paine’s Park has been talked about since 2002, but finally— with much community support, including the Kickstarter campaign— the physical park and a community to tie current and future skate parks together came into being. Skaters geeks have a new place to call their own.
The story of PONG being played on the Cira Center swept national news, bringing the project and the city of Philadelphia into the media spotlight in a fun, exciting way.
From Polygon to MTV, PC Mag to the Huffington Post, the Wall Street Journal to NPR, Frank Lee’s hacked building made headlines everywhere.
