The Monthly Beat

A recap of the most interesting news from September 2023, plus some extras for your October.

Hey everyone!

Autumn is upon us. Get something pumpkin or otherwise fall-ish and cozy up in your favorite reading chair. There is plenty of local tech action to cover from this September.

All companies mentioned are local to Pittsburgh unless otherwise noted.

Here’s what happened in September:

• Duolingo has been up to a lot this past month. Firstly, they launched a new early childhood education program for local Pittsburgh organizations. The 9 organizations that are receiving funding are Brightside Academy Early Education-East Liberty, Child’s Way, Davis Family Childcare, Eastminster Child Care, Homewood-Brushton YWCA, Hope Academy Powered by Hosanna House, McCoy’s Learning Center, LLC, Mt. Ararat Early Childhood Development Center, and Shady Lane School. Each organization will receive up to $80k in funding. Outside of charity, Duolingo also deployed a new tool for learning to read Japanese and announced plans to roll out new music education on the app as well. Awesome to see the company giving back to the community, and I may have to give the Japanese tool a try so I can improve my manga reading skills.

• The PRT now supports paying fare with your phone on all buses the T, and even the Mon and Duquense inclines. Unfortunately, you can’t just use Apple or Google Wallet, and instead have to rely on either the Transit or Ready2Ride apps. This functionality is supplied by Masabi, a tech firm based in London. You can find more info here on how to buy tickets and passes. Huge for those of us who don’t regularly carry a PRT card.

• The cofounders of former Ford and Volkswagen-backed self-driving company Argo AI have now publicly launched their new startup, Stack AV. The newly formed company has nearly $1 billion in backing from the massive Japanese investment firm SoftBank. But get this: they aren’t doing cars anymore. They’re doing trucks, says Bryan Salesky in this QnA. He says it’s because of the market opportunity, but I also just wonder if it may be because self-driving trucks are easier to implement than self-driving cars. Sounds a lot like another Pittsburgh-based autonomous vehicle firm I know, so it’ll be interesting to see which is more successful in the years to come. They’re also hiring like crazy if you’re looking to get into something like this.

• Speaking of Aurora, their CEO testified to congress this past month about the future of autonomous trucking. He argued that the technology will only complement the current workforce of truckers, not replace it, emphasizing an observed labor shortage of 80k truckers. He also responded to questions about the safety of the technology and how it would be deployed. I wonder if Bryan Salesky is jealous.

• Astrobotic has begun work on two contracts from NASA to research better ways to land on the moon. This includes replicating moon gravity in a test environment as well as simulating the cratering caused by rockets on moon soil when landing.

• Pitt’s BioForge is now approved for construction at Hazelwood Green, paving the way for cell- and gene- therapy technologies to be developed there. With the approval, Pitt has re-emphasized its commitment to providing training and job opportunities to Hazelwood residents. It seems like earlier concerns about the development have been mostly assuaged, as there was only one public comment at the hearing process.

• Pittsburgh Technology Council published their State of the Industry report this past month. NEXTPittsburgh wrote up a great summary of its findings, with the highlight being an expectation that AI will greatly impact the local tech industry (where is AI not having an impact these days?)

• Last but not least, Out in Tech, an international non-profit community connecting LGBTQ+ tech professionals, started a Pittsburgh chapter! If you’re interested in getting involved, you can sign up over here.

For the months ahead:

• Pittburgh Robotics Discovery Day is back at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center November 16th. The event showcases robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence technologies featuring live demonstrations and opportunities to connect with local companies. Get free tickets here!

• I’m looking for guest writers! Do you have a local Pittsburgh tech topic you’d like to wax poetic about? Hit me up! Spoiler alert: it’s not a paid gig, but would be more than willing to host or repost your piece if you want to publish somewhere else as well.

Thanks so much for reading, and have a great weekend!

—Austin