The Monthly Beat
June 2023
Hello and welcome! Hope you all are having an awesome 4th of July weekend.
This is the new monthly edition of what was formerly the Weekly Beat, where I present the most interesting Pittsburgh tech news I can find from the past month. All companies mentioned are local to Pittsburgh unless otherwise noted. To listen to this summary rather than read it, click play on the voiceover above or check out the podcast on Apple Podcasts.
Here’s what happened this June:
Company News
Code & Supply published the results of their annual compensation survey. There’s some pretty cool stats in there that are good to know, especially if you have a mid-year performance review wherein you plan to negotiate your compensation!
Four Growers founder Brandon Contino did a podcast with Pittsburgh Technology Council on the challenges of starting the company. Four Growers is an AgTech startup that focuses on using robotics in farming. They currently have a product on the market that optimizes autonomous tomato harvesting. Pepper and cucumber optimization is in the works. Yummmm.
Aurora, in partnership with the University of Toronto, made a very large set of self-driving sensor data open source. The data was generated by Aurora’s testing and includes captures from different times of day, weather patterns, and levels of traffic. This gives a lot more people the opportunity to perform research and development that could lead to advances in self-driving technology. We love open source!
Duolingo was named one of Time Magazine’s 2023 Top 100 Most Influential Companies. They were the only Pittsburgh-based company to make that list, so at least we got one in there! The company also published a pretty cool article breaking down how they use A.I. to generate lessons.
Autonomous warehouse inventory management company Gather AI acquired a peer company, Ware. The company partners with other firms to fly autonomous drones around warehouses to manage inventory. With this acquisition, it becomes the largest company of its kind in the world.
Opus 2, a legal cloud tech company that started in San Francisco, opened a new branch office in Pittsburgh. It’s the first east coast office that the company has opened, and will serve mainly to provide 24/7 support for their product. They currently have two positions open for the Pittsburgh branch, for those that might be interested.
Biotech company PECA Labs celebrated its first successful implant of an artificial heart valve. If the upcoming studies of the device are successful, the valve could improve the treatment of heart issues in kids.
Resilient Coders, a coding bootcamp headquartered in Massachusetts, shut down their program in Pittsburgh last year. More information came out this month on why it was shut down and how it impacts minority communities in the area. Seems like a real loss.
Touchwood Labs, a local company that turns tables and walls into smart displays, was featured in Forbes Japan. NextPittsburgh also published a great piece on the company and what they are building. Might have to hit them up for my next work-from-home desk.
Tech Professional News
(This is a new section that I plan to build up over time. Let me know what you think of it in the comments!)
Local agile coach and senior scrum master Nick Yingling has started an initiative to collect and publish Agile Decision Games. In these scenarios, the participants work through real-life problems that teams at various companies have faced in the past, developing innovative solutions to tackle difficult challenges using agile methodology. Follow Nick’s LinkedIn feed to be notified when a new game is posted! You can work through it with your team and comment on the post with your solution. The official solution to each game will be posted the following week.
That’s it for now! Go eat some BBQ!
—Austin