Philadelphia — The City of Firsts gave me my first opportunities, and how!
Part 1 — My living life
The first city I came to USA in 2010 is also popularly known as “A city of firsts” — Philadelphia.
“Since 1682, the first planned city in the United States, Philadelphia, was and is a city of firsts in America: The first stock exchange, penitentiary, Thanksgiving Day parade, hot-air balloon flight, and even the birthplace of the Slinky…It is also a center of learning and technology, with the nation’s first natural sciences museum, in 1812 (the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University), the first computer (the 30-ton ENIAC at Penn), in 1946, and the first demonstration of the telephone, in 1876.”
Reference: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20150703_Philadelphia__a_city_of_firsts.html
I came to Philadelphia to get my Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Drexel University. I was also a visiting research assistant at University of Pennsylvania. However, beyond my grad school experience, I have my own couple of firsts brags of living in the city of firsts. My first paid job EVER was in Philadelphia. The first city my parents visited outside India was Philadelphia. My startup Ycenter’s first office is here. The first ever press article about Ycenter was published by Philadelphia Business Journal. And I quit my corporate job on first day and came back to Philadelphia. I was the first full-term non-founding curator of Global Shapers Philadelphia Hub.
Philadelphia is not just a location but an important character in my story. I lived in this city for 5 years and it is still home to my startup’s HQ office. University city was home to me and Center City was home to my company. But my friends and events took me everywhere from Kensington to Germantown to Northern Liberties. I have ridden everything from a tram to a bus to MFLs to Broad street line to Suburban lines to airport shuttle to cabs with walkie-talkies and now Lyft. I shopped in King of Prussia and on Walnut Street, I enjoyed my food trucks lunch and also once in a while fancy dinner at Lacroix Restaurant at The Rittenhouse.
Now I experience Philly through my monthly visits and following Peopledelphia on Instagram.
Part 2 — My work life
In 2013, I had just returned from my 5-month trip from Mozambique, Africa where I was actively engaged in grassroots level problem solving and got my first taste of real Entrepreneurship. Maybe this experience helped me start learning actively about the issues of the state of public education and funding in Philadelphia. I learnt about the issue of drugs and addiction. I learnt about the issues of gentrification, the issues of food deserts across many neighborhoods, the issues of growing income divide and crime rate. This was also the year I met many amazing community organizers, entrepreneurs, activists, mentors in the city. One such guy was Rashaun Williams aka DJ Reezey. I spent next year, building and launching my experiential education company Ycenter out of Ben’s Desk (now 1776). I launched hackathons, In 2015, I partnered with Rashaun Williams (a Social Entrepreneur, Activist, DJ) to launch compact program (Community+Impact). He started his community organizing work in his teens, right from cleaning the streets to mobilizing young people around environmental issues through the power of arts, culture and music. Rashaun gave me a peak into his life of growing up in Philadelphia, from Germantown to South Philly. I even met his grandmother and few other family members who have first-hand witnessed the change the city has gone, for better and for worse. Little did I realize this was all an amazing learning experience. I thought my studies were over after I graduated from Drexel University but my real learning begun living and working with Rashaun. Yes, we were also room-mates for a couple of months.
With the 2-week compact program, we saw some amazing participation across multiple stakeholder groups. We saw participants from School District to a Social Entrepreneur to Arts students to Deputy Mayor of Philadelphia. The only thing that glued them together in one room was the Intent of Solving Philly issues and the common framework that worked for this diverse group was Human Centered Design approach. We also facilitated a Civic dialogue where we saw the participation of Kilian Kleinschmidt, ex-UN HCR and Director of one of the world’s most prominent refugee camps (now a fourth largest city in Jordan) Za’atari, Professor Steven Pyser from Rutgers University and all our participants.
In 2016 and 2017, I was involved with several university events, workshops as a keynote speaker, facilitator, and even organized a 1 month Philadelphia Impact Entrepreneurship program at the Pennovation works. Though I spent most of my time, traveling India, Africa, Europe in those years for my work at Ycenter, I realized that with every program/event I was engaged in Philadelphia, my understanding of the city got clearer, greater and better.
Earlier this year in 2018, I organized Design Thinking for Philadelphia, 2-day weekend workshop for Entrepreneurs to solve local issues. Though it was more like a startup weekend workshop, it way more impactful in what we were able to achieve. I will the video from this workshop do the talking. Check it out here.
Just last weekend, I had the opportunity to judge a Business Pitch event organized by Fulphil and supported by RedBull and WeWork. I heard around 10+ business pitches from local student entrepreneurs. Everything from Opioid Epidemic to Helping First responders in case of any emergency event in schools to Energy saving motion sensor device to an app that helps refugees easily interact with agencies and services in the city. I was amazed at how far the city has come in terms of talent and opportunities and I am so lucky to have got an opportunity to connect with some brilliant minds and passionate individuals in the city.
In last 5 years, I have given talks at Drexel, Wharton, Temple’s Fox School of Business, Arcadia, Philadelphia U, Swarthmore, West Chester College, organized 2 TEDx conferences on Drexel campus and next week I am about to join a panel with local leaders and Nigel Travis (ex-CEO of Dunkin Brands, Papa Johns, Blockbuster Video) organized by Karin Copeland and Philadelphia Business Journal (the paper that first covered my story! everything does come full circle).
If you are a problem solver in Philadelphia or anywhere near it, you are in for a ride. The city is growing every day from company to company, project to project, built by individuals, communities and impact driven organizations. I made friends cutting through diverse age groups, race, religion, gender, professions, nationalities all in Philadelphia. I still don’t know a lot about Philadelphia but what I know is — I lived, learnt, worked, cried, celebrated, thrived in Philadelphia like nowhere else. I would definitely recommend Philly for all. This is not just a biased appeal but a heartfelt Endorsement for the City of Brotherly Love.
