Ingrid spent many decades in the insurance industry, but it was a cocktail napkin moment that inspired her to bring the idea to fruition. “After graduating from college, I went straight to Progressive Insurance, where I worked for nearly two decades. I often traveled up and down the East Coast for work and got used to dining alone. I would often eat at the bar because that is where I tend to meet the most interesting people.  One day, I met one of the co-founders of FedEx, who said, ‘Ingrid, one piece of advice if you start a business, do it in the arena where you are the expert in the field.’ This is when I started to ask myself, what problem can I solve in the insurance industry?”

Ingrid founded SHzoom in 2014 and today it’s recognized among the Top 50 women-led organizations in the USA, Europe the Middle East and Africa. That’s a long way to go for a young lady who grew up in the small steel mill town of Monessen, PA and who sees herself as “the billboard for tenacity.” She left Monessen to attend college at the age of seventeen.  She was convinced she would never return. Fast forward 20 years, and she would come back to Western Pennsylvania because of her ailing mother who was given 6 months to live. When her mother’s health improved, her father got ill and then, here, she met the love of her life. What was supposed to be a temporary stay took a different turn to the billboard of her dream.

While taking care of her ailing parents, she joined the Pittsburgh Technology Council, which contributed to her start-up success when enormous support from the Council, its Chairman Jason Wolfe and CMU’s Craig Markovitz poured in. On top of that, both Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh paid their students to intern at SHzoom. “Nothing compares to Pittsburgh. There’s great support and an overflow of talent here.”

But she concedes that it’s not all rosy and there’s work to be done. “In order for the talent to stay, we need to change. Pittsburgh is certainly not a DC, New York, or Atlanta, it’s hard to attract minorities to Pittsburgh. There are not enough opportunities for minorities here.” She further points out the lack of equity is a big issue. She is a proponent of implementing accountability measures to begin moving the needle in the right direction. “The average income for black people in Pittsburgh is barely above the poverty level. This economic disparity blows me away, and since I’m here, I ask ‘what can be done and what can I do?’ I sat on the PTC’s listening sessions which were led by Audrey Russo and Jason Wolfe, among other CEOs, and I was a big proponent of reaching out while kids are young because exposure to the table is so important. The PTC exposed me to things that I needed to see as a technology business owner. Now I’m giving back and mentoring girls on what we do, day-to-day.”

SHzoom is one of Pittsburgh companies working with The LAUNCH program, started by Fortyx80, the nonprofit arm of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, that transforms high school girls into a voice of leadership in the STEM disciplines through mentorship. “In Pittsburgh, we talk a good game and the initiatives are there but where is the accountability and how can we truly move the needle? If we could implement those ideas and put measures in place to hold people accountable, I think we will slowly go in a better direction.”

As for her own commitment, Ingrid is giving back through her involvement with numerous community outreach programs and non-profit organizations. She claims Pittsburgh needs to increase minority-owned businesses, while also increasing the level, size, revenue, doing business with other businesses, and more contracts to do business with women and people of color. 

So, what is next for SHzoom? “Our latest product, Uptime, was developed using collaborative feedback from our innovative partners in the public sector to create a one-of-a-kind user experience.  Police Departments utilizing Uptime to create crash reports say it now takes them an average of 10 minutes to create and deliver crash reports as opposed to 14-30 days. During this crucial time with COVID-19, we are very focused on touchless accidents from the time of report until the vehicle is repaired or replaced and back in the hands of the driver.”

We asked Ingrid about her interests outside of work, and were surprised to learn she is an accomplished alto saxophonist. She tells us in her perfect FM announcer tone she was a former DJ for “Reflections of Jazz with Ingrid on WUMR on U92 FM.” Her favorite jazz joint? “I used to frequent a jazz club called James Street Café to hear live music and the Pittsburgh Jazz Festival is amazing.” Perhaps when COVID-19 is over, we can convince her to dust off her saxophone and tell us all about her progress with SHzoom backstage after a nice jam.

See career opportunities at SHzoom >>

There are various companies playing in this space, including some of the Goliaths like Alphabet’s Waymo, Tesla, Volvo and Daimler among others. But putting the first self driving truck on American highways is probably close to ten years away. Locomation is not looking to wait that long, they have developed an autonomous relay convoy platform that allows a driverless truck to closely follow a truck with a driver in front of it. And the rubber will meet the road in some 18 months.

We spoke to Çetin, who is also Locomation’s CEO, to learn more about why and how two robotics engineering brothers from Istanbul ended up producing self driving trucks in Pittsburgh and why and how they’re planning to disrupt the space.

Pittsburgh clearly has become the place to be for self-driving vehicles, but why trucks? “Trucks make a ton of sense as the first target for autonomous driving from many angles: a massive market, a very ineffective and archaic industry ripe for disruption, and a significant qualified labor shortage are a few top business drivers,” he commented. The trucking industry is approaching the $800 billion mark and employs close to a million drivers, so the impact is no pocket change. “Our convoying technology enables delivery of two times the cargo, two times farther and twice as fast, while significantly improving the overall safety via autonomy sensors and algorithms. From a cost perspective, our system reduces the operating costs per mile by about 30%, and even after Locomation gets paid, the customers realize an additional 15% to 20% savings, which is a game changer. Our approach also aims to improve the driving comfort and make the convoy driving a premium job.”

The convoying technology still requires one driver in each truck, but the driver in the back truck can be sleeping allowing both drivers to take turns and reach the destination faster and better rested. Plus reduced aerodynamic drag delivers some fuel efficiency, so the benefits are multiple. Çetin further points out that “ample space and power on the trucks, being able to justify a significant hardware cost in exchange of reduced transportation costs, and inherently more tractable operating environment on the interstates make trucks very attractive platforms for self-driving.”

But there’s a lot at stake in terms of safety and the technology is not simple. However, and perhaps in a counterintuitive way, self driving trucks are poised to deliver higher safety to drivers and pedestrians alike. “Specifically, in the self-driving vehicles case, the main challenge is to identify the other actors and furthermore predict what they will do in the next couple of seconds. However much one can control the amount of uncertainty and unpredictability in the environment, the easier it is to build and validate a self-driving system. In our particular case, Locomation initially focuses on an autonomous convoy setup consisting of a human driven lead truck closely followed by a self-driving truck. The human driven leader acts as a buffer between the open world’s chaos and unpredictability and the self-driving follower truck, effectively reducing the prediction complexity.”

Locomotion already has prototypes piloting around Pennsylvania, Ohio and other parts of the country. The commercial rollout is planned for mid-2022 and the company already has a nine-figure contract with Wilson Logistics, a large fleet operator with 1,120 trucks.

So ‘why Pittsburgh?” we asked, almost rhetorically. “That was a very organic decision for us as we already were in Pittsburgh and deeply connected to the CMU ecosystem here, with team members having families with job and school ties to the city. We are staying in Pittsburgh because it is the best place to build a cutting-edge AI and robotics company. It is also significantly more affordable than most alternatives. To be honest, we haven’t even thought of not staying in Pittsburgh so it was mostly a decision by omission.” He elaborates “it is in Pittsburgh’s DNA to build things with your bare hands. The ecosystem is very conducive to starting something new, and the rather small professional circle enables one to meet with almost anyone relevant in record time. I often think to myself ‘this is how Silicon Valley in the ‘70s must have felt.’”

So what made the two brothers leave their beloved Istanbul, a metropolis of some 20 million people, to the “miniaturized big city” of Pittsburgh, as Çetin calls it? He explains “I did not know much about Pittsburgh other than knowing CMU is in Pittsburgh, it is a smaller city consistently in the ‘most livable cities’ lists, but I did not care all that much because I was laser focused on being at CMU,” he comments. “My first year or two were very joyful as I discovered the American way of living, but was mostly confined to a very limited set of friends and CMU campus. As Pittsburgh transitioned from being ‘home away from home’ to just ‘home,’ it started growing on me and to date, I am perpetually mesmerized by how uniquely beautiful it is both from a physical point of view and also lifestyle-wise. I just love Pittsburgh.”

It’s now been several years since he moved to town, so other than all the cool robotics tech and innovation, what keeps him here? Like many of us in town, Çetin enjoys the parks, bike trails, cool bookstores, and especially the food. He shared a long list of favorites, including Lucy’s Bahn Mi “a must try,” Espresso A Mano “the coolest coffee place I know,” Umami, Morcilla, Driftwood, Noodlehead and Colangelo’s, calling chefs like Justin Severino and Roger Li “national treasures.” He elaborates “having all or most perks of a big city in a smaller footprint with more space, more greens, and an ease of day to day living is just the perfect combination. After a lifetime of planning and struggles of daily minutia like just getting to and from work, it is inexplicably relaxing to live in Pittsburgh, but still breathe that big city air.”

If there is one thing he could change about Pittsburgh, we asked him, what would it be? “The weather!” Well, he’s got his work cut out for his next disruptive startup. Until then, Çetin, keep on truckin’.

See career opportunities at Locomation >>

Alison grew up in Georgia in a blue collar neighborhood and is the daughter of a Cuban refugee. “My dad worked at the airport picking up bags from the planes and putting them on the conveyor belt. We were from a blue collar background. I’m the first one in my family to go to college. I came from people that left their business, their home and their full life behind. When that happens, ‘what do you have as a person?,’” she asks herself. “The knowledge you develop when you need to start over, when you need to learn as you go. You develop a different kind of smart, not just book smart, but useful smart.”

And useful she has become, building a provider of AI-powered customer intelligence solutions that optimize revenue growth. Since its launch almost five years ago, BlastPoint has been helping companies in retail, energy, enterprise, and nonprofit organizations “discover, target and engage the humans in their data.” In the current environment, this past October they helped Duquesne Light Co. to strategically address unpaid bills due to the pandemic, helping both the utilities provider and homeowners alike. The company has a client concentration in the midwest and the south, but operates nationwide and recently announced that it has reached break even point.

Alison graduated from DC’s George Washington University and moved to Pittsburgh to get her MS in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon and then returned a few years later to get her MBA at CMU’s Tepper School of Business. Interestingly, BlastPoint started as an MBA project there. “I had previously worked at Rhiza Labs (a Nielsen company) and learned a lot from them on big data. I saw opportunities in the way you analyze data and think about data in a different way.” And Pittsburgh opened its doors to Alison in numerous other ways. “I would summarize Pittsburgh in one word: ‘opportunity.’ I’m nobody,” she claims with a humorous tone. “I don’t come from money. I don’t have connections or that great uncle with a checkbook. I never could have imagined when I moved here I would end up here. I’ve been given a lot of trust. CMU supported us. Friends, family and fools supported us. A lot of people in Pittsburgh provided that support.” 

And to support their growth, BlastPoint is often looking for new people. “It’s been really nice here to have the ability to snap up great talent. I have hired before in Silicon Valley, and never want to do that again in my entire life. It is remarkable the quality of people we’ve been able to hire. To that end, I have found the Pittsburgh Technology Council particularly useful in the entire hiring process.”

You don’t find a lot of successful young female CEOs of Latino origin, so we asked Alison how she feels about the diversity of Pittsburgh’s tech ecosystem. “As a female entrepreneur of Latino origin I have felt very welcome in Pittsburgh and have found numerous networking opportunities. That said, I recognize that many Latino students that come to Pittsburgh get their degree and then leave. We need to get people to stay. I wish we had more Latino founders that stayed here.”

The reasons that have kept Alison in town go far beyond the land of opportunity that opened up to her. “Pittsburgh has changed night and day from when I first came here. Having lived in DC I found Pittsburgh really cheap and accessible. I could actually own a house here!” she exclaims in surprise. “As an adult it can be tough to make friends and I don’t feel that way about Pittsburgh; I feel like part of the Pittsburgh community. One of the things I love about it is that every neighborhood has its own personality. Depending on where you live, you’ll have arts festivals, block parties, community events, farmers markets with local fruits and vegetables. Have you tried the elotes at Alquisiras Paletería,” she asks rhetorically with enthusiasm, “they are the best I’ve ever tried.”

For someone who came from “nothing,” it’s refreshing to see her determination has been paved by a seemingly smooth, bump-less road. But surely there must be something in Pittsburgh she’s not a fan of, and we asked her. After a long pause, all she could come up with was “fewer potholes.” We’re pretty sure she wasn’t being metaphoric.  

See career opportunities at BlastPoint >>

Autonomous vehicles have been the talk of the town for many years now, the “town” being Pittsburgh, given the concentration of autonomous robotics development in this city. Driverless cars, cabs and trucks have been cruising local streets and across highways all over the country in the pursuit of a safer and more efficient future in transportation and delivery. But there is a Pittsburgh native company, Near Earth Autonomy (NEA), that is taking this very concept to the skies.

Robotics is in Pittsburgh’s DNA, and one of the people responsible for this is Near Earth Autonomy co-founder and CEO, Sanjiv Singh. Sanjiv moved to Pittsburgh in the pre-Web era, specifically in 1985, at a time when robotics as we know it today was in its infancy. Back then he was introduced to robotics guru Red Whittaker, who offered him a job at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute in what became the very first self-driving car project.

Much has been written about Jason’s story, so we’ll be brief for the benefit of those familiar with it. Jason grew up on welfare and was abandoned by his father at a young age, which led him to the Milton Hershey School, formerly known as an orphanage now called a boarding school for disadvantaged children founded by the chocolate magnate of the same name – perhaps Jason’s biggest hero. He graduated from this school with $100 and a suitcase of clothes in 1987 and went off on his own. He put himself through college and life thereafter would not be very kind to him. Living in a car, showering at a friend’s office space and barely making ends meet, he suffered an accident that caused him to have 2 spinal surgeries and put him bed-ridden several months. At this point, he decided to make lemonade from lemons.

In 1995, the early days of the dot-com era, Jason used his “downtime” to teach himself to write code. Months later, he had built and launched the first couponing website, CouponsDirect (later renamed MyCoupons), which grew to 5 million members and he sold in 2000 for approximately $23 million. For his next gig, he saw potential in a new business model – affiliate networks – and created a pioneering ad serving and tracking platform company in the space, Direct Response Technologies, which delivered over 16 billion ads per month and he sold for $22 million to Digital River in 2006. Before the sale he had been inventing new models in the gift certificates and gift card space and saw an opportunity to disrupt that industry. This gave birth to GiftCards.com in 2002, which he built into the largest online retailer for gift cards and sold it for $120 million to Blackhawk Network. Currently he is building a next generation e-gift company within the B2C and B2B spaces with PerfectGift.com and GiftYa. One can only speculate what the future holds for this latest initiative.

Throughout this extraordinary journey, Jason and his startups have won numerous awards and accolades, but he’s always been more focused in giving than receiving. Jason has had a number of philanthropic initiatives and is known to volunteer at homeless shelters and food banks. He has also made it a common practice to share the wealth with his employees – upon selling GiftCards.com he distributed some $15 million across the entire team.

Jason remains committed to Pittsburgh, perhaps because it’s been kind to him, but perhaps more so because he believes it’s a bit of a tech entrepreneur’s promised land. We spent a little time with him to have him elaborate on this.

Question: We understand you’re a big fan of Pittsburgh as a place for entrepreneurs, beyond your personal success stories, what do you see as the competitive advantages of Pittsburgh?

Jason: Pittsburgh is a bit unique in that it offers a thriving tech scene at a fraction of the cost. Here you have access to great talent, not just from Carnegie Mellon University and Pitt, but from other startups and a growing tech ecosystem. Unlike other tech hubs, however, your costs are significantly lower than in the coasts. Your rent is lower, your payroll is lower, your overall overhead is lower. This is particularly crucial for entrepreneurs, who by definition lack funds in the early stages. You can build a startup and grow it to break-even faster without the need to raise as much capital. This is not something you can find in Austin, Boston or Nashville, let alone New York or Silicon Valley. Your chances of building a successful startup with great talent and lower costs are uniquely favorable in Pittsburgh.

Q: Speaking of talent, how would you compare the talent pool in Pittsburgh versus other tech hubs?

J: Pittsburgh has very competitive talent, there are great people working in transformative technologies like robotics, AI and other. We are also getting better at attracting talent from other regions, particularly in this new Covid-19 environment. But I don’t think that’s the key. I think the opportunity for Pittsburgh is for more entrepreneurs to come here and start successful companies. Build them, grow them, perhaps sell them or take them public, but build companies that will endure through time and continue to grow the entire tech ecosystem. This will undoubtedly bring more talent and growth to the city.

Q: For a young engineer or project manager, what does Pittsburgh have to offer from a personal and quality of life point of view?

J: The cost of living in Pittsburgh is substantially lower than in the coasts. A young professional or a young family can afford to buy a nice house in Pittsburgh, something completely out of reach for a young engineer in New York or San Francisco. Yet, Pittsburgh has a lot to offer as a city, the symphony, professional sports teams, parks, bike trails, a great restaurant scene, and all the amenities of a big city. It is at a smaller scale, without the traffic, but you have plenty to do and plenty to choose from. The quality of life here is substantially higher than on the coasts.

Q: What are the tech areas you think are thriving in Pittsburgh?

J: There are many. I have been focusing on fintech. We have one of the biggest banks in the country here in PNC, which I recently sold a company to, and it is an area that has plenty of room for growth and disruption. Robotics is clearly huge in Pittsburgh. CMU has a lot to do with that, plus the companies that have set up shop in town in the autonomous vehicles field like Argo, Uber, Google, Near Earth Autonomy, Locomation, or companies in aerospace like Astrobotic. This is where Pittsburgh shines the most, even as there are other thriving areas like life sciences or natural language programming.

Q: You’re not originally from Pittsburgh, from a personal point of view, what keeps you here?

J: I have my family here, my wife, 3 children, and a foster boy. I have many friends that I have made over the years as well as my church and organizations I belong to and lead. I am the current Chairman of the Pittsburgh Technology Council and love to work with Audrey Russo and her team to thrive our technology ecosystem. I’m on the board of the Family Design Resources which handles the Statewide Adoption Network and we help over 11,000 children in foster and adoption care. I am clearly rooted here. I love the people of Pittsburgh, their friendliness and hard work mentality. I would love to see the city continue to make progress along the lines of diversity and inclusion.

Q: You’ve lived here long enough, surely you must have a local hidden gem you can share with us.

J: I think North Park is a gem for sure, as well as South park and others. We have a nice little lake, an ice rink, community pool, and more. I think us Pittsburghers don’t realize how fortunate we are with our local parks. If you like the outdoors, Pittsburgh is a great city for you, this is something I don’t think people outside the area realize.

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?

J: I’d like to add that I would love to see more entrepreneurs in this city, growing and building businesses here. Then, sell them or go public. Then, stay here, invest into doing the same again and again. The more entrepreneurs we have here with success like this, the more the city will thrive. And being an entrepreneur is color blind and gender blind. So the product speaks for itself – which is a great equalizer.

See career opportunities at Wolfe, LLC >>

Courtney has a fascinating story, surrounded by care, pivoting and a strong mission “why.” Her mother had Parkinson’s disease and Courtney spent years caring for her realizing there had to be a device to help PD patients with their posture, and everything else that involves. “I founded AbiliLife when I was a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon. During that time, I realized the need for a product to help my mother, a 25-year Parkinson’s disease patient, with her posture. Before my mother passed away, I invented the Calibrace+ and founded AbiliLife, which has developed into a full-service medical device company.“

The Calibrace+ is a patented orthotic back brace with a pulley-tension system that mechanically lifts a patient’s shoulders and back for optimal torso alignment, largely improving their posture. This brings huge benefits to patients from reducing pain, to allowing them to swallow better, to enhancing their dignity and quality of life. Some of the customer testimonials are downright comforting as they are heart breaking. And this was the true inspiration for Courtney. She walked away on her lifelong dream of academia. She was not even an engineer, by her own admission, she jokes about having trouble assembling an Ikea bed. She was not a born entrepreneur. But she had learned a lot about care taking. And it was her desire to help her mother and others like her that took her off course and in an entirely new direction.

Courtney is originally from Baltimore and landed in Pittsburgh to get her PhD at Carnegie Mellon, which offered her multiple benefits. “The competitive advantage that I used to leverage AbiliLife’s growth is my connection with Carnegie Mellon University.  I benefited greatly from CMU’s interdisciplinary mindset and was able to glean insights from students and professors across the campus.  In addition, Pittsburgh’s advanced medical practices and services provide an excellent community to help me develop AbiliLife’s medical devices.”

AbiliLife is a leading med-tech firm in town. Its Calibrace+ is 100% reimbursed by Medicare and commercial insurance, it is sold nation-wide, and has been prescribed by physicians in over 50 hospitals such as Johns Hopkins, the Mayo Clinic, and Mount Sinai Beth Israel. Its second product is the GaitTracker, currently in R&D, a telehealth application and wearable device system for continuous, in-home monitoring and tracking of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) motor symptoms. 

Courtney is one of very few successful founders and CEOs that fit the diversity profile the city and its technology community want to see grow, and she is fully aware. “Pittsburgh has a lot of work to do in terms of being inclusive. I’ve lived here for 10 years and have seen several neighborhoods push diverse communities out of their homes in favor of condominiums, upscale apartments, and business buildings. My request is that Pittsburgh stop accepting awards for being the ‘most livable’ city when the racial disparities are so profound and are the cause of deaths, reduced quality of life, and injustice.” 

She’s certainly not alone in her thinking, but probably more frustrated than most that with all of its benefits and advantages, Pittsburgh remains behind. We asked her if she has a favorite Pittsburgh anecdote and she said “No, but I very much want to be invited to a Pittsburgh wedding with a bona fide cookie table!” But all jokes aside, she continues focused on the need for Pittsburgh to get its diversity act straight, “I love the various neighborhoods, I enjoy taking a long walk in Schenley Park in the morning and then grab an amazing Italian lunch in Bloomfield. But we need to look at equity and how so many of our communities are disenfranchised.”

Born out of CMU and bred in Pittsburgh, it only makes sense for the company to be located here, but nonetheless they have had invitations from Houston and Cape Canaveral to set up shop in these cities with a history in lunar expeditions. The company has recently opened its brand new headquarters in the North Shore with big plans and a commitment to stay put.

We asked Astrobotic CEO, John Thornton, a few questions to better understand how this company came to be and what his thoughts are about building one of the hottest startups in Pittsburgh.

Question: Astrobotic has come a long way since spinning off CMU and moving into new HQ’s in Manchester. What is keeping you here in Pittsburgh?

John: Pittsburgh is situated in the center of an advanced manufacturing region with tremendous access to robotics talent through its world class universities. Our region boasts a strong work ethic, penchant for innovation, and a low cost of living with access to big-city cultural amenities.   

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about the new Control Center? When you hear “Pittsburgh, we just landed on the moon” what will be happening at HQ?

J: When you hear “Pittsburgh, we just landed on the Moon,” you’re going to have to brace yourself for all the celebratory yells coming out of the North Shore! We will have landed the first commercial lunar lander on the Moon…ever. However, this is just the beginning of an eight-day-long mission on the lunar surface. Within a few minutes of landing, a dance of predetermined con-ops will kick in – such as the exact timing of when each scientific instrument will be provided power, provided data services, be deployed to the lunar surface (for those that will deploy), and conduct surface operations, such as scientific measurements. In collaboration with the Astrobotic team, all of our commercial customers who purchased a spot on Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander will be controlling their individual instruments from our Mission Control room. The transmissions that direct rovers and other scientific equipment will be operated from computers on-site. Each will be gathering data about the Moon for their own goals and purposes.

Q: Being based in Pittsburgh, you have privileged access to great talent coming out of CMU and other startups, but there are also challenges recruiting top talent across different disciplines – HR, finance, legal, etc?

J: We have found Pittsburgh to have an impressive and diverse talent pool covering all levels of experience and expertise. Many of our local candidates have been fascinated by space exploration since childhood but hadn’t found an option to pursue it professionally until they became aware of Astrobotic. Regardless of their discipline, our candidates are inspired by our mission to make space accessible to the world, and they want to support us however they can. For our part, we’re excited to give our hometown that opportunity, and we look forward to continuing to build a space community in Pittsburgh.

Q: What competitive advantages does Pittsburgh offer to a company like yours both in its early stages and on your current path to fast growth?

J: Pittsburgh is a city that offers a lot to attract and retain talent. The low cost of living blended with the high quality of life makes it an easy city for workforces to lay down roots. Combine that with an ecosystem of companies, facilities, and universities that have been built to innovate and you really have something nationally unique here in Pittsburgh.

Q: How would you compare Pittsburgh to Silicon Valley, New York or other tech hubs like Boston or Austin?

J: Pittsburgh has a rich history of being a builder of hardware.  When you look at other tech hubs around the country, few of them boast the kind of heritage this city has in developing new materials and new machines.  As a result, the workforce here is prepared to not just code, but to get their hands dirty with hardware.  The challenge is showing the world that this is the next great center of innovation.  We all know it because we see it every day, and now we need top talent from around the country to see it too. 

Q: You moved from New Jersey to Pittsburgh for CMU. What were your expectations when moving to Pittsburgh and how did the city deliver?

J: It was not until grad school at CMU that I started venturing off campus to really explore and understand what Pittsburgh has to offer. It was at that time that Astrobotic was starting up and I liked what I saw in Pittsburgh and I have since made it my home.

Q: You are working with local companies and machine shops in the space area and have expressed an interest in making Pittsburgh a powerhouse for space robotics.

J: Pittsburgh has been involved in space history since the Apollo era, having manufactured much of the steel and glass hardware, as well as communications technology, for the Apollo 11 mission. Today, the region’s advanced manufacturing capabilities and world-class expertise in artificial intelligence, robotics, and space transport and logistics can propel Pittsburgh to an even more dominant seat at the table. In turn, Astrobotic has a strong leadership and representation in the PGH Space Collaborative and touts a commitment to supporting the local supply chain wherever possible. The PGH Space Collaborative’s goal, and our goal, is to become a space economic development organization committed to supporting the emerging global commercial space industry. We’re doing this by attracting and growing the next generation of space industry businesses and workforce talent in Pittsburgh and the region.

Q: Can you share a fun Pittsburgh story or anecdote with us?

J: In 2010, I bought a dilapidated house in Highland Park. It had no working water, electricity, or heat when I got it – but it had massive potential. I could not even live in it for the first year!  It took ten years and lots of DIY work, but now my wife and I are finally putting the finishing touches on it.  

Q: Do you have a special Pittsburgh secret? A hidden gem? Favorite spot, park, dive bar, art gallery, corner in Highland Park, or random place most people would be unaware of?

J: One of my favorite things about Pittsburgh are the rivers and the proximity to the outdoors. My wife and I spend most weekends exploring the Oil City region along the Allegheny river where the natural beauty is reminiscent of a Tolkien fantasy scape – the boating/floating is serene, the hiking and biking opportunities abound, and the wildlife is abundant.  But perhaps most of all, the history of the region is so rich and dynamic it could be made into a Netflix series.

Q: What do you love most about Pittsburgh as a city and a place to live?

J: I really like that Pittsburgh has all the amenities of a big city but still has a small-town feel. I like that you can walk down the street and people will smile and acknowledge you. The people are not trying to be something or someone else. Pittsburgh feels real.

Q: What would you change about Pittsburgh to make it a better place?

J: There are two business worlds here in Pittsburgh. One world is that of the startup, early, and mid-stage tech companies working to innovate and push new technologies to market.

The other is the world of traditional businesses that have become the cornerstones and stewards of the city. Both play a vital role in the fabric of our city, but unfortunately, they rarely interact and work collaboratively together. Pittsburgh is a siloed business community and our experience growing a space company here in Pittsburgh has illuminated this divide. Over the years, we grew accustomed to ‘no’s, quizzical looks, and at times derisive laughs from the established business community. While our experience might be more extreme since we are building a Moon company, we are not alone. Some high-growth companies pick up and leave on account of receiving more support from outside the city. At Astrobotic, we use this outside skepticism to drive us forward in hopes that the future will be brighter. This is not criticism. This is opportunity. We are committed to this community – let’s make it better. Pittsburgh’s business community needs to bridge the divide and bet on our local innovators to deliver the Moonshots that will perpetuate this city’s legendary status into the next century. If Pittsburgh can grow a company that lands on the Moon, Pittsburgh can do anything.

See career opportunities at Astrobotic >>

Meesha is the Founder and CEO of web development firm RedTree and a board member of the nonprofit RedChair. Born in Las Vegas, she grew up a military brat moving between Germany, Phoenix, Ohio and eventually landed in town to attend the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Since then, she has made it her mission to polish what she calls the “diamond in the rough.”

“My experience with Pittsburgh is that here the people will give you the shirt off of their back; from the professional community to my personal life the people inside of Pittsburgh have always been very community driven and that’s something that I’ve always admired and wanted to maintain.”

Her entrepreneurial journey started back in college following a passion for creating a digital and visual language for small businesses. In the early days she recalls often bartering and taking payment in the form of meals or stock photography, just to pursue her dream. After working for a few small agencies, she decided to go it alone, though lonely she felt not. “Building RedTree in Pittsburgh was fantastic, between the Tech Council, Chatham Women’s Business Center and other organizations that were vested in the success of my business it’s been phenomenal because they are people who genuinely do want to help you grow.” 

Today she runs a team that builds websites from the ground up and helps small businesses evolve and upgrade them. Oftentimes small businesses lack the vision or know-how to properly leverage what a well built website can do to help their businesses, and that’s one of their goals, to level the playing field for all companies’ websites regardless of size. 

Outside her day job, Meesha is what you could call a devoted activist. She has a very critical eye, but you can sense from her tone it comes from a place of caring and wanting to fix issues where issues need to be fixed. 

She candidly points out that attracting and retaining good talent in town is an issue, largely driven by a lack of diversity, particularly when it comes to African Americans. “How do we keep more people of color inside of tech? We’re trying to, but people just think ‘nah, it’s just not a good fit for me.’ And they leave, and I don’t blame them. There has not been enough movement in this area,” she states as a call to arms. “I see us trying, but for some reason we just can’t actually figure it out. I was at a panel for women in tech not long ago, and it was all white women. Is that because we can’t find a woman of color in tech? I know they exist! We need to educate ourselves a bit more to have a full picture. We’re trying, but we’re not quite there yet.” She’s not alone in this line of thought, and this is a challenge the entire tech community is all too aware of and has been dialed up in everyone’s agenda. As she recognizes, “we do have work to do, but I think the big thing is people want to do the work for the city.”

Meesha is also a board member of RedChair, a non-profit that serves women in tech. “The idea is a lot of women are getting to a certain level in their companies and then they plateau, so we started RedChair to first help with awareness and second create ways to help them make it through the glass ceiling. We create a mentor-mentee relationship to help women get to the  next level.” 

A member of the LGBTQ+ community, she’s also concerned and trying to change things for that group. “The change I’d like to see in Pittsburgh is the diversity as a whole and the diversity of thought. As an LGBTQ+ family in Pittsburgh, there are times where I was scared for our safety, whereas if I was in a city like Philly those kinds of thought processes wouldn’t have popped into my head. We don’t have that many trans people or LGBTQ+ business owners. That’s on me,” she claims taking responsibility. “I have a lot of work to do there, how do we put the spotlight more on them and make this city look more diverse?” 

It’s refreshing to see someone acknowledge the issue not with an air of complaint, but with a can-do attitude, backed by tangible actions. It exemplifies the commitment and determination that many locals share, but some of who also need a bit of an awareness push. “I LOVE the people of Pittsburgh, I do. I’ve found the diamonds in the rough and my wife and I will never leave. But I know that I want to do more to make our city better. I know the gems and I know the true people that you would find, but it’s a lifelong effort. I want to make the change to make it the inclusive city that I know it can be, and I’m ready to make that investment.”

Simmy was born and raised in the Midwest, in Joplin, MO, and moved to Silicon Valley with his wife to get a taste of the planet’s largest tech hub and get some blue chip experience under their belts. The plan, however, was always to eventually return to the Midwest, specifically to his wife’s hometown of Pittsburgh. So the idea of living in Pittsburgh was nothing new to them. Simmy first came to town with an expectation of landing in a land of yesteryear, industrial and past its prime. That is, until he first drove out of the Fort Pitt tunnel. “When I first came out of the tunnel and saw that skyline and went across the river on those bridges” he remembers, “I became immediately enamored with Pittsburgh for its beauty and because it didn’t match my expectation of the city.”

The Sims’s didn’t move to Pittsburgh for a job, they moved here for personal reasons, at which point Simmy started his conversations with Duolingo. He had quite a high bar having worked for Adobe and Stripe, a very hot, up-and-coming startup in the Valley plus other opportunities on the table. But when he met with Duolingo founders Luis von Ahn and Severin Hacker as well as the VP of people he was apparently “blown away” by what he heard. “I didn’t want to work for a ‘Diet Coke’ tech company, and my bar was very high. The quality of talent at Duolingo is just as high as some of the best companies I worked for in San Francisco, and that’s what drew me to it,” he recalls. “If Duolingo was located in San Francisco it would be considered one of the premier destinations, folks would flock to work there.”

For Simmy, like many other professionals, there’s San Francisco and New York and then everything else. The coasts have their advantages, but there are also downsides. “It’s definitely different here in Pittsburgh. There’s a good and a bad about being in San Francisco, where everyone seemingly works in tech, and it was kind of a grind. After some ten years of everyone working in the same industry as you, it just didn’t feel like a good balance,” he comments. “Cities like Pittsburgh are more diverse, it’s not just tech folk working there, and I think that’s wonderful… you have a lot of industries around tech and that creates a bit of balance.”

For a designer ilke Simmy, Duolingo presents various UI/UX challenges to help people through vocabulary, pronunciation and spelling. But Simmy reflects one more psychological aspect of the app’s experience where they put a lot of focus – motivation. “A lot of people underestimate how much motivation and time it requires to learn language – not days, not weeks, not months, but years. As a designer, the challenge is how do you keep people motivated to come back day, after day, after day.” Surely we all have different motivations to learn a new language, like better communicating with a loved one or moving to another country, and the more intense that need or pressure, the higher the motivation. “What we try to seek out is how do we keep people motivated, engaged and excited to do the same thing over and over, and that’s really challenging. We do this by creating moments of celebration, moments where you feel accomplished doing something hard. The moment of celebration after you’ve put in the work to earn something, it’s pretty incredible to tap into that feeling.”

Enter Duo, the brand’s persistent, lovable green owl and motivator master who’s always ensuring you’re sticking with the program and celebrating your progress. “One of the most interesting things about Duo is that he often serves as a mirror for how people think about staying motivated. A lot of people use shame and underachieving as a powerful motivator, and for them Duo serves as a passive-aggressive someone kind of nagging you to get things done. For other people he’s more of a coach or he’s more positive. It’s kind of interesting to see how Duo mirrors what people need him to be to keep them motivated.

The success of Duo is taking the company to the next level of storytelling as a tool to maintain customers engaged and motivated. “I think we’re trying to figure out how to create other characters that Duo can also interact with. One thing we’re learning is that if we can incorporate storytelling into the daily experience of using Duolingo, then it starts to become more engaging.” The team at Duolingo has introduced a number of new characters throughout the customer journey, in podcasts, social media and within the app to increase engagement and keep people motivated. More characters means more content and more content means more people needs, and like many other fast-growing local tech companies, the language app is looking to expand its team fast.

Simmy takes this at heart, not just to satisfy the company’s hiring needs, but to build a long term solution to raise awareness of opportunities in the region, especially among young, up-and-coming talent. “In some ways Pittsburgh is different from most cities because of CMU, which brings in a lot of kids every year who are becoming more and more proficient at UX design. This is a good short term solution, but as someone who’s committed to the future of this community and this city, the challenge is going to be instituting more long term solutions. We’ve gotta teach people before CMU about the opportunities in tech, starting by making kids in high school or middle school aware of the possibilities that exist. In the midst of the climate of the pandemic, as a design team one reason we’re itching to get back to normal life is because we’re pretty excited in trying to get the local community more involved in the opportunities that exist in Duolingo and in tech in general. As a group we’re trying to brainstorm ways to get more involved and make a longer term impact on the community.”

One such initiative is the company’s mural initiative, which started as a major cosmetic remake of their headquarters and is expanding into a wider program inviting local artists to submit proposals to change the face of the city.

“The commitment I think we’re making supporting local art is representative of the kind of long term action we’re trying to take. Investing in our community, finding local artists, we need to create more opportunities and invest more frequently so that there can be actual change, so that local artists and local students can have careers in the near future. The mural got all this attention, but what we’re really trying to do as a company is figure out how we find more of those opportunities to invest multiple times because those are the ones that will change lives and our impact on the community.”

See career opportunities at Duolingo >>

We’ve all been there. Buyer finds the home of their dreams. Seller gets a return for their investment. And realtor awaits their hard earned paycheck after countless open houses and even more showings. Everybody’s happy, right? Not so fast. The inspection comes through, reporting broken windows, a leaking roof and an electrical irregularity. An otherwise smooth transaction throws everything back on the negotiating table because of the inability to determine with accuracy and transparency what the associated costs will be.

Enter Mighty. An AI-powered app that gathers big data to deliver buyers, sellers and agents a laser accurate estimate of the repair costs within hours to put every party’s mind at ease and let the transaction proceed as planned. “The real estate transaction is stressful and frustrating for the buyers and for the sellers and our mission was always to empower the real estate agent to be able to help the buyer and seller in the best form possible,” comments Jen. “The glaring problem that we saw was that when it comes to inspections, to home repair, to contracting, it’s a huge pain point. After inspections everybody knows all the things that are wrong but nobody can tell you what they cost. And that’s where Mighty’s intelligent technology comes into play, within 24 hours or less you get these numbers in your hands and now as a buyer and seller you feel so much more confident understanding you know what things are going to cost. Having that data and transparency with you is a huge way to optimize the entire transaction.”

We asked Jen, what’s the secret sauce to deliver such accuracy so fast? “Having a network of contractors helps, but we’re getting more from the vast amounts of publicly available data and becoming more of an AI company. We go deep into understanding a property and say ‘there’s a roof and let’s break it down, it’s an asphalt roof, what needs to be replaced or repaired, etc.’ so we tap into as much information and knowledge as possible. This allows us to deliver extremely high accuracy, we’re talking 99.9 percent,” Jen reassures. But that’s apparently just the beginning “The next couple of years for Mighty is building out our technology to get into virtually instantaneous estimating. Within seconds a real estate agent and consumers are going to know all the data they need in terms of pricing.” 

In a city fighting to dial up its diversity in tech, Jen stands out as a bit of a poster child. Originally from Dubai, she is one of the very few immigrant females of color at the helm of a tech company. While she appreciates numerous benefits from Pittsburgh as a tech hub, she also recognizes the challenges that lie ahead. “The advantages of being in Pittsburgh is that in terms of academia and technology we’ve got excellent talent. The challenge that we have is that investment is tough. Pittsburgh in general is a risk averse city so you don’t have a lot of investors saying ‘hey we really want to grow the startup scene, grow the tech ecosystem. On top of that, when you add female entrepreneurs and women of color such as myself we’re talking about a whole other set of challenges.” But that hasn’t made a dent in her tenacity to move forward. “As immigrants, we have that crazy amount of grit and a crazy amount of perseverance to be able to take a company to the next level and I think a lot of people that know the journey of Mighty have seen where Mighty started and where it is today. And a lot of it has to do with how diverse my team is and the kind of experience we have brought in.” 

These issues have been raised by many a tech entrepreneur in town, but you do tend to hear more about the problems than the solutions. We asked Jen to share some thoughts on overcoming this. “First, every single company has a duty and a responsibility to be very mindful of their diverse hiring, it means expanding where you’re going out and finding your talent. Go a little bit deeper because talent may not be able to find you because they don’t have access to you. Second, is being engaged in mentoring. I make it an effort, even if it is only a few hours a week, to help create a virtuous cycle. And third, having each one of us tapping into different ways to continue to grow the ecosystem is going to be critical. Since I moved here a few years ago I’ve seen a ton of improvement, how we’re looking at diversity, having more diverse founders and how we’re finding ways to support these companies and help them thrive.”

Back in 2008, upon graduating college, Jen had an offer to join a Pittsburgh company. “I came to town and I said ‘no way, I’m never coming to Pittsburgh.’ And then in the 2015 time frame I got another offer with a company that I already knew, and when I came back I said ‘wow, it has really changed, it’s got a great food scene, a lot to do here, it’s got great arts and theatre and culture and stuff like that.” The rest is history. She’s now made it  her home and home to her tech startup and hopes many others will join her. “We need to focus on how do we get more people to think ‘Pittsburgh’s my home, I love it, I never want to move.’” For those taking her on her offer, she’s got a great app for you as soon as you find a new home.

See career opportunities at Mighty >>