This story was originally published by Technical.ly, a news partner of PublicSource. You can sign up for their newsletters at technical.ly/subscribe.

In the final weeks of 2023 and first weeks of 2024, Technical.ly asked Pittsburgh founders and execs what trends they were anticipating for the local tech space.

Some leaders expect regulatory bodies to emphasize cybersecurity, while others anticipate more students considering their sector as a career possibility. Now, two weeks into this new year, here’s some of what Pittsburgh founders are thinking (or hoping) will happen next.

Cybersecurity will be prioritized across industries

In 2023, cybersecurity experts told Technical.ly that even when the worst happens and companies have to downsize, they usually don’t cut corners in the area that keeps company secrets safe.

For Vigilant Ops CEO Ken Zalevsky’s part, he anticipates that regulatory agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration would take an increased interest in cybersecurity. Having worked in the field himself, Zalevsky said being vulnerable to attacks can be costly in any industry — and when it comes to healthcare, a lack of cybersecurity can compromise patient safety. The FDA requires cybersecurity measures to be built into medical devices; Zalevsky expects other industries will follow suit.

“We’re already seeing that energy and others who are trying to look at legislation and ways to make their products within their industries more secure, requiring security documentation, like the software bill of materials and others,” Zalevsky said. (Vigilant Ops makes an automation platform for the generation, maintenance and authenticated sharing of certified software bill of materials.) “I think we’ll just kind of see that trend continue as the year [progresses].”

The commercial space industry will expand

Away from healthcare and into galaxies far away, Astrobotic CEO John Thornton told Technical.ly in December that 2024 could bring the commercial space industry more NASA collaborations. He cited NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative as one indicator — especially because it’s a program the North Side space tech company is participating in via its Peregrine Mission One, which launched on Jan. 8. The team’s efforts to gather payload data have been fruitful, but due to a propellant leak on Jan. 9, the spacecraft is now expected to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

Additionally, Thornton imagined that companies might be willing to take more risks — but if the payoffs weren’t worth it, this could lead to fewer successful missions.

“One risk I see to this model’s success is that companies may be willing to bet everything on an opportunity to participate in the burgeoning space industry,” Thornton said. “If companies do this by underbidding future commercial contracts without having a strong financial footing, we may see a decline in mission success that could affect the industry as a whole.”

Robots will aid the manufacturing workforce, in more ways than one

Even when the world is in turmoil, things still need to be made. Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute Senior Outreach Manager Livia Rice said she believes the need for manufacturers will remain — yet robotics will be increasingly incorporated into the sector to fill workforce gaps. In addition to the ARM Institute’s outreach efforts, Rice expects robotics will be used to do the more dangerous parts of a given job, which will further incentivize young people to consider manufacturing as a viable career.

“I think that’s going to be a huge trend in really trying to influence the next generation of people to consider careers in manufacturing,” Rice said. “I’m sure when we were kids, no one was talking to us about manufacturing … but it really is a very vibrant career. So focusing on that, and then the integration of AI into robotics and manufacturing, I think that’s going to continue to be a very important trend.”

Autonomous ground vehicles will be used in government defense efforts

For Neya Systems Division Manager Kurt Bruck, the theme of 2024 is speed. The Warrendale-based company develops advanced autonomous solutions for unmanned systems and was recently selected for part of a $14.8 million U.S. Army contract along with Carnegie Robotics and Robotic Research Autonomous Industries. The Department of Defense, Bruck said, often needs its vehicles to go 80 miles per hour to effectively navigate jungles or forests.

Additionally, he thinks navigating with cameras as opposed to LIDAR-based navigation will become a trend due to the expense and the fragility of night vision cameras. He also imagines that drones and autonomy will become a priority in the name of speed and creating fewer risks for soldiers.

“The Department of Defense has been fielding drones for a decade, but ground vehicles have never been fielded. I’ve never seen autonomous ground vehicles actually working with soldiers, because it’s just more of a difficult, different challenge,” Bruck said. “But fielding these systems for the first time [will be] a key trend and overarching trend. I think in the next three years, we’re going to start to see many, many more autonomous brand vehicles working with soldiers and various missions being kind of like a tool in the toolbox that they use daily.”

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2023 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.

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A Pittsburgh robotics success story has ended as the national firm that acquired a homegrown company less than two years ago shuts down its local presence.

In 2022, Lawrenceville’s RE2 Robotics announced it would be going public via an $100 million acquisition by Salt Lake City-based Sarcos Technology and Robotics Corporation. The move marked a significant growth milestone for RE2, which specialized in the development of intelligent mobile manipulation systems, and was founded in 2001 by Jorgen Pedersen as a spinout from Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center.

But this week, Sarcos announced it would be laying off 150 employees and suspending its commercialization efforts concerning subsea, aviation and solar robotics hardware programs to focus on artificial intelligence software. According to the announcement, the company’s leadership sees a larger opportunity in developing the robotic AI and machine learning platform, which is slated to launch by mid-2024.

“We believe that our AI software platform will enable, for the majority of the industrial robots being sold around the world, a dramatic reduction in robotic training times while also making industrial robots far more agile,” Sarcos CEO and President Laura Peterson said in a written statement. “… With the large number of robotic systems throughout the world and a product that we believe is unlike anything else currently available, we see a broad addressable market and an opportunity to build a robust software business that is scalable at a substantially faster rate than our hardware solutions.”

After devoting much of the past two years to bringing the Sarcos and RE2 teams together post-acquisition, Sarcos’ Pittsburgh office will close and consolidate to focus on operations in Salt Lake City.

The company is employing job placement services for affected employees, who will receive 60-day notice of termination, a Sarcos spokesperson told Technical.ly. (The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, aka WARN Act, legally requires companies with 100 or more employees to provide them with a 60-day notification of a layoff of 50 or more employees that make up at least 33% of the company’s workforce.)

The spokesperson said the company could not release full details about the transition, and did not answer Technical.ly’s questions about whether laid-off employees would receive a severance package; if any of the employees from the Pittsburgh site would relocate to Salt Lake City; and how many of the laid-off employees are based in Pittsburgh.

“While it is always a difficult decision to make staffing cuts, especially one this significant, it is important that Sarcos is resourced appropriately and that we are good stewards of our capital,” Peterson said in the company announcement. “We believe the prioritization of our AI software platform meets our previously announced goal of pursuing significant near-term revenue tied to acute customer needs, reduces our capital requirements and related risks in line with available resources, and will lead to long-term stockholder value creation.”

In January 2023, RE2 founder Pedersen — who later stepped down from his role as Sarcos’ COO, in July — told Technical.ly that over the years, the company saw its biggest customer go from being Carnegie Mellon University to the Department of Defense, and earned millions in contracts from the U.S. Navy. Throughout, robotics remained at the core of RE2’s DNA. The two companies’ merger worked because of their shared vision, Pedersen said while reflecting on the acquisition a year out.

“We had complementary technologies,” the founder said. “They had more anthropomorphic technologies and exoskeletons, we had more mobile manipulation technologies. So when the worlds came together, it was just a nice dovetail of capabilities, which was not only additive, it multiplied our capability.”

Pedersen also recalled then that from 2020 to early 2023, the RE2 staff in Pittsburgh doubled from 50 to 100. During that time, the company expanded to two new buildings.

Pedersen declined to comment on the Sarcos layoffs this week.

Moving forward, Sarcos leadership said the company needs to ensure its financial future, and the best way to do that is through its AI software.

“By de-coupling our AI and ML software from our own robotic systems, we believe we can reach a much broader market more quickly,” Peterson said. “We believe this is the right decision for both the short-term and long-term health of and opportunities for the business. We can run a leaner business that is more efficient, reduce our cash usage and put ourselves in a stronger position to reach profitability without the need to raise additional financing.”

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2023 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.

The post Less than 2 years after acquiring RE2 Robotics, Sarcos is closing its Pittsburgh office to focus on AI appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

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On Nov. 7, Democrat Sara Innamorato won the race to become the new Allegheny County executive, beating Republican Joe Rockey with 51.1% of the vote.

The role, currently held by Rich Fitzgerald, is considered one of the most powerful in Pennsylvania government, as it oversees the state’s second-largest county.

Innamorato’s path

Since the first time Innamorato, a former state representative, was elected to office in 2018, she gained popularity for her progressive stances such as support for unions, encouraging government transparency, expansion of public transit access and advocacy for affordable housing measures within Pittsburgh. During her executive campaign, she received support from fellow progressives, with endorsements from the likes of Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, Emily’s List, Clean Water Action and even Jane Fonda’s Climate PAC.

Innamorato became the first woman to be elected to the position, in which she’ll manage county government agencies, finances, projects and services. Innamorato said during her election night speech that she promises to use her new position to build a more inclusive Allegheny County, and to call on the connections she made throughout her campaign to take the county to the next level.

What tech leaders want

Technical.ly reached out to leaders in the Pittsburgh technology sector prior to the election results being called to hear how they hoped to work with the new official.

InnovatePGH President and CEO Sean Luther said he hoped for a county executive who’d be willing to rethink how the county’s economic development tools could help Pittsburgh make the transition to a knowledge-based economy. Additionally, Luther said, he wanted the next county executive to be interested in pushing the county forward while identifying ways for residents to grow through innovation and research assets such as Hazelwood Green.

“The county government, and the county executive by extension, has a substantial role in the tech-based workforce development system,” Luther said in an email. “I look forward to supporting the next county executive in the workforce space; potentially as an extension of our Innovation District Skills Alliance and Expanded Pathways to Entrepreneurship programs.”

One strong tie to the office: In July, InnovatePGH’s now-former director of workforce strategies, Lindsay Powell, secured the Democratic nomination in a race for the state House seat Innamorato left to run for county executive. Powell won a special election to the position in September.

In Allegheny Conference on Community Development CEO Stefani Pashman’s view, having a county executive with a vision for regional success that takes shape through collaborations with local partners and stakeholders will be necessary for future growth. In the past, Pashman said, Fitzgerald used partnerships wisely to the county’s benefit, and she hopes the next person in the office will do the same.

“It’s our hope that the next Allegheny County executive will work to create an open-for-business mindset that reflects the efforts at the state level and that this leader will be focused on inclusively growing Southwestern Pennsylvania’s economy, resulting in an improved economic future and quality of life for everyone,” Pashman said.

Tech questions for the next exec

Earlier this fall, Technical.ly sent both county executive candidates five questions about their policies related to tech talent, digital access and business growth in the county. They reflect the challenges and opportunities the county’s new leader will face.

• What efforts would you make to expand access to technology and internet across Allegheny County, including to the 12.4% of households who lack a broadband subscription?
• What role would your administration have in advancing workforce development and STEM education for fast-growing industries such as technology, life sciences and healthcare?
• How would your administration use technology, such as AI or other new tools, to make city government more effective, efficient and accessible?
• What would you do to attract new talent to Allegheny County and retain remote workers?
• What specific changes would you make to support the start and growth of new businesses in Allegheny County?

Innamorato’s team didn’t respond before our deadline.

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2023 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.

The post Here’s what tech stakeholders hope to see from the incoming Allegheny County executive appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

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Pittsburgh does not have what it takes to be designated a national biotech hub, according to the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

At the end of the summer, nearly 400 consortia across the country submitted their applications for Phase 1 of the EDA Tech Hubs program. The initiative called for consortia consisting of economic development groups, universities and local government officials to show the ways in which their regions have existing or potential hubs of innovation.

Pittsburgh represented one of the regions vying for the designation — plus the tens of millions of dollars that could have come in Phase 2, kicking off this fall. Yet it wasn’t one of the 31 hubs announced on Monday.

“These outstanding Tech Hubs Designees exemplify place-based economic development strategies at their best: combining federal resources with regional assets, expertise, and coalitions to implement transformational opportunities,” Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development Alejandra Y. Castillo said in the announcement.

In August, leaders of Pittsburgh’s sole consortium, which consisted of InnovatePGH, the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University and other unnamed institutions, told Technical.ly their application centered on the region’s biomanufacturing economy. The appeal of the designation was the federal government’s promise to help regions without the same funding or name recognition as Silicon Valley become global competitors and assist the US in its aims to become a major player in high-tech manufacturing.

At the time, Kinsey Casey, Pitt’s vice chancellor for economic development for health sciences, felt that focus was the city’s best bet due to the success its life sciences sector had already accumulated through the years.

“We wanted to figure out how we could differentiate ourselves from other regions that want to be biotech,” Casey said. “Where we really think we have an interesting strength is in partnership with [Carnegie Mellon University] and their robotics, AI [and] advanced manufacturing.”

Casey told Technical.ly via email this week that although they’re disappointed in not winning a Tech Hubs designation, the consortium’s leaders are committed to continuing to contribute to the region’s technology sector. More than that, Casey wrote, consortium members still believe that the life sciences sector remains a point of pride for Pittsburgh.

“Pittsburgh’s role in the life sciences remains vital, with healthcare and medical advances being local drivers, the region’s strength in AI, robotics, and innovation, and the future biomanufacturing facility in the Pitt BioForge,” she said. “The work will continue through the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Alliance which will seek alternative funding strategies to advance the proposal’s integral components.”

Earlier this month the U.S. Department of Energy announced hydrogen hub designees, awarding funding to proposals centered on West Virginia and Philadelphia, among other areas, but not to a Pittsburgh-focused plan.

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2023 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.

The post Pittsburgh was not picked for EDA Tech Hubs program designation appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

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The Office of the District Attorney of Allegheny County is turning to artificial intelligence.

The DA’s office announced Monday that it will begin using NICE Justice, an AI-powered tool from the publicly traded, New Jersey-based NICE’s Evidencentral platform. The hope is that this cloud-based technology will make it easier to manage digital evidence, and ultimately render outdated tech like discs unnecessary while advancing efficiency.

“We have a sizable number of cases that were postponed due to delays in processing digital evidence,” said Rebecca D. Spangler, first assistant district attorney for the Allegheny County DA’s Office, in a written statement. “With NICE Justice, we’ll be able to streamline the entire process of managing digital evidence, from intake to discovery. When we’re able to eliminate postponements by making the system more efficient as a whole, that’s good for everyone.”

Since the DA’s office has just 127 attorneys to manage 35,000 cases annually, the announcement said, staff members tend to have more digital evidence than they can handle. Not only that, but since the office receives evidence from 200 different police departments that share their digital evidence in multiple formats, thus extending evidence processing time.

The benefit of NICE Justice, per the DA’s office, is that it consolidates evidence intake through one system. Additionally, police departments will be able to upload and share all different types of digital evidence through a single online portal. Once uploaded, the evidence will be automatically placed in the relevant digital case folder. The NICE Justice platform also includes an AI-powered transcription and redaction software which will further save the office’s staff time.

“As digital evidence grows, the entire criminal justice system is becoming bottlenecked. NICE Justice is an innovative solution to this digital evidence challenge,” NICE EVP Chris Wooten said. “By combining AI and automation, NICE Justice liberates everyone from the manual work of managing digital evidence — police departments, public defenders, prosecutors, and courts — so they can deliver swifter justice and get to the truth faster.”

Although the DA’s office sees AI as a tool for efficiency, criminal justice advocates have been wary of the use of the technology in the criminal justice system. In 2019, for instance, when the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing approved a tool to identify folks who are “lower risk” to move them to diversionary programs and curb overcrowding at prisons, advocates worried racial and gender biases within the technology could actually increase incarceration.

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2023 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.

The post The Allegheny County district attorney’s office will use AI to streamline digital evidence management appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

This story was originally published by Technical.ly, a news partner of PublicSource. You can sign up for their newsletters at technical.ly/subscribe.

What if you could get answers to every question you had about city happenings from the palm of your hand?

According to the City of Pittsburgh, the new My Pittsburgh App fits the bill and can connect residents with info about city projects, summer programming and resources that could benefit them.

The app was developed by Poly Platform, a local civic tech firm that participated in the most recent cohort of the PGH Labs accelerator hosted by the city. My Pittsburgh App launched on Wednesday ahead of this cohort’s closing showcase.

You can download the app from the App Store or Google Play here.

We're proud to launch the My Pittsburgh App, a new concept from PGHLAB. The app is designed to connect residents with valuable information about city projects, summer programming, and city resources.

Download the app, test it, and tell us what you think! https://t.co/izCvMZzKdo pic.twitter.com/0OL99D5VqT

— City of Pittsburgh (@Pittsburgh) July 12, 2023

Here at Technical.ly, we like to see for ourselves if apps are worth the download. So, this reporter tried out the new My Pittsburgh App. The gist so far: The app is reasonably straightforward and easy to navigate, which is welcome in a world where similar websites and applications can be overly complicated.

For starters, it’s free to download, so the only consideration you’d have to make is if there’s room for it on your phone.

When you first open the app, you see a list of event categories. The app helpfully gives the option of saving your favorite events. If a farmers market or “stop the violence” gathering is something you’d like to have easily accessible, the app will allow you to favorite it so that the event and its detailed description are at your fingertips.

Because no two Pittsburgh neighborhoods are the same, it’s useful that the app has tabs devoted to each one. When you presses a neighborhood name, you’ll see all the upcoming events happening there. For example, if you tapped the Brighton Heights tab, you’d see that every Friday, there’s a community-led initiative called Caring Connections seeking to divert young people from the juvenile justice and or child welfare system.

The app also allows users to set notifications that remind them of recurring events.

Besides events, My Pittsburgh App includes tabs on public meetings, citywide resources and relevant holidays.

However, where the app’s strengths lie in its simplicity, its main weakness is that it’s not entirely finished.

More than once while I tested this app, I’d click on an unfinished tab such as Safety or Cinema in the Park, and instead of providing me with info or events, the app would take me to an unrelated event page, such as for a farmers market. This might be confusing for some users. Plus, some categories including Water and Infrastructure feel incomplete. One might argue: Filling those tabs with information could’ve taken precedence over recreational events.

All in all, the app seems like it is off to a good start, but as some of it is clearly still under construction, this reporter would advise you to keep the city website handy while seeking info.

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2023 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.

The post It’s your turn to try the new My Pittsburgh App appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

This story was originally published by Technical.ly, a news partner of PublicSource. You can sign up for their newsletters at technical.ly/subscribe.

Looking back on Girls of Steel’s earliest days, cofounder Patti Rote remembers when the youth robotics program that now serves 180 students from 30 Pittsburgh schools was a lot smaller.

Now, after over a decade in the thick of things in the city’s robotics sector both on and off of Carnegie Mellon University’s campus, Rote is stepping away to retire. Yet she’s retiring with the comforting knowledge that the CMU Field Robotics Center-based program is in good hands and will continue providing girls and nonbinary students a path into the world of STEM.

“I always said to myself, I would never leave the program unless I was really comfortable,” Rote told Technical.ly. “And what I saw, both on the technical side and the fundraising, showed me I could make my exit and finally retire.”

Growing up, Rote was always interested in technology, and she spent years helping her contractor uncle rewire homes. But at her mother’s urging, she went to business school and obtained an MBA from Duquesne University, feeling it’d offer more stability. As fate would have it, one of Rote’s professors convinced her to do a study in robotics, which piqued her interest in the subject. She’d later get the opportunity to judge youth robotics competitions.

Although she greatly enjoyed this work, the 2023 RealLIST Connectors honoree said when she entered tech spaces and competitions, she wondered where the women and girls were. As Technical.ly has reported, there’s a two-pronged issue for youth access to the tech industry: opportunity and exposure. That’s where these after-school robotics teams, coding classes and more come in. Since cofounding Girls of Steel — which is associated with the national FIRST Robotics program — in 2010, Rote is pleased that the numbers have been steadily increasing and that CMU has tried to make the field more inclusive.

“I don’t know what the percentage was before, but now it’s almost 50% of students entering into the School of Computer Science as undergrads that are women, which is phenomenal,” Rote said. “They worked at it. I mean, they never gave up. And that’s why we are where we are today.”

Moving forward, Rote plans to continue volunteering with Girls of Steel. Educator Liz Kysel, a former Girls of Steel program participant herself, will be the organization’s lead technical mentor, with Theresa Richards (a 2022 RealLIST Connectors honoree) continuing as the FIRST Robotics program coordinator. (Rote cofounded Girls of Steel with longtime CMU Robotics Institute professor George Kantor, but Richards has worked with the program almost since the beginning.)

Rote said she feels heartened that so many Girls of Steel members decide to go into STEM careers — take Pittsburgh engineer Molly Urbina as an example — and are often willing to lend the program a hand with regard to volunteering and mentoring students currently going through the program. She intends to keep using her position as a well-connected robotics pro to make Pittsburgh a place that encourages women to thrive in the field.

“There are more opportunities [these days], however, some of the things that I hear from the girls that are graduated out of the program and are now working in STEM fields is that there’s still some apprehension about what girls are really capable of doing,” Rote said. “It’s sad after all these years, but on the other hand, at the end of the day, I guess I have to be satisfied that I had that core group of people to work with, to do what was done with Girls of Steel, and hope for the best. I think maybe [the field changing] will happen before I have six feet in the grave.”

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2023 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.

The post Exit Interview: Patti Rote is retiring from Girls of Steel, but plans to keep advocating for women in STEM appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

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There are apps for meditation and apps to order food. But what if there was an app that rewarded you for lending financial support to the 2.3% of US employer firms that are Black-owned?

Hailing from the world of finance and business, in 2020, Pittsburgh’s Art Robinson noticed a distinct lack of rewards programs for customers shopping at Black-owned or underserved companies. During this early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic when some folks were baking banana bread or singing sea shanties, Robinson founded BLK DYMND Rewards, an app designed to give its users access to hundreds of rewards when they make purchases at Black-owned businesses across the country.

Robinson recalled that credit card companies such as Capital One offer gift cards and/or points in return for their loyalty. Therefore, he told Technical.ly, he felt it couldn’t hurt to give people an added incentive to buy from businesses that are statistically less likely to receive venture capital and support.

“We’re really focused on bridging the economic gap that exists for Black-owned businesses, that were basically lost or had to shut down during the pandemic or don’t have access to capital or access to easy or low-cost marketing information,” Robinson said. “We want to provide them with space where they can reach customers very easily.”

Since soft launching in spring 2023, the free app has nearly 200 subscribers and features 170 businesses — some local, some not — such as the Mon Valley Kitchen, Allure Scents and the Everyday Cafe, and offers users rewards such as gift cards after they’ve earned a certain amount of points.

As the app itself is free in the Apple Store, BLK DYMND’s revenue is expected to come from the businesses that pay a percentage of sales for marketing and promoting their business on the app. Robinson is also in the early stage of fundraising for the company.

The rewards part of the app is still in development and will be up and running soon, per Robinson. Users also have the option of setting a monthly spending goal. So far, his staff of four has gotten mostly positive feedback.

“Right now we’re working on some long-term items that will allow people to scan the receipt and be able to find [spending limit-friendly] alternatives,” Robinson said. “It will give them a list of alternatives for their current choices, or their current spending. So it’s some user-friendly functionality that will really draw them into what we’re doing and enhance their experience.”

In the future, users can expect to see a referral program within the app so they could gain points for referring their friends.

Per Robinson, a few of the biggest highlights the company’s seen over the past year include participating in the 2022-2023 Ascender cohort, from which BLK DYMND received an undisclosed amount in grant funding; being named to Technical.ly’s 2023 RealLIST Startups list in Pittsburgh; and being featured as a speaker during Philly Tech Week 2023.

Ultimately, Robinson said, the goal of BLK DYMND Rewards is to give shoppers a tangible way to support Black-owned businesses.

“I want to bring that same type of benefit to underserved Black-owned businesses,” Robinson said. “We’re really working hard to bridge that gap.”

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2023 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.

The post Meet BLK DYMND Rewards, a Pittsburgh-founded app to support Black-owned businesses appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

This story was originally published by Technical.ly, a news partner of PublicSource. You can sign up for their newsletters at technical.ly/subscribe/.

Behaivior AI CEO and founder Ellie Gordon always had an interest in mental health and technology. But at a hackathon in 2017, upon meeting a defense lawyer who recalled how many of his past clients wore alcohol monitoring devices, Gordon wondered what it’d be like if such a device could be used to support a person in recovery, too.

Growing up in Pittsburgh, Gordon told Technical.ly, she’d witnessed firsthand how devastating the effects of the opioid epidemic could be. So over the past six years, she’s built a company that offers a wearable device that supports individuals in addiction and mental health recovery.

“I’ve had friends and family who have died from overdose, or substance use and our area was very hard,” Gordon said. “That is something that’s really painful to see.”

Recovery by Behaivior offers AI-powered, real-time support for its users through a wearable device and accompanying app. This might come in the form of remote monitoring capability for care providers, or mental health and addiction self-management tools such as journal and meditation features that can be used in the home. It might also look like the device alerting the appropriate parties should the user need urgent assistance.

Gordon said sometimes when a person is really struggling, it can be difficult for them to reach out for help. Recovery by Behaivior was designed to bring the resources someone in recovery might need directly to them.

“It can be really challenging to sort of take stock of things happening and how they may impact you, along with just being on your own and not necessarily having all the guidance in your day-to-day life,” she said.

Sometimes counselors and care providers might know their clients are struggling, she added, but not always be sure they’re giving the right level of information to provide the best care. With Recovery by Behaivior in the equation, there’s another tool to take in data such as what a person’s stress levels have been or if they’re been sleeping enough, which can be used to suggest the best course of action.

Over the years, the company has collaborated with organizations such as Veteran Affairs, received the Carnegie Science Award and been able to conduct clinical studies supported by the National Institutes of Health. Most recently, the Pittsburgh Technology Council honored Gordon as a new-generation tech entrepreneur. Gordon told Technical.ly she’s happy the company has had the opportunity to collaborate with organizations that serve so many populations, including individuals with PTSD, who experience higher rates of overdose and suicidal ideation and mental health crisis events.

In between the collaborations and trials, Behaivior has received an estimated $1.44 million in grants and prizes from places like URA Ventures, Jumpstart Foundry and the Richard King Mellon Foundation. The company now employs 10 people — some in Pittsburgh, but others as far as Colorado and Virginia.

Ultimately, by using artificial intelligence, Gordon said she hopes the tool can assist humans and do something humans can’t do: be there for users 24/7.

“Even if there’s one person and they work with a provider who spends all their time just helping that one person, they’re still not going to be able to gain the insights of prediction of crisis events, for example, to that extent, where things can be actionable and effective,” Gordon said. “Right now, the treatment, as usual, is continuing to lead to high rates of overdose and mental health crises.”

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2023 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.

The post Behaivior AI uses wearable tech to bring support directly to those in recovery appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Looking back, I suppose there is some humor in realizing that I signed a virginity pledge on a holiday revolving around a virgin birth. 

On Christmas morning of 2008, I was 15 years old and received a little silver ring with the words “True Love Waits” etched into it in black letters. The ring was a gift from my mother, and the words on it represented a promise to myself and – most importantly – to God. It promised that I would stay pure until marriage. At my wedding, the ring would be replaced with a wedding band. 

“You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” For an idealist like me, at the time, those words represented safety. Now, nearly 14 years later, they make me unbelievably sad.

When I found the ring and card with that pledge in a memento box about a decade after I signed, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t find the nostalgia I felt when I looked at my old Twilight posters and silly bands. But this ring was different, and now, what it represented in my life as a teenager is coming into focus. 

Purity rings and the purity movement that spawned them became popular in the ’80s and ’90s. Evangelical Christian parents were in a panic over the AIDS epidemic and the way popular culture was sexualizing young people. Over the years, the movement would spread from church basements to the mainstream. In 1998, Pastor Randy Wilson – horrified over a series of sex scandals that year – would make headlines after founding the purity ball movement, where young girls in attendance would promise their fathers they’d stay chaste until marriage. 

The True Love Waits campaign was born in 1993 and had an all-encompassing mission for its participants to abstain from “sexual thoughts, sexual touching, pornography, and actions that are known to lead to sexual arousal.”

If the campaign’s numbers are accurate, between 1993 and 2004, an estimated 2.5 million youths joined, signing the pledge and wearing purity rings similar to mine. 

I suppose it’s not that surprising. Despite their simplicity, the rings and the pledges that went with them claimed to come with so many guarantees. Sign your name to the pledge, and you were walking a path of righteousness. Slip on that little silver ring, and you’d never get your heart broken. Wear it and accept that you are not your own, and your future children will have the kind of happy home that Hallmark cards are made of. 

You are not your own. You are not your own. You are not your own. 

That ring under my Christmas tree wasn’t the beginning of the sex negativity that I now realize ruled my childhood. The summer prior, I’d gone to my cousin’s youth group and the deacon unceremoniously informed us that if you liked someone and you stayed up late at night talking to them – he stressed that even if you were only talking – you were still “whoring around.” A year later, a woman in my own youth group would say that girls needed to stop “tempting” young boys. 

I was in elementary school when the warnings about not being “fast” began. For the life of me, I can’t actually remember anyone ever explaining to me how a woman becomes pregnant, but my family made it clear that girls who were “fast” would only end up pregnant and never be wife material. I didn’t understand how all these pieces of the puzzle fit together, but I knew I never wanted my name spoken with the same kind of disdain used when describing “fast girls” or women who had the “spirit of a Jezebel.” 

Technically speaking, purity rings are gender neutral – teens of the mid-2000s will recognize that the Jonas brothers were among some of the most well-known male purity ring wearers. In practice, though, purity movements disproportionately target women and girls. There are no fancy balls during which boys promise their mothers to abstain from sex until their wedding nights. And it goes without saying that because staying pure for heterosexual marriages is the end goal, LGBTQ+ people cannot be included in purity culture.

After years of “you are not your own,” it wasn’t a love affair that disillusioned me with True Love Waits and my purity pledge. It was my long-time-coming break-up with religion in general. Soon after turning 17 and reading “The Purity Myth” by Jessica Valenti, I began to identify as agnostic and admitted to myself that the only reason I believed in God at all was because I’d been told my entire life I’d go to hell if I didn’t. Once I got past the idea that goodness and religion were synonymous, my “True Love Waits” ring went into a memento box. 

But it still left a mark.

I was left with shame that had been ingrained into my very being. It’s not that it’s inherently wrong to abstain from sex, either for personal or religious reasons. The problem is that making virginity a personality trait leaves adolescents at war with their own bodies. When I think of the years it took to shake the shame I was taught, I can’t help but feel sad for my younger self who dealt with guilt spirals over crushes and the unfairness in knowing that no boy in my family ever had to agonize in a similar way. 

Real love – not the deeply conditional variety that the True Love Waits campaign pedals – makes me want to believe that some of these people meant well. When I’m in an extremely charitable mood, I like to think most of the parents involved thought they were protecting their children from unplanned pregnancies and broken hearts. When I think about the legacy of the Jezebel trope that describes Black women and girls as eternally sexually insatiable to excuse sexual violence, I wonder if my own relatives misguidedly believed fixating on not being “fast” would keep us safe from predators. 

The problem is there’s no protection to be found in comparing people to chewed-up gum. Nor in claiming that developmentally normal feelings for non-asexuals are the devil’s work. And unsurprisingly, a lot of the kids who grow up being taught that virginity is the most precious gift God has given them are not all right.

Studies show that kids who sign virginity pledges are just as likely as their non-pledging peers to have sex before marriage. But because their parents and pastors accessorized them with religious-based sex shaming as opposed to comprehensive sex education, they tend to be more likely to have unsafe sex due to ignorance, leading to higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. 

You always hope for better for the people who come after you. After more than a decade of damning studies on purity culture and abstinence-only education, countless anecdotes from former participants saying the movement damaged them, and even some of the movement’s biggest supporters renouncing their stances, I hoped we’d all learned. If we truly want to protect young people, comprehensive education is the way to go. I hoped that young women like me would be spared the intense shaming of the natural feelings and urges that come with growing up.

But, instead of listening and learning, the True Love Waits campaign continues and another generation of teens are being deprived of the sex education that can prevent disease, youth pregancies and yearslong – if not lifelong – cycles of guilt and shame. I hoped by now there’d be an end to the madness and more room for people to just be human. But, unfortunately, that kind of thinking is alive and well. 

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a Pittsburgh-based journalist. She can be reached at airvinmitchell@gmail.com and you can follow her on Twitter @AtiyaWrites.

The post The purity movement told young people that ‘you are not your own,’ and the harm from that message persists appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.