DIGITAL SPIN:
Governor Ridge Spotlights PA's Technology Leaders
By Patrick McGee
Special to WHYY

The last Republican National Convention held in Philadelphia in 1948 was the first to make use of a new technology: television.

So it seemed somehow appropriate that Governor Tom Ridge kicked off this Republican National Convention a day early at the Franklin Institute by appearing at an event that highlighted the state's technology achievements.

"The opportunity to showcase Pennsylvania's technology in this town is one that we did not want to miss," Ridge said yesterday.

Over 30 companies and universities displayed their wares for convention delegates, visiting politicians and journalists as Ridge worked his way around the museum. The governor spoke for several minutes with Peter Staritz, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute.

Staritz showed Ridge a first-generation prototype of the Skyworker, a robot designed to assist astronauts in the construction of space stations. "This is one of the paths to our future in space," Staritz said.

Ridge also stopped to talk to Katie and Adrienne Shoop, two sisters ages 13 and 10. The two were there to show off the small robot they built during a week-long RoboCamp sponsored by Pittsburgh's National Robotics Engineering Consortium.

Ridge visited a Unisys booth which featured iris and fingerprint scanning technology. Unisys, which is based in Blue Bell, sponsored the event along with SAP and Safeguard Scientific, two other Philadelphia area companies.

The governor took obvious pleasure in highlighting the work being done by the Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse, a non-profit public/private partnership launched by Ridge in 1999.

The goal of the partnership is to make southwestern Pennsylvania a leader in the development of system-on-a-chip technology that should lead to smaller, faster and cheaper products, said Dennis Yablonsky, the CEO of the greenhouse.

As television cameras rolled, Yablonsky demonstrated a device the size of a wristwatch that is able to download and store digital music files. Ridge said the success of such tech efforts shows that the once-struggling steel town is coming back: "Pittsburgh has made the transition. We have merged the old economy with the new."

When asked what plans the state had for Philadelphia, Ridge said he envisions an effort similar to the Digital Greenhouse, but one that focuses on the area's historical strengths.

"We can't be Boston or Silicon Valley. We need to find our niche," Ridge said.

He said a partnership that combines the efforts and knowledge of the areas universities, pharmaceutical and biotech companies would be the most logical direction to move in. Ridge added that he hopes such a partnership could be launched in the next few years.