Here's an excerpt:
Synergy and critical mass propel local clean tech sector
Philadelphia Business Journal - by Peter Key Staff Writer
Efforts to make the area a clean-technology hub are gaining momentum. Entrepreneurial interest was in evidence last month at Blank Rome’s 2nd Annual Mid-Atlantic Cleantech Investment Forum at the Academy of Natural Sciences.
Between 350 and 400 people attended, up from 150 to 175 last year. Six companies presented and six exhibited, double the number of the previous year, and organizers said 25 applied to present or exhibit, despite no great effort to solicit participants.
"With more awareness and people getting together to bolster it, I think it can certainly continue to take hold," said organizer Thomas Dwyer, who founded a clean-tech practice at Blank Rome with another partner in the Center City law firm, Louis Rappaport.
Another indication of interest is that the clean-tech sector already has a group devoted to it. Cleantech Alliance Mid-Atlantic held six events last year which drew, on average, 200 people.
The alliance was started by Kevin Brown, a senior partner at the Valley Forge office of Hobbs & Towne Inc., an executive search firm specializing in the clean-tech industry, along with Scott Edward Anderson, the founder and principal of VerdeStrategy, which works with clean-tech companies.
"There were a lot of people and companies involved in this space throughout the region, but they didn't know each other," Anderson said.
The region has an impressive and growing set of natural and economic assets to offer clean-tech companies.
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