When I got to Philadelphia in 2004 there was not much of a tech scene to speak of. At least not one I could see. As I would find out later, a lot of the people were here, but they had not yet coalesced into a community. Within a few years, however, events like Ignite Philly and the first BarCamp Philly began to reveal a Philadelphia that looked a lot like the temporary tech community I witnessed every year at SXSW Interactive.

This whole time I was a filmmaker, having made my first movie in high school, when editing meant wiring two VCR’s together and hoping for the best. So it was only a matter of time before my two passions collided.

In 2012, my co-producer Maurice Gaston and I began shooting the web series Developing Philly, about the rise of what we called the “innovation community” in Philadelphia (because “tech” was just too narrow). We interviewed luminaries like Alex Hillman, who helped define coworking not just for Philly, but for much of the world, Wil Reynolds, who showed how you can build a tech business that helps sustain a neighborhood, and Josh Kopelman, who took lessons from the last tech boom to empower this one.

Earlier this year, we completed the series and debuted the first episode during Philly Tech Week. It ran for seven weeks, got lots of acclaim, and is available now at DevelopingPhilly.com. It was very fulfilling to give back, in our own way, to the community we love by attempting to document it and how it has impacted - and been impacted by - the city we love.

My co-producer and I are working on season two now, but first we have to go run that very conference that helped build this community. In part based on our work with Developing Philly, we’ve been asked to organize this year’s BarCamp Philly! How’s that for coming full circle?

You can check out the first episode of Developing Philly below:

Episode One – “The End Is the Beginning”