{"id":285739,"date":"2026-09-14T13:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T13:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/285739\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T13:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T13:26:10","slug":"science-center-names-charlene-caposecco-firsthand-stem-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/285739\/","title":{"rendered":"Science Center names Charlene Caposecco FirstHand STEM director"},"content":{"rendered":"

Power Moves<\/a>\u00a0is a recurring series where we chart the comings and goings of talent across the region. Got a new hire, gig or promotion? Email us at\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Philly\u2019s tech and innovation ecosystem got a refresh this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Science Center<\/a> welcomed a new director to lead its STEM education program, FirstHand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Grassroots groups are also rebuilding community. Civic tech leaders launched City Counsel, a reboot of the Open Access Philly meetup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Plus, Mom Your Business<\/a> is piloting a Black Innovation Alliance<\/a> tool that helps entrepreneurs assess their businesses.<\/p>\n

Check out all the details and more power moves below.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Science Center taps experiential learning expert to lead STEM programs<\/p>\n

Charlene Caposecco joined the Science Center last month as its new FirstHand senior director of STEM education initiatives. She is taking over the decade-old program<\/a> that invites Philly students to participate in hands-on science and technology activities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Caposecco started her career in arts education, working for orgs like Build a Bridge where she brought arts programming in homeless shelters in North and West Philly. She taught the subject in Philly\u2019s public school system for a year and then moved to a charter school.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before joining the Science Center, Caposecco was director of experiential learning at Young Scholars Charter School, where she planned hands-on lessons and real-world experiences.<\/p>\n

In that role, she worked with FirstHand\u2019s former director to bring students from her school to the Science Center, she said, making this move a full-circle moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In her new position, Caposecco wants students to have more say in their education and more chances to share their ideas, she said. She also wants students to have more chances to go into working labs and meet people in the industry to see that they can do it too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis lab has become a safe place for our students,\u201d Caposecco said, \u201cbut how do we get them in and out more? And that it\u2019s actually giving them opportunity and having a piece of that economic pie.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tech leaders revive cross-sector meetup group\u00a0<\/p>\n

Longtime civic tech leader Jeff Friedman, along with his co-organizers Kelsey Hubbell, Cat McManus and Erin Santamoor, in August launched a reboot of the 2010s meetup group Open Access Philly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Called City Counsel<\/a>, the meetup plans to bring together people from across sectors to its bi-monthly meetings. Each gathering will center on a theme, with speakers kicking off the conversation, Friedman told Technical.ly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many wonderful people, programs, institutions, and businesses in the city, and we see this as a platform for visibility, awareness, elevation,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Started in the early 2010s, Open Access Philly centered on open-data projects and connected people from different industries who were doing interesting work, Friedman said. The group stopped operating about a decade ago when organizers moved on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Post-pandemic, many of the tech ecosystem\u2019s meetup groups did not bounce back, leaving people feeling the lack of community<\/a>. After finding people to co-organize with, Friedman felt like it was the right time to bring back some of that connection, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTen years ago it was like let\u2019s do open data for open data\u2019s sake,\u201d Friedman said. \u201cNow we\u2019re more interested in working backwards from some desired impact.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mom Your Business tests entrepreneur resource platform\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mom Your Business partnered with the Black Innovation Alliance, a nonprofit coalition of Black-led entrepreneur support orgs, to conduct the inaugural pilot of its new tool for entrepreneurs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Source Code assesses businesses in five areas: operations and systems, teams and time management, financial clarity, customer and market strategy and infrastructure for scale. Then, the tool identifies steps entrepreneurs can take to grow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[It gives] entrepreneurs a look at where they really are,\u201d Tanya Morris, founder and CEO of Mom Your Business, told Technical.ly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Morris hopes the tool can help more entrepreneurs grow their businesses enough to hire employees and create more jobs in Philly, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many folks start a business and [don\u2019t] really know where they are or what it\u2019s going to take for them to grow long term,\u201d Morris said. \u201cWe want to be able to use Source Code in every area of what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leadership power moves:<\/p>\n

Malvern-based medtech company Tela Bio appointed<\/a> Heather Getz as the company\u2019s CEO and director.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gloria Bell is the new interim executive director<\/a> of Zipcode Wilmington, taking over from Desa Burton.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Consultancy Orchestra Life Sciences hired<\/a> Charles Conroy as its COO.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jonathan Klear joined<\/a> the team at commercial real estate company Colliers as an executive vice president in its Mount Laurel office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mural Arts Philadelphia named<\/a> Emily Mello as its executive director.<\/p>\n

Medical device company Actuated Medical appointed<\/a> Oguz Cataltepe to its medical advisory board.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Metro Cities Council, a national network of chamber leaders, elected<\/a> Chellie Cameron, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, as chair.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Co-founders Sam Alaimo, Rob Huberty, and Dustin Brooks left their executive roles<\/a> at AI weapon detection company ZeroEyes. All three will serve as advisors on the company\u2019s Founders Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Software company CluePoints selected<\/a> Martin Magazzolo as its chief commercial officer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More power moves:<\/p>\n

Comcast technologist Jaylen Sanders started a new role<\/a> as an agentic AI senior software engineer at the telecom giant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Independence Blue Cross partnered<\/a> with healthtech company Hippocratic AI on a voice AI feature. Customers can use the tool to navigate resources and ask questions about their health plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Greater Philadelphia Growth Partnership won an award<\/a> from the International Economic Development Council for its Come for Philadelphia, Stay for Philly campaign in the advertising category.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Centro Business Consulting ranked<\/a> No. 4,488 on the Inc. 5000 2026 list. This is the third consecutive year the company made the list.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Global financial services company SEI integrated<\/a> an AI assistant specifically for financial advisors through its partnership with Zocks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania\u2019s Department of Community and Economic Development launched<\/a> the Keystone Agtech Alliance with Penn State, Team Pennsylvania and Innovation Works. The org will focus on opportunities for agtech innovation across the Commonwealth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Wistar Institute welcomed<\/a> Guangfeng Zhou as an assistant professor at the research institution\u2019s Center for Advanced Therapeutics. Christopher McGinnis also joined<\/a> Wistar as an assistant professor in the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Power Moves\u00a0is a recurring series where we chart the comings and goings of talent across the region. Got…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[271,24621,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-285739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-career-development","tag-leadership","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}