A recent cohort of the University City Science Center’s STEM education program FirstHand is featured in a short film produced by UnitEd for Equality.

The film highlights what the high schoolers have learned — and why they’re intrigued by and pursuing careers in technology.

UnitED for Equality is a program created by Strayer University in partnership with the Blackhouse Foundation, which works to elevate diverse voices in filmmaking. UnitED reached out to the Science Center about a year ago with interest in featuring FirstHand, a spokesperson said. Local director André Robert Lee filmed and interviewed the FirstHand team and students, as well as Paul Robeson High School for Human Services Principal Richard M. Gordon IV, earlier this year.

The program, first launched in 2014, offers project-based and career-exposing programming to local schools and community org. The program went virtual during the pandemic, but the Science Center was still able to work with more than 250 middle and high schoolers from 12 Philly schools. It recently received funding from the state to expand its reach.

In the midst of what’s on track to be the Philadelphia’s regions best best year for venture capital deals ever, life sciences are making a strong showing, too.

According to a new report from CBRE, raised $777 million in venture capital in just the first half of in 2021, already eclipsed the total of the last two respective years — and the report makes a case for local life sciences activity reaching $1.4 billion this year.

…Lab space devoted to the life sciences has become a major occupant of commercial real estate in the region. Life sciences leasing increased from 2019 to 2020, and so far 2021 is on track to at least meet last year’s amount: Philly saw 400,000 square feet in the first half of this year, compared to 800,000 square feet in the entire year of 2020. Significant leases signed by the likes of Spark Therapeutics and Century Therapeutics — which lives in the soon-to-be-expanded CIC Philly — within the last year have contributed to the trend.

The life sciences sector is growing, and Pittsburgh has an opportunity to become a leader in this space. Will real estate leaders and developers answer the call?

According to a mid-year report on life sciences real estate by Newmark, the sector is on a record pace of generating $9 billion in investment in the first half of 2021, with more than 27 million square feet of wet lab space under development in 14 markets throughout the country.

Michael Dembert, director of development for Wexford Science + Technology, which is partnering with the University of Pittsburgh on the $330 million Assembly project in Bloomfield, compared the interest in life sciences in the wake of the pandemic to the defense industry after 9-11.

“When you have a global health crisis like Covid, I think you would naturally see more focus and more interest in vaccine development and using Covid as an example of how you can be prepared,” he said. “I think you probably saw the same thing after 9-11 with the amount of defense spending afterward. It’s something that’s in the public eye more than it was before.”