Get Pittsburgh is a microsite of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, produced by brand consultancy The Machine.

Our mission is to tell the Pittsburgh story as it is. Demystify old clichés about rust-belt towns and share the awesome stories that are happening here. The collaborative culture. The innovative dining scene, avant garde art spaces, parks, rivers and trails. All our community is doing to change the world. We’re at the cutting edge of robotics, AI, machine learning and life sciences. Currently developing self-driving cars, trucks, drones and helicopters. Sending exploratory robots to the moon. Teaching the world foreign languages and redefining how we gift each other. Developing vaccines to get us out of the pandemic. 

Pittsburgh has a fascinating story to tell, and our goal is for the whole world to get that story. To understand how we stay close to go far. To get Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh is a city with a magical scale. Often we find places, cities, parks, museums, online platforms that range from overwhelming to almost claustrophobic. For many people the Manhattan skyline, the Louvre collection, Sao Paulo traffic or a Netflix list can be nothing short of saturating, feeling lost in the enormity and anonymity. Yet others find an Amish community, a small town theater or a Paris beach, as confining and limiting as an airplane seat.

Pittsburgh has a gifted balance. It is big enough to matter and small enough to make a difference. The richness of choice without the overabundance of gentrification. The exquisite art installations at the Mattress Factory. The intimate labyrinthic trails at Frick Park. Thirty five miles of every imaginable terrain to bike on. The ability to see an arena rock band in an intimate club. Kayaking across three rivers and under countless bridges. The fish, meat and Italian markets, Mexican bodegas or Asian and Polish delis in the Strip District. Bar hopping in the South Side or relishing in a restaurant scene where you can have anything from an Argentine empanada to a Thai summer roll. Pittsburgh solves the paradox of less is more and more is more. Pittsburgh has emerged as the micropolis.

This mysterious scale materializes from its heritage, its evolution and a culture of authenticity. A city that comes from old wealth but responds to new thinking, that has built outstanding universities and R&D centers to reinvent itself from industrial steel to life sciences and transformative technologies. But make no mistake, this is no Wall Street or Silicon Valley. That’s not how Pittsburgh rolls. This is a city that has flourished through its own intellectual curiosity and collaborative nature.

The thriving tech scene is not inundated with unicorns or big corporate complexes. It is a fabric of transformative startups at the cutting edge of the latest technologies that are changing the way we live and work. Robotics, natural language programming, machine learning, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, fintech, life sciences and the list goes on. These startups, early-stage companies and their founders compete with determination, but with an effortless collaboration in an ecosystem that amplifies the impact they can make far beyond their individual means.

At a time when many people are reevaluating their lifestyle and work choices, Pittsburgh offers a unique environment of magical scale and collaboration that is evolving into the perfect model of a city. A city that knows how to stay close, to go far.