DC: The Next Great Tech Sector?

The District has set forth many lofty goals. And making the city a tech haven is at the top of the list. But will DC become the next Silicon Valley, or be as fake as...well, the other kind of silicon?

If Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Victor Hoskins (whom we snapped last night) has anything to do with the process, you can count on it. Victor spent last weekend in Austin touting the District to techies and hipsters at SXSW; hesays DC should be the largest technology center on the East Coast in five years, according to the Mayor's economic development plan. How do we get there? Provide affordable office space to tech startups, launch a nationwide marketing campaign to attract more tech jobs (though that figure has gone up 100% in the last 10 years, he says), and create an innovation hub at the St. Elizabeths campus. But Victor cautions the city must find value in what it spends to become a tech hotbed.

The Deputy Mayor made the comments at an African-American Real Estate Professionals of DC event held at the DC Economic Partnership on F Street, where we snapped AAREP prez Craig Dean of Knoll with WDCEP CEO Keith Sellars. Keith accompanied Victor to Austin for SXSW, and the Deputy Mayor praised Keith's efforts for creating "the strongest brand" at the festival.

Also snapped: Coldwell Banker's Margie Bates and Capitol Area Development's Ann O'Neal.

Speaking of SXSW,Bisnow was on the front lines of the festival and snapped none other than Mayor Gray, flanked by a couple of DC tech masters: 1776 co-founder Evan Burfield and Blackboard founder Michael Chasen.