Baltimore Innovation Week 2014 Program & Magazine by Brian Kirk

baltimore innovation week september 12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;20

A week-long celebration of technology and innovation in baltimore

baltimoreinnovationweek.com | #BIW14 Presented by

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The city has long had a vibrant arts scene. As tech grows, the two worlds are overlapping. inc l uding â&#x2020;&#x2DC; Inno vat ion C el ebr at ion closing party at Under Armour W omen In T e c h s ummi t and Diversity Happy Hour at Aol/Ad.com Bu s ine s s D ay with investors and Baltimoreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coolest startups

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BioPark is proud to support Baltimore Innovation Week. Baltimoreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Premier Innovation District. Where technology talent thrives. Visit our campus during Civic Day @ #BIW14. See the full calendar for details.

IS SENT THROUGH

Welcome A Letter From The Organizers

table of contents Page 05 Hopkins’s role/ student hackers Page 06 Under Armour’s role/ maritime tech Page 08 3D scanning Page 10 Our Code of Conduct Page 11 BIW2014 Calendar Page 18 Baltimore’s art-tech mashups

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Page 21 BIW2014 Sponsors Page 22 BIW2014 Partners Page 23 Baltimore tech by the numbers

about baltimoreinnovationweek.com Baltimore Innovation Week 2014 is the third annual celebration of technology and innovation in the region. The week is organized by local technology news organization Technical.ly Baltimore, in collaboration with more than 70 partners. Special thanks to Betamore cofounder Mike Brenner, Naden/Lean Marketing Director Andrew Rose, ETC Executive Director Deb Tillett, Startup Maryland Co-chair Mike Binko and Greater Baltimore Creative Alliance Executive Director Jeannie Howe.

technical.ly/baltimore Technical.ly Baltimore is a leading local technology news and events organization. It publishes daily content that covers entrepreneurship, access, policy and other ways cities are improving through technology. Its sister publications are in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Delaware and Washington, D.C.

Collaboration is a damn hard thing. People don’t always have the same vision. If you build a movement with enough supporters, you welcome even more perspective. And that comes with challenges. People try different things, test out different ideas and lend support in different ways. It can seem like the process moves slower, but the hope is that the result is so much stronger because of those many voices. Just look at the Baltimore technology and entrepreneurial communities. A generation ago, the idea that something like that could exist here was defended by a few institutional leaders and one-off examples. A decade ago, a larger group of stakeholders began meeting and supporting each other. Today, there are meetups and coworking spaces and investment groups and event series and social networks and, yes, news sites that are all pulling together — sometimes with different tactics but almost all with the same strategy, that a Baltimore better known and better connected for innovation will retain more of its best and come to support more of its most in need. So there isn’t just one university, one incubator or one event that is Baltimore tech. The diversity is its success. It’s not an organism, it’s an ecosystem. Support whom you can and cheer for the rest. We are all better served when we do this together — and to do that, it will always take collaboration. Baltimore Innovation Week is about facilitating those collaborations. In this magazine you’ll find a guide to the week’s events, as well as recent Technical.ly Baltimore coverage of the area’s evolving entrepreneurial ecosystem. With admiration, Technical.ly Baltimore Christopher Wink, Brian James Kirk, Kate Leshko (top row, left to right) Zack Seward, Catherine Sontag, Tyler Waldman, Peter Erickson (bottom row, left to right)

the team

Design and Printing Red Flag Media Logo and Website Jarvus Innovations

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News

The Johns Hopkins University medical campus.

Student hackers top Google app contest A Hopkins junior took home the top global prize in a recent Google app contest. A Towson senior was best in North America. By Tyle r Wa ldma n

Phani Gaddipati knew for two months he had won a trip to San Francisco, but he had to keep it quiet until this week. “I told my family,” Gaddipati said. “I couldn’t really do much else because they didn’t want me to tell anyone else.” The rising Johns Hopkins University junior from Colorado Springs, Colo., and his “Stacks Flashcards” Android app was the global winner of Google’s AdMob Student App Challenge. He will visit Google’s Mountain View headquarters later this month. The contest required students to use Google’s AdMob service. Gaddipati’s app allows users to create or import sets of flashcards to prepare for quizzes or tests. He said it has seen “around 25,000” downloads from Google Play since its late-July release. In addition to the visit to Google, Gaddipati’s award also comes with a featured spot on the Google Play store. Next for the “Stacks” app is more sets of flashcards and other ongoing updates. The North America regional winner also has Baltimore ties. Rising Towson University senior Gabe Brandao won a tablet from Google for his app, Headphone Connect. It automatically launches user-designated apps (say, YouTube) whenever headphones are plugged in. “Headphone Connect was an app I wrote while waiting for my professors to show up to class,” Brandao said in an email. “I never thought that any Android app I made would be good enough to win something of that magnitude.” ➽ get the apps: bltmo.re/hack

Photo courtesy of olin

Hopkins wants to be Baltimore’s innovation leader Can a leading science and technology research university of almost 140 years accelerate its tech transfer efforts? // by Andrew Zaleski When Ron Daniels took the stage in a fourth floor auditorium inside the Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in East Baltimore, he was staring down a veritable Who’s Who of Baltimore city’s tech community: startup founders, the presidents and operators of incubators, people at the helm of deep-pocketed foundations and tech company investors. It was April 30, 2014, Demo Day for DreamIt Health Baltimore, when nine health IT startups would graduate from a four-month accelerator program backed, in part, by the Johns Hopkins University. And Daniels, president of Johns Hopkins, had one message for the startups’ founders anxiously awaiting their turn to present their companies to the crowd of at least 100. “We want you to be successful, but we want you to be successful in Baltimore. Build roots here. Build your company here,” said Daniels. But Daniels took it a step further, and told the crowd it is a “fundamental imperative” for the Johns Hopkins University to help build the city’s innovation ecosystem. “Building this ecosystem is … absolutely critical to the city that we call Baltimore.” It was the sort of argot a room full of tech-company-loving spectators would expect from the president of Baltimore’s major research university. For the 34th straight year, Hopkins is number one when it comes to receiving research funding from the federal government. What made it remarkable is that — for many years and despite Hopkins’ overall prowess in reach, infrastructure and spending capabilities —

Daniels’ university has lagged behind many other top-tier U.S. universities in helping build its local innovation economy through the commercialization of technology thought up in university labs and developed by its own faculty, students and researchers. Hopkins, put simply, has been lagging mightily in tech transfer compared to its elite peers. A report released in early April by the university’s Committee on the Innovation Ecosystem showed that Hopkins brought in $15.9 million from its technology and intellectual property licensing activities in fiscal year 2012, paltry in comparison to the $162 million taken in by Columbia University, or the $137 million made by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That money represents more than just many zeroes on a check — it also means that new companies are being born from university research, which makes them likely to remain in proximity to those universities. So here was Ron Daniels, at a day where the focus was on startups and new technology, saying that the Johns Hopkins University had to be an integral part of technology innovation in Charm City. The question now: can a leading science and technology research university of almost 140 years accelerate its tech transfer efforts to become the anchor institution of Baltimore’s technology community? ➽ read the rest: bltmo.re/jhu

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Under Armour’s Baltimore headquarters. (Photo by Flickr user University of Delaware Alumni Relations, used under a Creative Commons license)

How Under Armour Fits The publicly traded apparel giant is a Baltimore business success story. With wearable tech, will it be an innovation leader? // by Dena Levitz Under Armour has the kind of origin story that MBA students and would-be startup founders dream of. Almost 20 years ago, Kevin Plank turned a problem into a company. While playing football at the University of Maryland, Plank was sick of changing out of sweaty T-shirts worn under his jersey. The frustration inspired him to create T-shirts using moisturewicking synthetic fabric that would cut down on the sweat factor. The product became a business — originally run out of his grandmother’s basement — and the business is now a global empire with thousands of employees. As the company has experienced staggering growth, business and innovation leaders say Baltimore, its longtime headquarters, has also morphed and evolved, with some credit going to Under Armour itself. But the question remains: Just what impact has

the company had on Charm City and its business sector? Rob Rosenbaum, president and executive director of TEDCO, characterizes the innovation community as noticeably stronger than it was even two or three years ago. It’s early yet, but what’s working in Baltimore’s favor is more resources going toward startups and emerging businesses, including new incubators, local foundations and state programs like his. A major contributing force is new companies that have made it, Rosenbaum says. That’s where Under Armour comes in. “Other companies see that a single entrepreneur built a business into a global powerhouse,” he says. “People look around and like to follow and see examples. Under Armour happens to be a spectacular one.” In that sense, its place in the ecosystem is almost as an unofficial mentor, a success story that keeps companies starting and going, he said.

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Deb Tillett, president of the Emerging Technology Centers, also places stock in this notion of Under Armour as an aspirational force for companies, especially in their earlier stages. In some cases, companies in the ETC have met with Under Armour executives to seek input and to try to partner, Tillett says. She mentions Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh talking about the concept of creative collisions, in which peers have serendipitous encounters that spur collaboration. And Baltimore epitomizes this. “We’re big enough and important enough (to

while, Under Armor acquired app-maker MapMyFitness last year. To TEDCO’s Rosenbaum, this shift could result in more of a wearable technology bent to the Baltimore startup ecosystem. He cautions, though, that the wearable market is still shaking out. “Wearables may well become a bigger part (of the startup mix),” he says. “But it’s still a very new segment. A year ago nobody had smart watches or Fitbits, so we’ll see.” What wearables represent to Tillett is a part of the greater phenomenon of big data, which is the direc-

“Wearables may well become a bigger part (of the startup mix). But it’s still a very new segment. A year ago nobody had smart watches or Fitbits, so we’ll see.” have successful entrepreneurs) yet small enough that some people can actually get to a Kevin Plank; they’re one degree of separation from him,” Tillett said. “Others see a successful company that started in the same way they did — ‘I have a cool idea. I wonder what I can do with it’ — and they want to be around it.” In Rosenbaum’s estimation, Baltimore startups currently tend to fall into one of four categories: healthcare, medical devices/health IT, cybersecurity and edtech. In some ways, it’s an outgrowth of the established institutions that fill the city. Over the years Under Armour has expanded the scope of its product offerings and purchased a number of smaller companies, most recently moving aggressively into wearable technology. Samsung is reportedly looking to team up with Under Armor and has been in recent talks with the company. Mean-

tion every company is moving. Better monitoring of data will be disruptive and game-changing, especially for education and healthcare companies, she says. And Under Armour’s focus on wearable technology is pointing to this trend. “The underpinnings of everything is data — capturing it and making it visible — whether you’re talking about actual wearables,” she said. Gregory Sileo, president of the Locust Point Civic Association, in which Under Armour’s headquarters reside, says the company is a frequent topic of conversation. As Under Armour expands, neighbors hope to protect the feel of the community. The general consensus is that Under Armour has brought jobs, skilled workers and increased opportunities to the area — and to Baltimore overall. “They’re employing people who aren’t just working in this local area but becoming true locals,” Sileo said. “The company is very proud to be a member of our community. They’ve been very clear about that and have really taken part in corporate giving.” In terms of the business ecosystem overall, Sileo sees positives in companies emulating Under Armour’s global mindset — and not settling for just doing business in Baltimore. “You can’t get around the fact that a company like this, growing on the international scale, it is a good thing,” he said. “It’s just a matter of ensuring that the growth happens in a manageable way.”

Baltimore tech’s maritime twist From aquatic research to civic hacking projects, sea life has a place in the city’s tech scene. By Z ack S e wa r d

It’s Charm City, it’s The City That Reads, it’s a lot of things. But Baltimore is also very much a harbor city. And that fundamental fact is influencing the city’s innovation scene in interesting ways. “It’s something we are a world leader in,” Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology Director Russell Hill said of Baltimore’s place in the world of marine research.

IMET is pushing the envelope in the science of aquaculture (among other things) by leading an effort to grow bluefin tuna inside its Inner Harbor facility. The organization’s focus is finding practical applications for cutting-edge marine technologies. Baltimore hackers are also getting in on the life aquatic. In June, the city was one of five nationwide to host the U.S. State Department’s Fishackathon. The winning idea from Baltimore was global in scope: a mobile app designed to boost the health of fisheries in West Africa. About 25 programmers turned out to the overnight event. Some 80 coders showed up to the DataBay “Reclaim the Bay” Innovation Challenge held just last month. That state-organized hackathon sought technological solutions to Chesapeake Bay pollution issues. It all comes as the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore continues its Healthy Harbor initiative to make the city’s portion of the Chesapeake swimmable and fishable by 2020. ➽ read our imet coverage: bltmo.re/imet

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Local monument gets 3D-scanned Elevated Element (drone photography) and Direct Dimensions (3D scanning) teamed up on the effort. The results are stunning. // by Tyler Waldman Zoom in on a picture of a building or monument and you’re likely to see all the nooks and crannies. But what if you could fly around the structure and see it all at once, in 3D? That’s something Elevated Element took a test drive — well, a test fly — on early last month. The Owings Mills-based husband-andwife drone outfit met Direct Dimensions CEO Michael Raphael and decided to implement 3D-scanning technology on one of Elevated Element’s shoots. For a proof of concept, they scanned the Francis Scott Key Monument in Bolton Hill. They even 3D-printed a miniature model. “We did this really as a first try,” said Elevated Element cofounder Terry Kilby. “[Direct Dimensions] had us over to their facility and showed us how their technology works.” See the final product: bltmo.re/3d “I think it ended up being a surprise,” Kilby said. “Everybody’s always talking about the big [applications of drones], agriculture, search and rescue, stuff like that.” Elevated Element launched in March, a beneficiary of an administrative law judge’s ruling that relaxed restrictions on commercial drones. ➽ see the scan: bltmo.re/3d

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Why we have a Code of Conduct Our pledge doesn’t stem from any specific incident in Baltimore. Instead, this call for civility and inclusion comes from a desire to welcome more people and perspectives into the Baltimore technology community. // by Kate Leshko For the third annual Baltimore Innovation Week, we’ve organized more than 40 events and are expecting thousands of attendees. It will be a full week of conversation and discovery, and we want to start things off right. That’s why the first thing we’re highlighting is the Code of Conduct. We’re asking all event organizers and attendees to abide by it. The pledge doesn’t stem from any specific incidents. In fact, the Baltimore tech community has a fairly strong reputation for striving to be inclusive, but the technology sector nationally still has a reputation for being something of a boys club. Most specifically, the goal of having this Code is so that we all think about the goal of having a big week of events crammed together: to give attention to worthy people and pursuits, and to serve as an entry point for new people in our community. We should all be particularly interested in bringing new voices into the conversation that we’re all working to strengthen. That goes for all events — though we are additionally focusing on these subjects at the second annual Baltimore Women in Tech Summit and our Diversity Happy Hour during Access Day. Without further ado, here is our Baltimore Innovation Week Code of Conduct.

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baltimore innovation week is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other attendees. Behave professionally. Remember that harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary jokes are not appropriate for Baltimore Innovation Week. Attendees violating these rules may be asked to leave events without a refund at the sole discretion of the conference organizers. Thank you for helping make this a welcoming, friendly event for all.

This Code of Conduct was forked from PyCon’s Code of Conduct Policy, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Shout-out to Corinne Warnshuis, our former events coordinator who first initiated this Code of Conduct before moving on from Technical.ly to become the first executive director of Girl Develop It.

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Friday, September 12 Kickoff Festival with the Gathering 5:00 pm - 10:00 pm @ McHenry Row in Locust Point

Celebrate technology and innovation at the Baltimore Innovation Week kickoff event! For the second year, Baltimore Innovation Week is partnering with the Gathering food truck coalition to kick off the week with an outdoor festival. This year, we’ll be at McHenry Row in Locust Point, where you’ll be able to hear the fireworks from the Star Spangled Spectacular but avoid the Inner Harbor madness.

Saturday, September 13 Code in the Schools Game Jam 8:00 am - 8:00 pm @ MindGrub, 1215 E Fort Ave #200- Free (Code in the Schools)

Stop playing video games and start making them! Code in the Schools’ Annual Game Jam is a one-day event where youth 5th grade through 12th grade work in teams to create an original video game in less than 12 hours! This year, teams will use Unity 2D to design and code video games based on a theme that will be revealed the morning of the jam. Teams will have all day to work on their games and our panel of expert judges will award prizes in the evening. Tracks4

Programming & Play in Pre-K 10:00 am - 5:00 pm @ Baltimore City Robotics Center, 1001 W. Pratt St., 2nd Floor - Free (FutureMakers)

Join a day for educators and families of Pre-K children to learn programming using Primo, an opensource robotics platform designed to teach very young children the basic principles of programming using objects and a physical interface – eliminating the need for a display, or even the ability to read. Baltimore-based FutureMakers and London-based

sat urDay

sept 13

dev

T r ack D ay

Whether you’re new to programming or wanting to sharpen your skills, this conference will include intermediate and beginner workshops

Dev Day 11:00 am - 5:00 pm @ Betamore, 1111 Light Street - $50

Whether you’re new to programming or wanting to sharpen your skills, Dev Day is your day. Select a workshop for lessons on today’s most used languages and programs. (Intro to Database Theory & SQL, Intro to JavaScript, Intro to Rails Stack prime class, Intro to Node.js)

Dev Day After Party and Super Meetup 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm @ Betamore, 1111 Light Street - Free

There are dozens of active user groups in Baltimore, but we don’t often enough come together to make sure we know each other, know which groups are still active, what groups are doing, and where there is room for collaboration. In the spirit of coming together to celebrate tech and innovation in this great community, we are hosting a Super Meetup of all the local tech-related Meetups. Come drink cold beverages, eat snacks and get to know one another. Meetup organizers will each give a shout out about their respective groups.

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Primo.io will lead a day of lesson development and programming skills workshops for educators, and hands-on activities for families with children ages 4 - 7. Tracks4

Learn to Solder Workshop 11:00 am - 2:00 pm @ National Electronics Museum, 1745 W. Nursery Road, Linthicum, MD $45 (National Electronics Museum)

The workshop will include two hands-on soldering projects that will introduce the basics of soldering and teach about various electronic components. At the end of the workshop participants will take home their completed projects, an additional project to complete at home, and the soldering iron they used! Tracks4

Webslam Showcase 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm @ Digital Harbor Foundation Tech Center, 1045 Light Street - Free

The WebSlam Showcase will highlight the web development of Baltimore City youth from their work over the course of a hackathon weekend to create sites for local non-profit and student projects. Come meet the youth teams, watch their pitch presentations, and enjoy seeing the results of this civic-minded creative competition! Tracks4

Monday, September 15 Defense Labs Tech Transfer Event & Showcase 7:30 am - 4:00 pm @ The Marriott Hotel at BWI, 1743 W Nursery Rd. - $70 (Maryland Department of Business & Economic Development)

Are you a company in the fields of cloud computing, network security, interoperability, chemical and biological defense, infectious disease or vaccines? Then you’ll want to attend the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development’s Defense Labs Tech Transfer event which includes panel discussions and a tech transfer showcase. Hear from Federal Labs including NSA, DISA, RDECOM, Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC), and USAMRIID, see demonstrations, speak with inventors, discuss available patents, licenses, collaborations and commercialization of new technologies to add to your portfolio. Tracks4

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sept 15

access T r ack D ay

Join us for the second annual Women In/Tech conference, focused on bringing more women into fields of technology.

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Women In/Tech

Diversity Happy Hour

12:30 pm - 5:00 pm @ AOL, 1020 Hull Street, Ivory Building - $25

5:30 pm - 7:30 pm @ AOL, 1020 Hull Street, Ivory Building - Free

Baltimore’s second annual Women In/Tech mini-conference will bring together various female leaders and community members who have interest in becoming active in technology fields. The event will feature a keynote address, panel discussions, lightning presentations, workshops to learn basic and advanced technical skills, and many opportunities to meet and share.

Volunteer a few hours with others in the Baltimore tech community to help local nonprofits and citizens learn computer skills like resume building, word processing and more during our our Commit Service pledge. Visit CommitPledge. com to make a pledge to serve Baltimore nonprofits with your digital savvy.

Tuesday, September 16 3D Printing, 3D Scanning and Makerspaces 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm @ Baltimore Node, 403 East Oliver Street - Baltimore Node Member: Free, NonMember: $13 (Baltimore Node)

See a presentation by Todd Blatt and Michael Raphael about 3D printing and 3D scanning, get a tour of the Baltimore Node Hackerspace, and see the giant 3’x2’ 80 watt laser in action, design your own keychain to be cut on the laser, see the woodshop, watch a 3d printer, and more! There’ll also be some drinks and snacks. Tracks4

Wednesday, September 17 Near and Far by Patrick Smith 6-8pm @Stevenson University, 1525 Greenspring Valley Rd, Stevenson

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sept 16

business Tr ack Day

Participate in targeted business bootcamps, learn from local leaders on their biggest mistakes, and hear from investors what they’re looking for.

Patrick Smith is a freelance photojournalist currently based in Baltimore, covering the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan region and beyond. The self-taught photographer’s fresh, vivid perspective is often acknowledged in his sports photography, and recently Pictures of the Year International honored Smith as the 2014 Sports Photographer of the Year. Sport: Near and Far showcases a variety of telling sports photographs captured by Smith; from the major leagues to the obscure competitions, from the jubilation of victory to the anguish of defeat. Tracks4

Entrepreneur Boot Camp 8:00 am - 11:00 am @ ETC, 101 N. Haven Street, 3rd Floor - $50

#Failfest: A Conversation in Failure

Community Manager Meetup

2:30 pm - 4:30 pm @ ETC, 101 N. Haven Street, 3rd Floor - $10

Experts will provide the building blocks for constructing the foundational, legal elements of intellectual property, trademarking, litigation, accounting and more. Programmed for entrepreneurs and business owners poised for growth.

If we want bigger business wins, we can’t be afraid for a big loss. Hear from some of the region’s most successful entrepreneurs, both in technology and out.

Regional Investor Roundtable

Bee in the Buzz Baltimore: Networking with a Twizzzt

11:30 am - 1:30 pm @ ETC, 101 N. Haven Street, 3rd Floor - $25

A roundtable of out-of-market venture capitalists about making investments in Baltimore and along the Northeast Corridor.

5:00 pm - 7:00 pm @ ETC, 101 N. Haven Street, 3rd Floor - Free

6:30 pm - 8:30 pm @ ETC, 101 N. Haven Street, 3rd Floor - Free (Community Managers in Bmore)

Media, Creative, Civic Community management is a fairly new position within the workforce. Our job description is fairly vague and while some days we feel like glorified interns, other days confirm just how much we love our job. Every once in a while, a group of us get together to learn from one another, share resources and increase the understanding and importance of our roles as community managers. Tracks4

ETC’s Beehive, Baltimore’s co-working community of freelancers, entrepreneurs and other creative professionals, is adding a twizzt to networking. In 30 minutes, you will play 3 games and gain at least 3 contacts that can help you move your business forward.

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Thursday, September 18 Ignite Baltimore 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm @ LOCATION - PRICE

Five minutes, 20 slides. What would you say? At every Ignite Baltimore, 16 artists, technologists, thinkers, and personalities take the stage to answer this challenge. Our goal is to spark new conversations and collaborations across cultures and disciplines. Tracks4

Friday, September 19 Baltimore Bootstrappers Breakfast 8:00 am - 9:30 am @ City Cafe, 1001 Cathedral St - Free (Bootstrappers Breakfast)

At a Bootstrappers Breakfast®, we have serious conversations about growing a business based on internal cashflow and organic profit: this is for founders who are actively bootstrapping a startup. Bootstrappers Breakfast is a moderated discussion among peers. About ten per table, the conversation is facilitated to allow founders and entrepreneurs to share their challenges and offer ideas and assistance to others. It’s your informal Mastermind group.

Converse: Digital Publication Design 9:30 am - 11:00 am @ The Daily Grind, 1720 Thames St. - PRICE (AIGA Baltimore)

Come discuss the emergence, development & sustainability of digital publications with AIGA Baltimore and What Weekly Magazine. Exchange ideas on how designers can leverage the modern technological landscape for digital publication design. Tracks4

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sept 17

civic T r ack D ay

Business leaders, politicians, bureaucrats and citizens will meet to discuss social enterprise, the creative class and technology’s economic impact.

#SocEnt Breakfast 7:30 am - 9:30 am @ University of Maryland BioPark, 801 W. Baltimore Street

SocEnt is a forum and platform for idea sharing, resource exchange and connecting among Baltimore’s social entrepreneurs, nonprofit and civic leaders, community advocates, grant-makers, and social investors. More details coming.

Economic Impact of Technology Sector Roundtable 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm @ University of Maryland BioPark, 801 W. Baltimore Street - Free

This panel will focus on economic development and business taxes that affect the tech economy in Baltimore.

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Bridging the Gap: Connecting Cultural Institutions and Learners in the Digital Age 11:30 am - 1:00 pm @ University of Maryland BioPark, 801 W. Baltimore Street

Cultural institutions, including, amongst others, museums, environmental and science centers, and historical societies, represent educational centers of excellence in today’s society who have traditionally relied heavily on onsite traffic from learners to fulfill their educational missions. However, with U.S. schools taking upwards of 50% less field trips than during the pre-recession and pre-standards emphasis-era, cultural institutions are actively exploring ways to reach more learners digitally. This roundtable lunch will bring education & marketing staff from cultural institutions and school leaders together to discuss how an increase in connectivity and technology in the classroom can help set the stage to digitally bridge the gap between organizations of expertise and modern learners.

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media

Marketing, media and Track D ay public relations have changed dramatically in the digital age. Hear from leading experts who are not only responding to the change but helping to shape it.

Future of Digital Marketing 1:30 pm - 6:00 pm @ Baltimore Museum of Art, Woodward Gallery, 10 Art Museum Dr - $75

The Future of Digital Marketing Event is an afternoon focused on digital trends that marketers, agencies, content producers, and startups need to know. Local thought leaders will walk us through marketing challenges— and how to solve them.

Startup’s Guide to PR , C E O, G ray B u g M i c h a e l O ’ R o u rke

d Marylanng is Possible.

Where everythi Download our FREE whitepaper at

simplyevolve.com/startups

O c u l a r d r u g d e l ive r y c o m p a ny G ray B u g is combating blindness—one of 500 life science companies making Maryland a wo r l d l e a d e r i n b i o t e c h . L e a r n m o re a t C h o o s e M a r y l a n d . o rg.

Depar tment of Business and Economic Development Mar tin O’Malley, Gover nor • Anthony G. Brown, Lt. Gover nor

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creative Track D ay

Find the intersection between art, media, entertainment and technology at our our biggest celebration: the Baltimore Innovation Week Closing Party.

MID-ATLANTIC MARKETING SUMMIT 7:45 am–6:00 pm @ Pier 5 Hotel, 711 Eastern Ave

Fab Lab Baltimore Presents: Press Fit Construction 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm @ Fab Lab Baltimore, 800 S. Rolling Road, HTEC145, Catonsville, MD 21228 - $15 (Fab Lab Baltimore)

Participants will compete to see who can build the longest span out of laser-cut components! This contest will cost $15 per person and include an introduction to designing for the laser cutter as well as an overview of the machine operation. Tracks4

Saturday, September 20 8th Annual Battle O’Baltimore First Robotics Competition 9:00 am - 4:00 pm @ McDonogh School, 8600 McDonogh Rd., Owings Mills, MD - Free

Dev, Access The atmosphere is part rock concert/sporting competition/NASCAR with 120-lb. robots passing exercise balls and scoring goals, with the help of their human players and robot alliance partners. Come meet the students and watch the action! This off-season event allows new members to experience a competition before the new season starts in January. Tracks4

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This summit is the region’s premier event in marketing, technology, communications and media. This one-day event will bring together over 300 marketing and communications executives to discuss high-level issues through a series of panels, keynotes, presentations and networking.

Innovation Celebration 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm @ Under Armour, 1020 Hull Street, Tide Point - $30

Celebrate Baltimore Innovation Week at our largest event! Last year, more than 200 attended this cocktail reception meets an interactive local technology expo and demo party. And yes, there will be an open bar. This is a celebration of the broad Baltimore technology community with many of Baltimore Innovation Week’s attendees, sponsors and organizers.

We’re hiring. We can tell you more at #BIW14’s Dev Day, taking place Saturday, Sept. 13. Check the full calendar in this magazine for details. - Engineering - Risk Analysis - Security - Marketing and more!

See all available jobs at http://bltmo.re/paypal

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WHEN ENTREPRENEURS MEET ARTISTS Baltimore has a generations-old strength in the visual and experimental arts. As the city’s technology and entrepreneurship communities mature, a new kind of innovation is taking the lead.

Section1 is a rugged 3.5acre space underneath the Jones Falls Expressway. (Photo by Nicole Fallek)

he Jones Falls Expressway was extended in the 1980s to be a pathway for suburban drivers coming into downtown Baltimore. As much as it still fills that role, the highway is also a strange scar: it removed some of the density that future development may have otherwise breathed life into. Of course, if you ask your fair share of artists and entrepreneurs, they’ll tell you constraint is a necessary catalyst for creativity. “The best ideas are adaptations of the limitations of our environment,” said Richard Best, the former military intelligence officer turned graduate of a dual MBA-MA design leadership program from Hopkins and MICA. When Best, a native of Atlanta, was first showed the popular and informal graffiti gallery underneath a portion of the expressway bridge near Penn Station in September 2012, he was captivated. He also came to believe there was an opportunity to strengthen the existing tagging community while adding to Baltimore’s experimental arts credentials. That’s the origin of Section1, an arts organization Best cofounded that will start by developing 3.5 acres between the polluted Jones Falls and the Fitzgerald Apartments. The acreage is literally under the highway but when Section1 is finished it will be an “urban arts park.” [➜]

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Best, who has a background as a muralist, is both a creative force for Section1 and its lead suit. He’s planning a business development strategy and helping to lead negotiations with the Maryland Transit Administration for a long-term lease and Amtrak for formalized access. “Artists have a long history of being uncomfortable with business,” said Best. But rather than being a corruptible influence, artists and creative class leaders like him in Baltimore are exchanging ideas with founders, investors and technologists to create an entirely new kind of enterprise. The arts/tech confluence has, increasingly, added entrepreneurship to the mix. “If you can’t fund your vision, it remains just an idea,” said Best. It’s a balance his dual MBA has helped him keep, and one that represents a change in how Baltimore arts and tech are coming together to get work done.

ince its founding in 1982, Artscape has become one of the country’s largest free annual arts festivals. The eclectic displays on and around Mount Royal and the blossoming Station North neighborhood have become a celebrated Baltimore tradition, the anchor to the city’s case for being one of the most creative midsized American cities. It figures then that in July, Gamescape, the video game development demo exhibit that has run alongside Artscape since 2010, moved to its largest space yet this year — the former Single Carrot Theatre at 1727 N. Charles St. From a half-dozen presenters the first year, Gamescape had 25 in 2014. Among the trends pushing that growth has been the strengthening of the creative game development talent that was once housed at larger companies like Zynga East and Impossible Studios. Mobile-based and more lightweight web-based games from smaller startup firms are changing what game development looks like. Games are being built and lasting because these firms are balancing quality with revenue. For this last Gamescape, “We had to turn a lot of people away,” said Ben Walsh, the event’s organizer and founder of Pure Bang Games. The Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance has held mixers for artists and founders; the prestigious Hopkins Peabody Institute has a music entrepreneurship center; and cultural organizations like the Walters Art Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art are embracing members of the technology and entrepreneurship communities as collaborators. A growing makerspace community is being born right out of the tech entrepreneurship community that has blossomed in the last five years. Founded in 2009, Baltimore Node, which feels like the coolest grandfatherly cellar you’ve ever been in, has active members, like Jason Denney and John Cutonilli, who are connected to the city’s startup and wider creative class set.In 2013, Jason Hardebeck, then the director of the now defunct Greater Baltimore Technology Council, launched the Foundery, another membership-based maker space, on South Central Avenue near Jonestown. Once an executive with Dewalt and interested

Richard Best is the founder of Section1. (Photo by Christopher Wink)

above Developed for Baltimore electronica musician Dan Deacon, Wham City Lights is now a fully-fledged startup selling a crowdsourced app-based light show experience to event promoters. (Photo courtesy of Wham City Lights). left The Foundery makerspace on Central Avenue near Jonestown is part of a network of facilities connecting Baltimore’s entrepreneurial, technical and artistic communities. (Photo by Christopher Wink).

in manufacturing, he had become one of the most recognizable faces among Baltimore’s tech-entrepreneurship set. Today he leads the local DreamIt Health program, an accelerator for tech startups in the health IT space. From the onset, Hardebeck wanted to build the Foundery with “a sustainable model,” though “there’s little money in makerspaces,” he said then. There’s still some discomfort among those building efforts with the arts in mind first. Where profit is a bedrock goal for the entrepreneurial class and competitive hiring has made technologists among the best paid knowledge workers in the country, there is a fuzzy framework for whether too much revenue might sap the spirit from a creative endeavor. “You do have to think about authenticity,” said Keith Lea, the CEO and cofounder of Wham City Lights. The company’s first prominent product is a mobile app that when downloaded on a user’s phone can be controlled to participate in a synchronized multi-user light show. It was conceived by Dan Dea-

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con, the celebrated Baltimore electronic musician, and his Wham City crew known for their eclectic underground shows. Much of that group isn’t associated with the startup anymore, though many of them are still doing experimental art. But Lea and his small team are trying to sell the technology to an ever expanding group of paid conferences, pop concerts and more general interest groups. That’s part of the strange contrast when the art world enters the profitable one. Still, Lea says that arts and entrepreneurship really aren’t that different. It’s just a different language for the same things.

or Best, it’s embedded in what he hopes Section1 can be. One hot August afternoon, Best is in a suit jacket over a t-shirt with jeans, chain smoking and pointing toward what might become ‘the street art hall of fame.’ For now, it’s just a line of graffitied columns under the expressway with rocky ground and a handful of feral cats. ✱

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Partners

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BALTIMORE TECH BY THE NUMBERs Technology Meetup members

13,772 (27th nationwide)

Baltimore Makerspaces 1.

Fab Lab Baltimore 800 S Rolling Rd, Catonsville, MD fablabbaltimore.org

Baltimore Node 403 E Oliver St, Baltimore, MD baltimorenode.org

Baltimore Hackerspace 4602 Powell Ave, Baltimore, MD baltimorehackerspace.com

Baltimore Foundery 207 S Central Ave, Baltimore, MD bmorefoundery.com

Baltimore Under Ground Science Space (BUGGS) 101 N Haven St, Baltimore, MD bugssonline.org DMC MakerSpace Johns Hopkins Homewood Campus Baltimore, MD digitalmedia.jhu.edu/ makerspace

Unallocated Space 512 Shaw Ct, Severn, MD unallocatedspace.org

Digital Harbor Foundation Tech Center 1045 Light St, Baltimore, MD digitalharbor.org

Baltimore Tech Facebook group members

91% 2,615 18.1 (4th nationwide)

(2nd nationwide)

Technology Meetup membership growth in 2013

Maryland cybersecurity job postings per 10,000 residents

The regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s manufacturing and artistic communities are increasingly meeting its hackers and technologists at old industrial spaces with tools, 3D printers and plans to build. Here are eight of the most active. TOWSON

PARKVILLE 3

GWYNN OAK

6 2 4

BALTIMORE

DUNDALK

CATONSVILLE

SEVERN

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