Baltimore Innovation Week 2013 Program & Magazine by Brian Kirk

baltimore innovation week september 20–29

A week-long celebration of technology and innovation in baltimore

Searching for

www.baltimoreinnovationweek .com Presented by

Baltimore’s hub of innovation Is the University of Maryland’s 12-acre BioPark our biggest chance for the future?

full calendar inside featuring more than

A p p e a r a nc e s b y Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake,

video game legend Sid Meier, best-selling author Wes Moore, investor Frank Bonsal III and more Op ening Pa r t y @ Penn Station with the Gathering

tech events

food trucks and closing Innovation Celebration in Tide Point t e c h n i c a . ly • b a lt i m o r e i n n o va t i o n w e e k . c o m

b a lt i m o r e i n n o v a t i o n w e e k . c o m â&#x20AC;˘ t e c h n i c a l . ly

Welcome A Letter From The Organizers

People tend to seek out definitions.

Sometimes, tough questions are the most important. To define a community — what is the technology scene? To define a celebration — why throw a slew of events during the same week? To define a city — how can either have any impact on Baltimore at all? In truth, those tough questions are important ones. Since launching our local tech news site more than a year ago to cover and convene the entrepreneurs and investors and developers and makers and everyone online in between, we have been pushed on why we need to exist. The answer, of course, is also the definition to all of those questions: it’s you. Communities and celebrations and cities are built by people who take pride in something and want to have impact and be known for it. That’s why it’s always made sense for us to get involved in trying to make more of you aware of each other, through news, events or late-night email introductions. That’s why we want to help bring together the more than 40 events of Baltimore Innovation Week with the help of more than 70 partners and growing. Technology is about new thinking. Celebration is about inclusivity and pride. Baltimore can be everything we want it to be if we work hard and embrace each other. Baltimore Innovation Week is just meant to be a start. With admiration, Technically Baltimore Christopher Wink, Brian James Kirk, Andrew Zaleski and Corinne Warnshuis (pictured top to bottom)

credits

table of contents

baltimoreinnovationweek.com

Page 05 Welcome the hackers

Baltimore Innovation Week 2013 is the second annual celebration of technology and innovation for the region. The week is organized by local technology news organization Technical.ly Baltimore in partnership 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, Greater Baltimore Creative Alliance Executive Director Jeannie Howe and Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore Chief Operating Officer Jen Meyer.

Page 06 Mission into entrepreneurship Page 07 BIW2013 calendar Page 11 Where does innovation live?

cover story

Page 13 BIW2013 Sponsors

technical.ly 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 better with technology. There are sister publications in Philadelphia and Brooklyn.

Page 14 BIW2013 Partners Page 15 Visualizing Baltimore’s tech scene

Design and Printing Red Flag Media Logo and Website Jarvus Innovations

p h o t o s b y n e a l sa n t o s

t e c h n i c a l . ly / b a lt i m o r e • b a lt i m o r e i n n o va t i o n w e e k . c o m

WE CREATE INCREDIBLE DIGITAL EXPERIENCES We create incredible mobile, web, and desktop applications for some of the world’s most recognizable companies. You’re awesome, we’re awesome. Check us out at cynergy.com and consider being awesome with us.

Strategy Leads Technical Leads • Delivery Managers

User Experience Leads Developers • Business Analysts

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www.cynergy.com — careers@cynergy.com •

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WASHINGTON, D.C.

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SEATTLE

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PHOENIX

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HOUSTON

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GRAND RAPIDS

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DETROIT

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ROCHESTER

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BALTIMORE

Graduate programs that work... MPS in Information Visualization MPS in the Business of Art & Design MBA/MA in Design Leadership http://www.mica.edu

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News

All-female team EZ Resume at Hack for Change Baltimore.

Baltimore tech exits you need to know Who says Charm City hasn’t had its own big startup acquisitions? Here is your handy guide for recent big tech business exits. By Christoph e r W in k →→ Sourcefire, the Columbia-based cy-

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bersecurity firm, was purchased by Cisco Systems for $2.7 billion in cash in July 2013. Moodlerooms, the online learning management system, was acquired by Blackboard in fall 2012. Connections Education Inc., the online K-12 education company, was acquired in 2011 by London-based Pearson for $400 million. WhoGlue, an early social networking tool, was acquired by Facebook in 2011 for an undisclosed amount. Blue Sky Factory, the email marketing firm, was bought by Atlanta competitor WhatCounts in July 2011 and later reported $4.8M in 2010 revenue. Bill Me Later, the online credit startup, was acquired by eBay in 2008 for about $820 million in cash and $125 million in other options. Sylvan Learning Systems, which provides tutoring and testing services with online learning tools, spun out Laureate Education that was acquired for $3.8 billion by a group of investors. Advertising.com, the digital ad network, was acquired by AOL in in 2004 for $435 million in cash. ToadNet, an IT firm that became an early broadband ISP, was acquired for more than $4 million in 2004.

P h o t o c o u r t e s y o f g b .t c

Memo to City Hall: Welcome the hackers Baltimore city leaders are growing relationships with a local technology scene hungry to play with data. But will their work change Baltimore government? // by Andrew Zaleski Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake may have looked a bit out of place among the 50 software programmers gathered early one Saturday morning in June for a weekend hackathon. Of course, these hackers were gathered for good. They had assembled to participate in Baltimore’s first Hack for Change event, whereby small teams dove into publicly accessible government data, determined to find technology-based solutions to persistent municipal problems. Nonetheless, the juxtaposition was noteworthy: the city’s chief executive standing feet from several hackers combing through a database of Baltimore’s 16,000-plus vacant properties. Strides have been made here and countrywide to bring together city bureaucrats, the traditional gatekeepers of city data and government agencies’ information, and civic hackers, a new breed of activist-innovator who wants untrammeled access to all government data, even the stuff that might prove unflattering to a politician or city official. Blending what might be called Old Bureaucracy and Civic Hacktivism is delicate. The former favors a gradual approach to change, as multiple stakeholders need to be courted and, in some cases, coddled.

The latter fixes broken lines of code 15 minutes after midnight, running on nothing but cold pizza and Red Bull. What could cordially marry the two is making a clear case for why increased access to more government data is necessary to keep a 21st-century municipality honest and efficient. Some of that interplay is already happening in Baltimore. OpenBaltimore, the online portal for such data, has been expanded and updated since new city CIO Chris Tonjes began his tenure in July 2012. At June’s civic hackathon, organized by gb.tc, it was announced that Heather Hudson would become Baltimore’s first-ever Chief Data Officer, responsible for collecting city agency data into a machine-readable format—easier to read and download, in other words. On Wed. Sept. 25, during Baltimore Innovation Week, City Council’s first public hearing on the technology economy will surely brush upon government transparency. What remains to be seen is if these digital in-roads can deeply change city agencies with entrenched workflow and a culture of skittishness. As freshman Councilman Brandon M. Scott told Technically Baltimore in July: “We’re doing a great job of sharing more data, but we still have a long way to go.”

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Technology from Wham City Lights at work during a Brad Paisley concert televised on CBS

News Putting Mission into

Entrepreneurship The social entrepreneurship movement of combing revenue strategy and impact goals is growing in Baltimore, but what’s going to put it on the map? By A n dr e w Z a le ski

Turn on your cell phone for this concert Wham City Lights is a Baltimore-born tool that national concert promoters are using to let fans be part of stadiumsized light shows. // by Jenn Ruckel The only thing better than attending a concert is helping to create it. At least, that’s according to the developers of Wham City Lights, a smartphone app that puts concertgoers in the middle of the action with a synchronized light show beaming straight from their phones. The lighterwavers of yester-year are finally getting an upgrade. Baltimore-based musician Dan Deacon, visual artist Alan Resnnick and software engineer Keith Lea brainstormed this now-hit technology, hoping to further engage the audience at their shows. The app debuted in July 2012, and has since sparked light shows on Brad Paisley’s Beat This Summer Tour and the 2013 Billboard Music Awards. The Wham City Lights team — a crew of fewer than 10 employees — also works with musicians to develop

their own apps, which use audio signals to link the phones without connecting to WiFi, piercing through outside noise. “None of us are business people,” Lea joked, though the company has added customers and interested brands, thus far without venture capital or marketing of any kind. Though word-of-mouth has been effective, Lea said, the team is ready for investment so they can execute new ideas. While many startups are building apps that use audio signal, Wham City’s unique model is uncharted territory for live events, and they haven’t found serious competitors yet. “We’re always experimenting with what our app can do… That’s what really drives us—how can we push this,” said Lea.

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When entrepreneurship is a national fixation and flowering tech scenes are joined by nonprofit leaders, community activists, artists and others like them, you find social enterprise growing. That’s “any commercial activity that leads to a positive social outcome,” said Rodney Foxworth, a chapter leader of the Maryland Social Enterprise Alliance and a co-organizer of Baltimore’s monthly Social Enterprise Breakfast. The other frequently used word for this type of work is social entrepreneurship, and there are plenty of local examples. Mission: Launch offers job training to ex-offenders. The Greater Washington Green Jobs Corps trains workers from impoverished neighborhoods in cleantech. “We’re trying to get to the root cause to change systems,” said Foxworth, 29. That’s always been the work of nonprofits, except now these groups are looking to blend their social missions with commercial components to keep their projects sustainable, and not wholly dependent on capital fundraising or donations from deep-pocketed supporters. And while some nonprofits, like the East Baltimore-based Humanim, have found a way to build up commercial ventures to sustain their socially-focused work, there’s still plenty of growing left to do on social entrepreneurship in Baltimore. “We’re in the same place with this where local tech was 10 years ago,” Foxworth said.

Mission: Launch founder Laurin Hodge with Governor Martin O’Malley. Hodge won runner-up in the Bootstrapper category in the state’s first Pinterest Business Pitch Contest.

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access Business civic cre ative de v

Wednesday, September 18 #SocEnt Breakfast 7:30 am – 9:30 am @ Humanim, 1701 North Gay St, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013socent; Free w/ RSVP

#SocEnt Breakfast 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. Track4

Friday, September 20 Using Technology To Advocate, Build Communities and Fulfill Your Organization’s Mission 8:30 am – 1:30 pm @ TBD; http://bltmo.re/ biw2013advocate; Free w/ RSVP

You’ve set up a page on Facebook, you’ve tweeted on Twitter, and you’ve posted videos on YouTube. Come learn from other Baltimore-area nonprofit organizations and social enterprises as they discuss what they’ve done that has and hasn’t worked and ask them questions about your organization’s challenges. Track4

TEDxBaltimore City 2.0 8:30 am – 5:30 pm @ Baltimore Urban League, 512 Orchard Street, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/ biw2013tedx; $10

Opening Party In Station North 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm @ Penn Station Plaza; http://bltmo.re/biw2013opening; Free

Station North Arts and Entertainment District is joining forces with Food Truck Gathering and Baltimore Innovation Week for the week’s Opening Party. Hosted at Penn Station Plaza, enjoy delicious food and great music while participating in Baltimore’s first Geek Games.

Betamore Friday Happy Hour 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm @ Betamore, 1111 Light St, Floor 4, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/ biw2013happyhour; Free w/ RSVP

On Sept. 20, 2013, TEDx communities across the globe will host local events featuring the local innovators, organizers, stewards and builders of their cities. Approximately 100 attendees will gather to watch a national livestream in conjunction with selection of local speakers.

Come mingle with other entrepreneurs and growth resources in the city and sip on some tasty (free) beverages and light fare sponsored by CBRE.

Board of Directors: How to Establish One and Get the Most out of It

Cupcakes & Computers: WIT Community Event For Girls

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm @ Maryland Center For Entrepreneurship, 9250 Bendix Rd, Columbia; http://bltmo.re/biw2013board; $20

Join Sean Roddy, COO Watkins Meegan, as he discusses best practices surrounding the establishment and effective use of an advisory board. Track4

Saturday, September 21 Cyber STEM Academy 8:00 am – 12:00 pm @ ETC Canton, 2400 Boston Street, Factory Building, 3rd Floor, Baltimore; Free w/ RSVP

Immersive 3D LLC and the Cyber STEM Academy Advisory Board will bring together the best of Baltimore’s ED Tech business community, teachers and members of academia as well as curriculum and content publishers for a morning of cross-pollination. Track4

Rails Girls Columbia

5:30 pm – 7:00 pm @ /training/etc, 7150 Riverwood Drive, Suite J Columbia; http://bltmo.re/biw2013cupcakes; Free w/ RSVP

Bring your K-12 girls to help get them interested and excited about computers and technology. We will have age based activities for the girls along with pizza and of course…cupcakes! Track4

9:00 am – 3:30 pm @ /training/etc, 7150 Riverwood Dr, Suite J, Columbia; http://bltmo.re/biw2013rails; Free w/ RSVP

During this free workshop, middle and high school girls will jump into the exciting world of building web applications with Ruby on Rails & meet new friends along the way. No experience required – just curiosity! Limited spots are available. Track4

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WordCamp Baltimore 9:00 am – 5:00 pm @ Thumel Business Center, University of Baltimore, 1420 N Charles St, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013wordcamp; $20 - $50

WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress, the free and open source personal publishing software that powers over 25 million websites. This is Baltimore’s second official WordCamp. Track4

Battle O’ Baltimore FIRST Robotics Competition 9:00 am – 4:00 pm @ The Boys’ Latin School of Maryland, Gelston Athletic Center, 822 West Lake Ave, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013battle; Free w/ RSVP

The atmosphere is part rock concert/sporting competition/NASCAR with a blizzard of flying discs and 120-lb. robots climbing a pyramid tower. Come meet the students and watch the action. Track4

Video Game Wizards’ Family Game Jam 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm @ Baltimore Museum of Industry, 1415 Key Hwy, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013famgamejam; Free w/ Admission to the BMI

The first ever Family Game Jam invites the entire family to flex their creativity and create art for an upcoming video game exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Industry. No experience necessary, and open to anyone who loves games and art. Track4

Baltimore Collides 9:00 pm – 11:00 pm @ Paparazzi Night Club, 407 E. Saratoga St, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/ biw2013collides; Free w/ RSVP

Join us for a night of creative collaborations between the eclectic art & tech worlds of Baltimore. With mind blowing light shows & live streamed interactive performances, Baltimore Collides brings the city’s hottest young indie artists and tech startup founders center stage for a night full of spectacular performances & visual displays. Track4

Sunday, September 22 Women/InTech 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm @ Advertising.com, 1020 Hull St # 100, Baltimore; http://biw2013womenintech; $25 - $35

Baltimore’s inaugural Women/InTech conference will bring together women from across the tech and innovation community at all stages of their careers to learn, network and empower one another. The event will feature panels and presentations as well as workshops to learn basic and advanced technology skills. Free for students. Track4

Monday, September 23

10:00 am – 12:00 pm @ Orianda House at Leakin Park, 1901 Eagle Drive Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013hackparks; Free w/ RSVP

Baltimore Innovation Week 2013 Kickoff Breakfast 8:00 am – 9:30 am @ Betamore, 1111 Light St, Floor 4, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/ biw2013kickoff; Free w/ RSVP

To kick off the second annual Baltimore Innovation Week, come to a breakfast with some of the leaders who are shaping the future of Baltimore. The event is being held and sponsored by local technology news site Technical.ly Baltimore, in partnership with Betamore, and will feature speakers, introductions and networking.

Tuesday, September 24 #Innov8-N-Breakfast@8 8:00 am– 11:00 am @ Maryland MEP, 8894 Stanford Blvd, Ste 305 Columbia; http://bltmo.re/biw2013innovatebreakfast; Free w/ RSVP

Creating profitable growth is within the reach of every organization open to the concept of innovation. The Maryland MEP would like to invite all businesses and entrepreneurs to join us for breakfast and an overview of a systematic approach to innovation. When services and products are Meaningfully Unique, employees are proud and motivated, management is optimistic and profits increase. Come see where you are on the Innovation Lifecycle Curve! Track4

Hack The Parks Demo Day

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Join Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the Mayor’s Office of IT, Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks, and gb.tc for a demonstration of the six projects funded through the Hack the Parks program. The grant recipients are excited to share their summer of progress with all of Baltimore. Track4

Bridging The Digital Literacy Gap Among Generations 11:00 am – 12:30 pm @ AARP Maryland 200 St. Paul Pl. #2510 Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/ biw2013digitalliteracy; Free w/ RSVP

So grandma doesn’t understand your online life and your little cousin is making poor choices on social media? Why can’t we all work together for a more digitally literate culture? All generations are using the social web, but there is an inherent breakdown between generations. Join a discussion to help bridge digital literacy gaps between the generations led Jen Lee Reeves, AARP’s Manager of Social Communications and Training. Track4

State of Startups 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm @ University of Maryland BioPark, 801 West Baltimore St, Baltimore; http:// bltmo.re/biw2013stateofstartups; Free w/ RSVP

An afternoon of learning and exchange about innovative business trends happening in Baltimore focused on entrepreneurship and investment. Network with investors and hear from some of the region’s most successful entrepreneurs and technology thought leaders. Track4

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm @ Mindgrub Technologies, 640 Frederick Rd, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/ biw2013augmented; $25

Google Glass creates a new kind of computing that’s more about people than it is about computers. In this session, we’ll look at Glass in people’s lives with emphasis on how to use the cloud API to build new experiences and bring people closer together. Track4

hear a handful of tech leaders discuss what should be done in the community to continue improving it.

Wednesday, September 25

Augmented Reality: Building New Experiences With Google Glass

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Baltimore TechBreakfast 8:00 am – 9:30 am @ DLA Piper LLP, 6225 Smith Ave, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/ biw2013techbreakfast; Free w/ RSVP

Interact with your peers in a monthly morning breakfast meetup. At this monthly breakfast get-together techies, developers, designers, and entrepreneurs share learn from their peers through show and tell / showcase style presentations. All the presenters will be from university spin-outs funded by TEDCO and the MII program.

Build Your First Mobile App with HTML5 9:00 am - 1:00 pm @ TBA; http://bltmo.re/ biw2013apigee; Free w/ RSVP

Build your first mobile app in 5 hours! Apigeeks take you through the process of using cutting edge technologies like HTML5 and PhoneGap to create an interactive app. You’ll learn how to power your data using Backend APIs! Track4

Wearable Electronics Workshop 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm @ Fab Lab Baltimore, CCBC Catonsville Campus, Building H, Room 145m 800 S. Rolling Rd, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013wearable; Free w/ RSVP

Startup Grind Baltimore Hosts Wes Moore 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm @ Loyola University Maryland (4th Floor Programming Room), 4501 North Charles St, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013startupgrind; $25

Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs through monthly events in more than 40 cities and 20 countries featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share personal stories and lessons learned on the road to building great companies. Free for Loyola students. Track4

The Power Of Data Visualization: A Workshop With ADG Creative and Column Five

Trends in Mobile 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm @ UB Student Center 21 W. Mt. Royal Avenue, 5th Floor; http://bltmo.re/biw2013trendsinmobile; $10

An afternoon of learning and exchange about trends in the mobile industry happening right here in Baltimore.Come for lightning talks on mobile innovation, broader panels on mobile technologies and a conversation bringing these topics all back together. Track4

6:30 pm – 9:00 pm @ ADG Creative, 7151 Columbia Gateway Dr, Columbia; http://bltmo.re/biw2013adg; $10 - $25

A new generation of consumers is more cynical than ever with regard to brands and their messaging. Reaching them is challenging; appealing to them is a formidable task. The creation of this visual content is enabling communication in a way that is at once engaging and simple to understand. We will look at why the visualization of information is so effective and how to best use it to achieve your objectives. Track4

Participants will create a wearable electronic project of their own design. A brief introduction to Inkscape will be taught. Inkscape is a free, open-source graphic design program that can create files to be cut on the laser cutter. Basic material will be provided, including assorted fabrics, fasteners and adhesives, and an LED kit. Track4

Baltimore City Council Hearing on the Innovation Economy 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm @ Council Chambers, City Hall 4th Floor, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013council; Free

Join Technical.ly Baltimore and the Housing and City Council Community Development Committee for the first ever technology, policy and innovation economy hearing in front of by Baltimore City Council. Come to

The Future of Commercial Real Estate: Coworking, Startups, Technology & More 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm @ Offices of WarHorse LLC 100 International Drive, Suite 2110 Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013cre; $30

With the popularity of coworking facilities and office sharing on the rise, the traditional office space is no longer the driver behind large commercial transactions. Baltimore based real estate analytics startup retrievRE will showcase their new website which creates an efficient CRE marketplace and a great platform for small businesses trying to navigate through their space requirements.

3D Manufacturing OPEN HOUSE 5:00pm – 7:00pm @ hotDesks, 31901 Tri-County Way, Salisbury, 21804; http://hotdesks.org; Free

Spend a couple hours networking with others interested in 3D printing and manufacturing. Students and faculty from Towson University’s Object Lab will be providing “show and tell” on Makerbot® printers in addition to representatives from Stratasys demonstrating larger 3D printing machines appropriate for larger prototype and manufacturing uses. There will be a 20-30 presentation by an area manufacturer involved in utilizing 3D (Additive) Manufacturing within their production.

Baltimore Education Innovation MeetUp 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm @ An Estuary, 1101 E. 33rd St, ETC at JHU Eastern Campus Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/ biw2013educationmeetup; Free w/ RSVP

Baltimore Education Innovation MeetUp gathers to discuss and celebrate the discoveries and innovations being made by educators, edtech developers, advocates for education innovation across the city. This will be the kickoff event for this group. Light refreshments and great music will be provided. Track4

Thursday, September 26th Tech Meet & Share: Baltimore City Fiber 8:00 am – 9:30 am @ Curran Room, City Hall 100 N. Holliday St. Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013fiber; Free

Baltimore’s Chief Technology Officer, Chris Tonjes, will discuss the city’s strategic plan to improve and expand internet access for residents and businesses.

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6:00 pm – 9:00 pm @ Brown Center, Maryland Institute College of Art, 1301 W Mt Royal Ave, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013ignite; $5 - $10

9:00 am - 1:00 pm @ TBA; http://bltmo.re/ biw2013apigee; Free w/ RSVP

Homelessness, Technology & Youth 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm @ Health Care for the Homeless, 421 The Fallsway, Baltimore; http:// bltmo.re/biw2013homelessness; Free w/ RSVP

For most youth, Internet connectedness is a way of life, even for those without homes. This panel will talk about how technology is used by youth who are homeless and begin a conversation about how service providers and other can use technology to better serve these youth. Track4

EdTechWomen Baltimore Chapter Kickoff

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.

NewsUp Live! 8:00 pm – 10:30 pm @ Alonso’s Restaurant, 413-415 W Cold Spring Ln, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013newsup; Free w/ RSVP

Play trivia, compete for prizes, and catch up on the news, all while enjoying local food and drink specials from Union Craft Brewing. We will be joined by journalist, Andrew Zaleski of Technically Baltimore, for a brief discussion on “The State of Baltimore Tech.”

Zero Gravity Creations Product Release & Open House 6:30 pm – 10:00 pm @ Zero Gravity Creations Glass Studio, 6800 Eastern Ave, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013zerogravity; Free

8:00 am – 9:30 am @ Vocus - Community College Training Room, 12051 Indian Creek Ct, Beltsville; http://bltmo.re/biw2013socmediavideo; $25

Curious about whether you can afford video in your social media marketing campaign? Liz Thibodeau of Take One Digital Media will discuss how you can design video to fit your budgetary needs.

WebSlam is an intensive, two week long experience where students aged 13-18 develop real-world skills in web development and then put those skills to work to help others. As a capstone to the week of learning, students solve the needs of actual clients (nonprofits) and build websites in an intensive hackathonstyle “WebSlam.” Track4

Innovation Celebration closing party 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm @ Tide Point; http://bltmo.re/biw2013closing; $20 - $30

In partnership with the completion of the month-long Pitch Across Maryland from Startup Maryland, Baltimore Innovation Week will officially close the event with the Innovation Celebration, a cocktail reception meets interactive local tech expo and demo party. Yes, there will be beer and wine. Expecting more than 300, this will be the week’s biggest single event.

6:00 pm – 8:00 pm @ Digital Harbor Foundation Tech Center, 1045 Light St, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013webslam; Free w/ RSVP

Join us for a Grand Open House event to celebrate the publishing of Zero Gravity Creations pending patent application! Come see our blown glass faucets, stylish furniture, chandeliers and light fixtures which will be offered for sale. Be among the first to see this young startup take off. Track4

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8:00 am – 8:00 pm @ Digital Harbor Foundation Tech Center, 1045 Light St, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013webslam; Free w/ RSVP

WebSlam is an intensive, two week long experience where students aged 13-18 develop real-world skills in web development and then put those skills to work to help others. Track4

Code in the Schools Construct 2 Game Jam

Social Media Marketing Forum Meeting: Designing Video to Fit Your Budget

WebSlam Hackathon

Join the EdTechWomen Baltimore founders for the chapter kickoff facilitated networking social and conversation aimed at bringing together women in the area to identify interest, needs, and goals for a connected community of women in edtech.

WebSlam Hackathon

Friday, September 27

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7:00 pm – 9:30 pm @ Tavern on the Hill, 900 Cathedral St, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013edtechwomen; $10

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Saturday, September 28

Ignite Baltimore

Build Your First Mobile App with HTML5

8:00 am – 8:00 pm @ Bully! Entertainment, 921 E. Fort Ave, Ste 215, Baltimore; http://bltmo. re/biw2013construct2gamejam; Free w/ RSVP

Come join Code in the Schools as they host a Construct 2 Game Jam! Construct 2 is a game engine that allows students to make their own games and apps that are directly up-loadable to the Microsoft store. Student teams will spend the day using the Construct 2 game engine to make themed games and the winners will receive glory AND prizes during the awards ceremony from 7-8pm. Track4

WebSlam Finale Showcase 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm @ Digital Harbor Foundation Tech Center, 1045 Light St, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/biw2013webslam; Free

WebSlam is an intensive, two week long experience where students aged 13-18 develop real-world skills in web development and then put those skills to work to help others. Through the aid of tech coaches and direct instruction, youth participants (irrespective of prior web development background) learn the basics of HTML, CSS, and PHP through developing for the WordPress platform. Come see the students demo their projects for the public.

Mobtown Moon 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm @ Goucher College Kraushaar Auditorium, 1021 Dulaney Valley Rd, Baltimore; http://bltmo.re/ biw2013mobtownmoon; $25

The long-awaited premiere of Mobtown Moon, an epic re-imagining of Pink Floyd’s classic “The Dark Side of the Moon” album. Featuring dozens of Charm City’s most creative, talented musical artists. Don’t miss the world’s first and only banjo accordion bassoon jazzy rockin’ drop-dead gorgeous Floyd tribute.

Feature The University of Maryland BioPark will celebrate 10 years of growing a research and innovation campus along Baltimore Avenue. A slew of new buildings, including this 180,000 square foot medical research facility, are planned to open in 2015.

Searching for Baltimore’s hub of innovation Pockets of innovation in the city are growing throughout the city. As some say, the more the better. // by Andrew Zaleski

here’s construction happening at 873 W. Baltimore St., the large-scale kind where the hums of big motors mix with commands shouted by workers wearing reflective traffic vests with dust-caked beards hidden beneath yellow hard-hats. ¶ But down the street, at 801 W. Baltimore St., there’s construction of a different kind. A slew of biotechnology startups, spread out over six floors and more than 200,000 square feet, are slowly building companies, discovering new biomolecules, developing new treatments for cancer and thinking up new ways to store living tissue for research. ¶ Within a few years time, the hole at 873 W. Baltimore St. will be a new 200,000-square-foot multi-tenant building—housing more biotech startups—the third of its kind at the University of Maryland BioPark on Baltimore’s west side. For a decade now, this sort of development in and around the BioPark has, by all means, made a slice of West Baltimore a hub for innovation. It’s a feeding ground for early-stage startups, and just one place where Baltimore’s broader technology community congregates.

“Being in the cluster holds high value,” said Jane Shaab, BioPark executive director, Baltimore native and early tech business leader, and someone who has lived in Baltimore city for 37 years. “Smart people, entrepreneurial people—the juice is people, it’s ideas, it’s people being together and being able to formally and informally push ideas forward.” Shaab’s argument is a variation of the one championed by Harvard economist Edward Glaeser in “Triumph of the City,” and it’s the same argument that benefits a local tech scene that is dispersed in strategic pockets of activity throughout Charm City’s neighborhoods: put bright, ambitious people around one another, and watch sparks fly. Taxes, schools and culture had made Baltimore tech a suburban story, but along with the BioPark, the city has its share of flourishing communities of dense innovation clusters. [➜]

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→→ Canton claims the publicly-traded, global mobile

advertising firm Millennial Media and is the home to the more startup-minded Emerging Technology Center until it relocates this fall. →→ Tide Point is anchored by Advertising.com, acquired by AOL in 2004 on the Under Armour campus. →→ Fells Point has creative agencies within walking distince to coffee shops and restaurants. →→ Johns Hopkins University is a wide-ranging jobs engine, from its research work to the Social Innovations Lab to the education technology startups in the Eastern campus ETC. →→ Incubators, whether it’s Betamore in the heart of Federal Hill, or Hopkins’ FastForward near Druid Hill Park, aren’t isolated to one neighborhood. “The clusters start out, and they need to expand, and people want to know that there are other people around,” said Deb Tillett, president of the Emerging Technology Center, which is moving its Cantonbased office into the third floor of the old King Cork and Seal Building on North Haven Street, north of Highlandtown. “You can have multiple places like this,” Tillett said. “But you can’t just do it arbitrarily.” A reticence to purposefully build hubs of technological activity in Baltimore belies a more philosophical argument to be had about how, and why, certain neighborhoods are more popular for early-stage tech, the startups and the people. You might not find many young startups in downtown Baltimore, where higher rents cultivate a more buttoned-up established business community. But you will find it in a place like Federal Hill, near other existing startups—and the bars that a younger crowd frequents. That’s some of what motivated Mike Brenner to cofound Betamore, an incubator-cum-coworking space that opened in December 2012, across from Cross Street Market in Federal Hill—an area perhaps better known for attracting the sort of clientele that lines up shots at MaGerk’s or other game day bars. “We wanted to create a first dot where we are, and then have things move out concentrically,” Brenner said. [Full disclosure: Brenner is a partner of Technically Baltimore’s, and there’s a chance you’ll find TB staff working from Betamore on some days.] “We don’t think we should be the hub, but we should be a hub.”

Given the sometimes provincial, parochial sensibilities of some Baltimoreans, branding your own venture as a hub of startup tech activity—saying your place essentially owns the city’s tech community—smacks of that arbitrariness that Tillett warns of. (Of course, the same might be said of the ETC, with its top-down launch funding from the Baltimore Development Corporation.) Not to mention that there are companies in other neighborhoods in Baltimore that don’t necessarily fit the mold of the tech-based software startups that have sprouted wildly nationwide in large ecosystems. The Baltimore Node makerspace is on Oliver Street in Station North, caddy-corner the Baltimore Design School and in the midst of one of the city’s most celebrated neighborhood revitalization efforts. The new Baltimore Foundery makerspace sits on South Central Avenue across from Stratford University—and several blocks north of the new office of e-commerce startup Groove Commerce, which is moving from its office inside the Canton-based ETC into a brand new building.

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As attractive as it is to seize onto one neighborhood in Baltimore, brand it the city’s “tech center,” and then insist everyone converge en masse, that’s just now how it’s been done here—or anywhere else, really. The city is the center. The city is largely where the growing tech community lives now, and universities and developers and businesses are finding new ways to bring that community together physically, at a time when telecommuting is easier than ever before. New construction will undoubtedly come in places where tech companies already are. But there’s no one place within Baltimore city that owns the ideas. Instead, there is a sprinkling of innovation in a dozen places, at intersections and incubators, in buildings and certain blocks. “Entrepreneurial activity—there are no borders to that,” Shaab said. “People socialize with each other. They seek funding from the same sources. They’re the things that matter.” And those elements, if one looks hard enough, can be found throughout Baltimore.

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Dave Troy, the CEO of Canton-based software firm 410 Labs and TEDx Mid Atlantic coorganizer, is a pretty connected guy. Since he started his first tech business in 1986 as a 14-year-old, he has been an entrepreneur and leader in Baltimore’s technology and innovation communities. So he wanted to know: how do the various corners of the region’s ecosystem interact? That’s when he began using social media data, from LinkedIn and Facebook, to visualize

relationships. Most recently, he took to a trove of data from 1,500 of the 2,000+ members of the popular Baltimore Tech Facebook group to chart the connections he had to a host of some of the largest communities that are active in the broad technology environment. What does he see?: “This isn’t the whole story, but it’s part of the story, and it gives a sense of who spends time with whom and where relationships have formed over time.”

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