There's been a flowering in Baltimore in the area of event planning and organizing, among the tech/entrepreneurial crowd. Social media has really connected people like never before. One of the more dynamic groups at the moment is the Baltimore Tech Facebook group, which is an organic mass of 600+ members. (Are you a member yet? And while you're at it, follow BaltTech on Facebook too, for news updates from me.)

One of the points I make in today's article is that some of the traditional groups normally behind Baltimore tech events -- TEDCO, Emerging Technology Center, and the Greater Baltimore Tech Council, for instance -- find themselves attending as many, or more, independent community events as they now organize for the community. Such as yesterday's Practice Your Pitch event, organized on the Facebook group and held at Naden/Lean in Cockeysville.

Monica Beeman tweeted about Practice Your Pitch here. And I expect local video tech guru Eli Etherton to post a video soon of all the pitches and feedback. I'll post it here when he does.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: *NEWS*, Big Ideas, East Coast, Entrepreneurs & Risk Takers, Events (Baltimore area), Social Media
        

The East Coast tech scene is a pretty silo'ed place. You obviously have entrepreneurs and investors up and down the coast, from Boston to New York to Baltimore to DC. But everybody usually seems to play in their own market, for the most part.

Some in Baltimore (including yours truly) are yearning for a more regional perspective. After kicking around some ideas on a Facebook group, a Baltimore tech geek named Mike Subelsky (that's him above, in my own mockup illustration -- hope you don't mind, Mike!) came up with an idea:

Why not ride an Amtrak train up and down the East Coast for a day, talk to startups along the way, and blog, tweet, video, podcast like a crazy fool about the "Amtrak Corridor" tech scene?

"My idea was to meet with at least one tech leader in each city," Subelsky said. "Maybe somebody you don't normally hear from, the on-the-ground entrepreneurs."

It's an idea, I posit, that could only come out of Baltimore. This city is basically at the crossroads of the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. We don't think we're at the center of the universe. We're open to getting to know our neighbors well. For now, Subelsky's calling it "Geek(s) on a Train" -- which makes reference to another nerd effort called "Geeks on a Plane," which takes entrepreneurs and investors to visit tech companies in foreign lands.

I spoke with Subelsky today and he's lined up a sponsor to cover his Amtrak ticket for a day. He's got an itinerary planned out, with stops in cities such as Washington, Baltimore (obviously), Philadelphia, New York and Boston.

He's looking to undertake the trip in January and, most importantly, he's eager to hear from startups up and down the East Coast from Washington to Boston. He hopes to spend an hour at each stop, conduct audio interviews with entrepreneurs, and then hop back on the train and post updates by blog and Twitter. He's also planning a podcast that'll cover his entire trip.

If you're on the East Coast between Boston and Washington and want to be a part of Mike's "Geek on a Train" adventure, he'll take your email at mike@subelsky.com. And feel free to cc: me on it, too, over at gus.sentementes@baltsun.com.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Big Ideas, East Coast, Entrepreneurs & Risk Takers, Events (Baltimore area), Events (DC/No. Va. area), Startups
        

This past weekend, Baltimore's first "EduHackDay" was held over at Digital Harbor High School in Baltimore.

Educators teamed up with computer geeks to build web and mobile apps for education. In many ways, Baltimore is becoming a little hotbed of education technology, and this grassroots effort to percolate ideas was a great effort.

I didn't get a chance to go to the event, because I was out of town. But with the help of Mike Brenner, one of the co-organizers and an advocate and conncector of startups in Baltimore, I'll share some details.

In Mike's words, here's how the weekend-long event unfolded:

We had roughly 70 attendees: ~ 40 developres, 20 designers, 10 teachers. We let the teachers pitch their ideas, read some some educator ideas that were pitched on our wish list from a global pool of teachers, and then let developers come up and pitch their own ideas. From that, we ended up voting on our favorite ideas, ending up with 10 ideas to work on throughout the weekend.

Quick take away from me: I wanted to stimulate more activity from within our entrepreneurial community and thought education was a worthy customer / product to go after. I didn't expect folks to reinvent curriculum this weekend but I wanted to put the right problems and people in the room to show that there's a viable opportunity to build education technology products here in Baltimore. We need to be building less photo sharing apps and instead, more things that are meaningful.

The judges were:

Frank Bonsal, general partner at New Markets Venture Partners
Matt Van Italie, CAO of Baltimore City Schools, KIPP, McKinsey
Brian Eyer, Principal at Digital Harbor High School
Tom “TK” Kuegler, GP at Wasabi Ventures
Tom Murdock, Founder at Moodlerooms
Bill Ferguson, State Senator for Maryland
Scott Messinger, City Schools Teacher & Ed Tech Founder

The winning app ideas:

1st - Digital Harbor

2nd - Pluck

3rd - Pedante

4th - ParentConnect

5th - Board Speak

6th - CheckPlus

7th - Hey, Teacher

8th - What's Due?

9th - Baltimore School Watch

10th - Toader, a MakerBot project

Below are some screen shots of some of the projects:

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: *NEWS*, Apps, Big Ideas, East Coast, Entrepreneurs & Risk Takers, Events (Baltimore area)
        

Hey -- are you an entrepreneur? Are you busy working your tail off every day to bring your dream to life?

Well, you may want to take a break on Monday to visit the state's first Entrepreneur Expo, over at the BWI Airport Marriott. There'll be lots of networking and schmoozing, I'm sure. And some noteworthy speakers, too. (Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend -- I'll be traveling that day, a "geek on a plane," so to speak.)

There is a registration fee. Details here.

TEDCO, the state agency that's lead organizing the event, says the Entrepreneur Expo will include:

• The Marketplace: home to business, university, technology transfer and entrepreneur exhibits and demos.

• Innovation Launch Pad: featuring Maryland’s coolest entrepreneurs, a panel of judges and live voting.

• Mentoring: More than 50 mentors on-hand all day for one-on-one business consultations.

• Entrepreneur Open Mic: a public forum like no other for entrepreneurs to create their own buzz.

• Social Media Clubhouse: for social media wanna-be’s up to pro engagers.

• Town Square: where all the action begins and continues throughout the day.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: *NEWS*, Events (Baltimore area)
        

I recently caught up with Sharon Webb, the new-ish CEO of the Greater Baltimore Tech Council, for a nice long chat about technology, the GBTC, and entrepreneurial activity -- oh, and raising multiples. (She's a parent of triplets and I have twins.)

Since I've been covering local tech the last 2+ years, I've definitely noticed a big surge in networking and startup events. The GBTC is sometimes involved, sometimes not.

So the main line of questioning I took with Sharon was: Can the GBTC be relevant in a world where anyone (with a half decent reputation and set of connections) organize meetups, talks, breakfasts, panels and events.

Here's the full interview with Sharon. Take a look.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: *NEWS*, Big Ideas, East Coast, Entrepreneurs & Risk Takers, Events (Baltimore area), Social Media
        

If there's one thing entrepreneurs like to do, it's network. And Maryland's entrepreneurs are apparently about to get that in a big way this November. The state's technology development entity, TEDCO, is spearheading the first Entrepreneur Expo on Monday, Nov. 14, at the BWI Airport Marriott in Linthicum Heights.

The event is taking place during the worldwide Global Entrepreneurship Week. [Registration is $99. More details here.]

The event has the title of "Harnessing the Power of Innovation in Maryland."

The first quote in the official press release today is from Gov. Martin O'Malley ("Entrepreneurship is part of the engine of our state's economy"), who has seized job creation through technology as one of his economic goals. [Remember O'Malley's InvestMaryland initiative passed earlier this year in the General Assembly, which pumps $70 million into tech startups around Maryland?

So, based on the agenda and the "about" page on the expo's site, we can expect an event filled with budding entrepreneurs, potential investors, legislators, university officials and federal lab officials, to name a few. Hit the jump for the full press release:

Continue reading "Maryland to hold first "Entrepreneur Expo" in November" »

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: *NEWS*, Events (Baltimore area)
        

Give a big hello (and "follow" on various social networks) to Andrew Hazlett, the Greater Baltimore Tech Council's new "innovation community manager."

Catch his blog here.

Back in June, I wrote about this new job created at the GBTC. It's great to see someone else who's going to be writing about the tech and entrepreneurial scene in Baltimore.

Andrew has a pretty diverse background, as he writes, in journalism, government, urban public policy and book publishing.

I'm looking forward to following the stuff he does. 

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: *NEWS*, Big Ideas, East Coast, Events (Baltimore area), Social Media
        

For the tech geeks, entrepreneurs and business advocates kicking around in Harford County, Md., this event may be for you:

On Tuesday, June 14, Pike Powers, widely regarded as the "godfather" of Austin, Texas's thriving technology scene, will be talking about how the county can develop itself into a "technopolis."

Austin, as you may know, has the quirky saying for itself: "Keep Austin Weird." I challenge you all to come up with a saying for Harford County.

"Keep Bel Air quaint"?

Powers is a lawyer and investment executive with decades of experience in promoting growth in Austin. He'll be speaking from 7:30 am to 9 am at the Maryland Golf and Country Clubs, 1335 East MacPhail Road in Bel Air.

According to a press release, he'll discuss how Austin developed itself into a tech hub. He'll be joined in his talk by Harford County Executive David R. Craig and Major General Nickolas Justice, senior mission commander of the Aberdeen Proving Ground and a major employer in the county.

The base also supports many contractors and small businesses that work with the Army installation.

The event is sponsored by the Harford County Economic Development and Harford County Chamber of Commerce. Tickets are $25 per person. Reservations: 410-838-2020. www.harfordbusiness.org.

P.S. Due to some persistant spam attacks, we've temporarily disabled commenting on BaltTech. In the meantime, hit me up on Twitter (@gussent) or Facebook.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Maybe you've been to a large event where cellphone reception has been spotty due to the huge crowds.

Many large venues, such as sports stadiums, are nowadays working with telecom companies to add fixed gear that helps with cellphone communications traffic.

Wireless companies also have more mobile technology that they can deploy on the spot, to boost cellular transmissions. Meet AT&T's "COW" -- or cell sites on wheels. The company has deployed two of them to Pimlico Race Course, in preparation for the huge crowds tomorrow during the Preakness. Upwards of 100,000 are expected to attend -- and many will have smartphones that will stretch the capacity of wireless networks.

The COWs are in addition to the free Wi-Fi network that the Maryland Jockey Club is deploying during the event.

So, if you're planning to use your iPhone or Android, for instance, to play with the Preakness's smartphone app, during the day, hopefully you won't experience any delays or glitches.

Here's the AT&T COW in a Pimlico parking lot:



Photo courtesy of AT&T Wireless

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: East Coast, Events (Baltimore area), Gadgets, Wireless
        

Yesterday was TedxBaltimore -- a half-day of speakers and performers who fired up a group of Baltimore thinkers and doers, per the "TED: Ideas Worth Spreading" tradition.

Techies and technologists were well-represented at TedxBaltimore. Among them were Dan Deacon, absurdist composer and electronic musician; Tom Loveland, tech company CEO and Baltimore's "Google Czar"; Todd Marks, founder of two tech companies that specialize in Web and mobile app experiences; Paul Palmieri, CEO and co-founder of Millennial Media; Carol Reiley, researcher in surgical robotics; and Mike Subelsky, entrepreneur and startup cofounder of Otherinbox.com, as well as a cofounder of Ignite Baltimore.

Whew.... that was a mouthful.

I was particularly interested in Paul Palmieri's talk (at about the 1 hour, 35 minute mark), about the "importance of enjoying one's work." Palmieri is leading Millennial, a Baltimore company that's currently hot, hot, hot -- Millennial is competing directly against Google and Apple in the mobile ad space. No small feat. (The company, based in Canton, is also on a hiring spree lately.)

One gem from Palmieri: "If you do something that you love, you will never work another day in your life."

Millennial, many expect, will go public in an IPO next year -- if it isn't acquired by then. It's always interesting to see the people that a CEO/founder of a hot company lists as his influences.

Watch the video below:

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

So this weekend, I ran a few errands: I went to the bank, dropped off recycling, cleaned my house, worked, and tried to pay some fatherly attention to my kid.

Sounds like a typical weekend for a lot of folks, right? Well, not for the uber-ambitious people who spent 2 1/2 days of their lives breathing, eating and sleeping the Baltimore Startup Weekend experience. That's some of them below.

I wrote a story about the event for entrepreneurs and techies here. But it didn't quite do it justice. There were a TON of great ideas there, and super-motivated people who made a lot happen in a weekend. I saw prototypes, alpha versions, beta versions, and almost-ready-for-primetime versions.

In the 2+ years I've been covering these types of events in the Baltimore area, I have to say that, in my outsider's view, this was perhaps the strongest one, in terms of raw idea power and get-up-and-just-do-it initiative.

Baltimore's tech scene indeed has come a long way.

It helped that about half of the crowd seemed to be coming from out of state. This is, net-net, not a bad thing. We want outsiders being attracted to Baltimore. Let them move here. Let them connect with talented folks here. And hopefully, let them find some office space to call home here for their business. It is a good thing when Baltimore is seen as a place that's friendly to the shiny brightness of risk-taking entrepreneurs.

That said, Startup Weekend was a competition and there were winners. Here they are:

* 3rd place: @Dapprly, an app that enables people to crowdsource opinions of their outfits before they go out on the town, and @talkchalkco, a powerful Facebook app that enables teachers and students to do their work on the social networking site.

* 2nd place: @ispylocal, AKA Localize, AKA Proportunities, which enables owners of vacant buildings to essentially poll the neighborhood for ideas on what businesses should move in to the empty space, via text messages.

* 1st place: @Parking_Panda, an app that enables people who own driveways to rent them out, to make a little extra cash and help alleviate parking problems in the city.

If anybody puts together a list of all the ideas and pitches that came out of Baltimore's Startup Weekend, please let me know and I'll re-post here.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: *NEWS*, Entrepreneurs & Risk Takers, Events (Baltimore area), Startups
        

Entrepreneurs: start your engines.

The popular Startup Weekend event is coming to Baltimore this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Our version is organized by some leaders in the local tech and entrepreneurial scene, but it's run off of a format developed by the Seattle-based nonprofit Startup Weekend organization, which encourages new business formation across the world.

It's a bootcamp-like weekend-long event intended to create a crucible of thinking, innovation and work for the participants, to move them toward a defined product.

From the Baltimore Startup Weekend site:

Startup Weekend is an intense 54 hour event which focuses on building a web or mobile application which could form the basis of a credible business over the course of a weekend. The weekend brings together people with different skillsets - primarily software developers, graphics designers and business people - to build applications and develop a commercial case around them.

The weekend is not for the faint of heart. For those participating, they will spend basically Friday night, all day Saturday and all day Sunday working on a project that they will then pitch Sunday night.

The event starts Friday evening at the Emerging Technology Center in Canton, where it will also be on Saturday. On Sunday, it shifts to the University of Maryland Baltimore's BioPark, on the west side of downtown.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: *NEWS*, Events (Baltimore area)
        

Baltimore's Startup Digest arrived in my inbox this morning with a bunch of cool events happening this week in Charm City. If you're interested in what's happening in Baltimore's tech scene, sign up for this weekly (monday morning) newsletter at StartupDigest.com -- just submit your email and then select Baltimore.

The two that caught my eye this week:

* The Baltimore WordPress Group
When: Monday, March 21st from 7:30pm to 9:30pm
Where: Beehive Baltimore - Conference Room - 2400 Boston Street, #308 - Baltimore, MD 21224

Roni solved a lot of problems during her journey, from working with advertisers, fending off content scrappers and developing processes for podcasting and social media. She's also a WordPress user, an educator and has a lot to offer.

AND:

* Entrepreneurs Unplugged with Paul Palmieri
When: Friday, March 25th from 11:00am to 1:00pm
Where: Venue in Baltimore

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Many places, such as Baltimore, have the elements of a successful startup scene in place, but they may be missing a spark that create a chain reaction of invention, investment, financial success, and cyclical growth. Programs that jumpstart technology entrepreneurs with small infusions of cash and lots of mentoring have been sprouting up in places around the country the last few years.

Now, Baltimore is getting a program of its own.

Leading the development of the Startup City are two Baltimore tech scene raconteurs: Mike Subelsky, co-founder of Ignite Baltimore, and Monica Beeman, regional director of FundingUniverse Maryland.

So what's Baltimore's Startup City plan about? There's a background and details document here. In its own words:

Startup City will help create those initial successes via a twelve-week program for ten companies that offers each company:

Budget permitting, we plan to arrange a second demo day in New York City to give the Startup City companies exposure to their robust investment community and startup sector.

Want to read more about Startup City? Bmore Media has an article, too.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Big Ideas, Entrepreneurs & Risk Takers, Events (Baltimore area), Startups
        

FYI: Baltimore techies and entrepreneurs,

Tonight is Baltimore's first ever Tech Cocktail, a mixer for techies and entrepreneurs. It's taking place at the 930 Red Maple -- event details and ticket reservations are here.

If any BaltTech readers go, can you take some pics and forward to me at gus.sentementes@baltsun.com? I'll post the best ones on my blog. Pics of debauchery accepted -- but I can't guarantee their publication. :-)

Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend because of a previously scheduled engagement, which involves a "date night" with my wife, a delightful dinner for two, and an expensive baby sitter for my kid. Booyah!!

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

There are tons of tech companies and tech events in Maryland -- and I'm trying to get a handle on every last one of them.

You can help. Just input your tech company contact info and/or tech-related event in the public Google Spreadsheet below. Leave me an idea for a possible story or how your company can contribute any expertise on tech trends for a possible news story. And I'll do the rest.

My hope -- at least with the events -- is to create a Google map mashup that enables all of us to keep track of the various tech events happening in Maryland. Let's stay connected!

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Big Ideas, Events (Baltimore area)
        

That's Mike Brenner, above, a Baltimore web designer, kicking off Civic Hack Day in Baltimore, the first community effort to build Web-based applications with a small trove of data that the city and the mayor's office.

More than 30 people have showed up at the Emerging Technology Center on Saturday to work on various projects. Web geeks, including programmers and designers, and even journalists like yours truly, are trying to wrap their arms around the data, understand and analyze it, and see if there are any useful tools that can be built for the community.

So far, people are looking at applications -- some for the desktop Web, some for mobile phones -- that are tapping into city parking citation data, property tax data, and crime data. I hope to post links to finished (or semi-finished projects) in a day or two.

There's also a group that's using data from the social network LinkedIn to map connections between thousands of professionals in Baltimore, Annapolis and elsewhere. Their goal is to create visualizations that help people identify powerful and weak networks -- lots of potential there for understanding how people are connected to each other.

If you're interested in tapping into this industrious, entrepreneurial community of civic-minded tech geeks, check out their public discussion group on Google. Join the conversation.

Not to be a downer, but I should raise an issue that some people here have talked to me about (city officials take note.) The data that the city released was essentially a one-time data dump, though there may be more in the future. What the Baltimore hacker community is hoping for are real-time data flows from city agencies, so they can create more useful applications with live data, and not information that's months old.

But all in all, this is a good first effort. There are a few dozen independent people (citizens!) playing with "open" city data for the first time in the history of Baltimore. Some good things will probably come out of this effort -- but the future will be where it's at in Baltimore, if our city government can continue to improve data disclosure efforts.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Open government! Open data!

These are the tech cries of the 21st century that geeks and even ordinary people are rallying around.

About 40 or so people are jamming into the Emerging Technology Center (and inside, Beehive Baltimore) in Canton tomorrow (Saturday Feb. 12) to create new websites based on the release of a trove of Baltimore City data.

A few weeks ago, Baltimore set up a website called Open Baltimore, a site that offers data and tools for creating Web applications. Data sets released include city property tax, crime, 311, parking citations, and many others. Some people have already been talking about the apps they wish to create with the data over at this discussion group.

Tickets to the free event have been sold out for a few days. But I'm pretty sure those who participate in the day -- and create a Web app based on city data -- will be willing to share their work online with everyone.

I will be there and I hope to do two things: 1) blog about some of the cool things people are working on, and 2) roll up my sleeves, fire up my laptop and maybe toss my two cents in on the creation of a cool app.

I'm excited! This could be the beginning of something awesome in the online civic life of our community.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

InvestMaryland is an initiative by Gov. Martin O'Malley to use state tax revenues -- to the tune of $100 million over five years -- from the insurance industry to fund venture capital investment in Maryland technology companies.

The goal of the initiative, which still has to be debated and approved by the General Assembly this year, is to fuel a self-sustaining cycle of investments in early-stage businesses in the state. The problem, many believe, is that there isn't enough money in the private sector for investment in early stage businesses -- hence the reason why public policy makers want to prime the pump, so to speak.

For a full rundown of the program, read my article here.

On Thursday, Jan. 27, the O'Malley is hosting "InvestMaryland" day in Annapolis, where business leaders and tech geeks will gather to discuss and presumably promote the plan. Below, you can watch a live video feed of the proceedings, starting at 9 a.m. Tune in if you care.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area), Government Tech, Venture Cap
        

These folks only had a weekend. Imagine if the Baltimore Hackathon lasted a week!

I'm belatedly and quickly recapping the first-ever Baltimore Hackathon, which took place over the past weekend at the Emerging Technology Center in Baltimore. (Arthur Hirsch of The Baltimore Sun had a nice write-up of it, in case you missed it over the weekend.)

Dozens of hackers, geeks, programmers and tech enthusiasts participated. Millennial Media, a thriving Baltimore startup that's a dominant player in the mobile ad space, doubled the contest cash prizes at the last minute. And people broke out their soldering irons and laptops for a long weekend of hacking and modifying.

The proof is in the Flickr Photostream!

I was only there for most of the last-day presentations, and I must say, I was impressed with what the teams and individuals were able to pull off in a short weekend. There must have been around 20 presentations or so, I'm guesstimating. The judges, who included Chris Brandenburg, cofounder of MIllennial, chose the best individual and team efforts. (Chris blogged about it here.)

Here are the results with some descriptions of each -- sorry, I didn't get the names of the winners.

Best Individual Hardware: Black Candy Audio Scrambler Pedal (a modified guitar thingamabob)

Best Individual Software: iPad Interactive Ebook (a children's book!)

Best Group Hardware: RotoFoto (a rig that enables you to produce 3D rotating photo images with a cheap camera)

Best Group Software: Headline Split-Testing (for auto-test alternate headlines on blogs, and automatically choosing the one that's most popular with readers based on click feedback.)

Audience Favorite - Nickel for Scale (a device that can measure a hand, using a nickel for scale, so you could quickly make, say a ring with a plastic prototyping machine)

One of the sponsors, Tropo.com, gave out prizes for those who made best use of their programs for integrating voice and SMS applications in their projects.

Best Tropo App: Call-the-Door - a service that allows you to call a door, punch in a code with your phone, and unlock it.

Best Tropo App Runner-Up: Parking Spot Locator -- uses a sensor to let you know when a parking spot is free, and auto-dials your phone.

Best Tropo App 3rd Runner-Up (tie): CloudRant and Voicebump -- CloudRant generates word clouds based on commonly used words in conversation. VoiceBump enables a blogger to call a phone number, speak a blog post, and auto-transcribe it to a blog.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Apps, Big Ideas, East Coast, Events (Baltimore area), Gadgets, Geeks
        

Attention: Geeks, hackers, programmers, engineers .... come one, come all.

On Nov. 19, Baltimore's bustling little tech community will hold the first ever Hackathon, at the Beehive Baltimore space in Canton.

The premise is to encourage teams of people to work over a weekend to build hardware or software, from idea to prototype, in a fun, competitive environment.

The event starts Friday (11/19), 6 p.m. and wraps up Sunday (11/21), 6 p.m. (RSVP and more details here.)

There are prizes:

* Best Software Prototype - Individual ($150)
* Best Software Prototype - Group ($350)
* Best Hardware Prototype - Individual ($150)
* Best Hardware Prototype - Group ($350)
* Audience Favorite ($150)

A source tells me the judges include some luminaries from the Baltimore tech/entrepreneur community, including: Brian LeGette (original co-founder of 180s), Gary Mauler (organizer of Robot Fest), Jen Gunner (interim director of the GBTC), Chris Brandenburg (co-founder of Millennial Media), Mario Armstrong (major tech media dude), and others.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area), Geeks
        

Baltimore's annual celebration of all things tech, hosted by the Greater Baltimore Technology Council, seemed to be a very good time for all last night. TechNite was at a new rockin' venue, Rams Head Live in downtown Baltimore; it featured great food and an open bar; and the networking seemed to be in full swing.

I popped in for a couple hours to catch up with some of the companies and shoot some pics and video of the scene. Three companies were highlighted for having the "hottest tech in town":

* 1st place: Oculis Labs

* 2nd Place: Direct Dimensions

* 3rd Place: Gloto

The award for Baltimore's Extraordinary Technology Advocate went to Tom Loveland, CEO of Mind Over Machines and Baltimore's "Google Czar," who is guiding the city's application for the Google Fiber for Communities project. He courteously highlighted the other competitors for the award -- Mike Subelsky, Newt Fowler, Christian Johansson (DBED secretary) and Dave Troy -- and even threw out a bunch of new names in the city's tech community to watch out for in coming years. Watch the video below:

And last but not least, some more photos. The GBTC's Interim Executive Director Jen Gunner on stage:

And the oyster shucker booth. These tech geeks sure know how to eat well, eh?

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Here's a fine post from the Daily Record's Rob Terry talking about the Greater Baltimore Technology Council's annual TechNite (tomorrow night), and some changes to the event people can expect, i.e. new venue (Ram's Head Live!)

Check it out! http://mddailyrecord.com/maryland-business/2010/10/06/technite-and-tech-stuff-for-greater-baltimore/

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

:: Become a friend of BaltTech on Facebook::

On Thursday, the Greater Baltimore Technology Council's TechNite will be held at Ram's Head Live in Baltimore. For the uninitiated, TechNite is the annual "who's who" event of the technology community in the greater Baltimore area, with guest speakers and presentations and awards doled out in abundance. 

If you can go, it's a good place to meet technologists and entrepreneurs and get a feel for those who are moving and shaking and aspiring in Baltimore's technology scene. Yes, indeed, there is a scene here, folks.

One of the new TechNite features this year is the inaugural Baltimore's Extraordinary Technology Advocate (BETA) 2.0 Award -- for the "individual who supports and moves forward the growth and success of the technology community in our region, while continuously connecting people and technology." 

The BETA 2.0 Finalists are:

• Newt Fowler, Partner, Rosenberg, Martin, Greenberg LLP. Newt loves working with startups and entrepreneurs.

• Christian Johansson, Secretary, Maryland Department of Business & Economic Development. The secretary is a big promoter of the region's tech entrepreneurs.

• Tom Loveland, CEO, Mind Over Machines. Tom is Baltimore's "Google Czar" for the Google Fiber project.

• Mike Subelsky, works at OtherinBox.com. Mike is the founder of Ignite Baltimore, a hugely successful speaker series that brings together Baltimore's technology, design and media communities.

• David Troy, President, Roundhouse Technologies. Dave is doing everything from investing in local startups, to building big tech-related events, to working with city leaders on technology initiatives.

Anybody can vote for one of these finalists at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/26M5XVS

For information about the Greater Baltimore Technology Council, visit: http://www.gbtechcouncil.org.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Entrepreneurs & Risk Takers, Events (Baltimore area)
        

Sometimes I feel like half the time I'm writing about cool events for this blog. It helps, of course, that there's been a true explosion of interesting events for people who are interested in technology, social media and improving Baltimore in the last couple years.

Tonight is the sixth Ignite Baltimore, where speakers are challenged to speak about a topic that they're passionate about, with 20 slides and five minutes on stage. Here are the topics and speakers tonight (you can go to the Ignite website to learn more about each speaker):

* Postcards from Baltimore - Chris Shafer

* Craft as economic catalyst - Megan Auman

* Houston, We've Got a Problem - Why Aren't Kids Interested in Space? - Ron McCandless

* Why Baltimore City needs a socially liberal Republican Mayor - Keith Scott

* Sex, Drugs, and Philanthropy - Kevin Griffin Moreno

* Why I Don't Want Children (or, How My Uterus Became a Shriveled Walnut) - Heather Holland

* Media Free Week - A Monthly Media Fast, And How I Survive It - Gin Ferrara

* Saint Elvis - Gary Vikan

* Hard Times: Great Depression vs. 'Great Recession' - ellen cherry

* The 20 people I admire. - Willa Fan

* How My Brain Tumor Will Change Your Life - Lauree Ostrofsky

* Teonanácatl: The Secret History of Magic Mushrooms - Michael M. Hughes

* Lessons Learned from Middle School Dreamers - Kristina Berdan

* If You Build It… Will They Come? - Scotty Walsh

* A Case for Affirmative Action in "Post Racial" America - Douglass Austin

* Things Fall Apart... and a Terrible Beauty is Born: The Fate of Culture in an Age of
Disruption - Andrew Hazlett

* Integrate Nerd 101: Design with Technology in Mind - Shervonne Cherry

* Cops Say Legalize Drugs: Ask Me Why - Major Neill Franklin

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Tonight, at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, is the latest CrowdPitch, sponsored by FundingUniverse.

How does this work? Representatives of each company give a 4-minute pitch to the audience and a panel of judges about their business plans. The audience chooses the winner by investing fake money in the company they think has the best plan.

The pitching companies are:

* Nomuda Games

* Roomtag

* Bezerra Corporation

* VoicePlex LLC

* Wisemuv

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

:: Become a friend of BaltTech on Facebook::

Tickets still remain for tomorrow morning's Baltimore Social Media Club breakfast at Morton's Steakhouse in downtown Baltimore.

Guest speakers, including the Baltimore Sun's social media and mobile guru Pete Sweigard, will be there talking about the mobile social web.

I'll be there, too. And, as my guest, I'll be with Ruth Eaddy of Waldorf, who won a ticket in a raffle last week that I held for new fans of the BaltTech Facebook page. (Ahem, are you following BaltTech on Facebook yet?)

Other speakers at tomorrow's event include Vince Buscemi of MindGrub, a Baltimore Internet firm that specializes in mobile websites, and Eric Madison, head of FraternalSoft, which makes mobile and social networking websites for fraternal and other social and civic organizations.

The Baltimore Social Media Club just started up this year. Here's their Facebook Page.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

:: Become a friend of BaltTech on Facebook::

While iPhone, BlackBerry and Nokia users were leading their boring little lives last night, die-hard Android fans were partying it up at the schwanky Crush in North Baltimore.

My unschwanky self stopped by for a few minutes and was pleasantly surprised to see the robust turnout: about 100 people or so showed up for the event, sponsored by Verizon Wireless. It was part happy hour, part playtime with Verizon Android devices. Oh, and they had free, tasty-looking appetizers, which alas, I did not partake in.

Kevin Krause of the Phandroid blog and other bloggerati were there.

So when's the next Baltimore-area Android event, Verizon Wireless?

Here are some pics from last night:

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

The TechCrawl is a simple concept: each presenting company gives visitors to their booth a 60 second pitch about their product.

About 40 startup companies showed up Thursday night in Baltimore to pitch at the second annual TechCrawl East -- that's about twice as many as last year.

It was at a great location, by the way: the first floor of the new Morgan Stanley building overlooking the Inner Harbor.

Of the 40, roughly half of them came from out of state, from New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and even New Mexico. (The NM firm was a Web search company called Deep Web Technologies.)

I talked with a bunch of them, though not anywhere near 40.

Some local companies that were there:

* Localist -- a powerful platform for event management

* Deconstruct Media -- a bunch of former Advertising.com execs who are launching a self-service ad publishing service.

* Direct Dimensions -- super-cool 3D imaging through its ShapeShot technology.

* ipiqi -- a new kind of online forum.

* ViaPlace -- a geo-mobile product solution sold to companies and orgs that want a robust presence on the mobile Web. Johns Hopkins University will soon be debuting a mobile Web app with ViaPlace technology.

* Common Curriculum -- makes software that helps organizations put their curricula online.

* PrestoSports -- of Rockville, creates sports websites for college sports programs. Over 250 to date.

I also spoke with execs from several out-of-Baltimore locales, including:

* Deep Web Technologies -- link above.

* IMLeagues -- a social network for college intramural teams based in North Carolina.

* HopStop -- of New York, provides door-to-door mass transit and walking directions in 20 US markets, including Baltimore.

* Printed Piece -- of Boston; an online social community for graphic designers and print shops.

* CloudSpree -- of Washington DC; enables researchers to tap into the computer power of their social network, i.e. Facebook friends, for distributed computing resources.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

For those interested in the Baltimore/East Coast startup scene, tonight is your chance to mingle with entrepreneurs, techies, innovators and potential investors here in Baltimore. It's the second annual TechCrawl East.

Tonight's event will take place from 5-9 pm at the JP Morgan building in Fells Point, 1300 Thames Street.

More information about TechCrawl East is here. Here's my writeup of the first TechCrawl last year, in December.

The premise of TechCrawl is simple: companies participate and give 60-second pitches to anyone who steps up to the "plate" at their presentation table. It's a fluid event that helps give startups exposure they need, while also helping entrepreneurs polish their pitches to potential investors or peers.

Who's going tonight? I plan on stopping in.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 8:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Here's an update on another big tech event in town:

The Greater Baltimore Technology Council's annual TechNite event (on Oct. 7) will feature a "hottest tech in town" competition. So far, 41 Baltimore-area tech companies have applied to win one of the 15 slots to present that night.

Just becoming one of the 15 finalists has real value. Normally, for a company to display at TechNite, a table costs $5,000. A combination of community voting and a judges panel will determine the top three winners at TechNite. The top three win prizes that are detailed here.

Here are the local startups that applied to the competition (source: GBTC):

Digital Steamworks

6th Street Inc.

Razoron Health Innovations

Biomedica Management Corp.

BioFortis

CSA Medical

Shooger Mobile Promotions Network, LLC

TRUSTED TECHNOLOGIES LLC

EventRebels

Mindgrub Technologies LLC

SeaBalt Solutions, LLC

DirectLaw, Inc.

Vision Multimedia Technologies, LLC

Amarani Therapeutics

Novavax, Inc.

LocalUp Solutions

Social Solutions

EnDepth Solutions

etelemetry

Juxtopia

NV3 Technologies

iStrategy

Oculis Labs

Seguro Surgical

Lookingglass Cyber Solutions

TransGlobal Business Systems, Inc.

PPMLite

Direct Dimensions, Inc.

Plasmonix, Inc.

Localist Corporation

ipiqi

SemaConnect Inc

ANCILE Solutions, Inc.

Remedium Technologies, Inc.

Modita

Activus Technologies

SpotCrime.com

E-ISG

America's Remote Help Desk (ARHD)

Social Pollen

GreenSpacers Inc.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

In a Major League Baseball town such as Baltimore, perhaps it is no surprise that a budding technology event has been built around a batting analogy.

The “pitchers” at the Maryland TechCrawl East on Sept. 16 will be startup entrepreneurs. They’ll be pitching their business plans to each “batter” — skeptical investors, journalists or technophiles — who step up to the “home plate” at each company’s booth to hear the 60-second presentations.

The event, in its second year, now has its sights set beyond Baltimore. The last TechCrawl event was held in December and attracted 20 pitching companies, 20 investors and 200 guests. This year, the event’s founders want to attract startups from all over the East Coast. (Follow their Twitter here.)

Already, startups from New York, West Virginia, New Jersey and Philadelphia have applied to give pitches. Organizers are hoping to attract 50 companies to present.

“The primary goal is to strengthen technology companies,” said Heather Sarkissian, co-founder of the TechCrawl and chief executive of Baltimore-based MP3Car.com. “It’s not just about getting investment; it’s about forging relationships.”

Startup companies are often lacking for cash, connections and a polished pitch and product.

Sarkissian said that entrepreneurs can come away from the TechCrawl with potential improvements in all four areas. They could meet new investors, network with peer companies, refine their presentation skills and get early feedback on products.

“This is about getting everybody in one room for one night and establishing relationships,” Sarkissian said.

The Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, a booster for the region, is a new event sponsor. Tom Sadowski, the organization’s president, said the group is trying to get more involved with entrepreneurs and startups in technology.

“We need to connect all the dots, from the biggest companies down to the startups,” Sadowski said. “There’s a lot of opportunity for new tech development.”

This year’s TechCrawl will take place from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Morgan Stanley building in Fells Point, in the 900 block Thames St.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Entrepreneurs & Risk Takers, Events (Baltimore area), Events (DC/No. Va. area), Startups
        

Calling all Baltimore tech nerds, geeks and early-stage entrepreneurs......

The Greater Baltimore Tech Council, the region's nonprofit membership association for networking tech companies and entrepreneurs, is looking for applicants who want a chance to show off their technology innovations at its annual Technite event on Oct. 7 at the Baltimore Convention Center.

To apply, go here.

Fifteen companies/people will be chosen to feature their technology that night, and prizes will be given to the top three applicants. Deadline is Aug. 20.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 2:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

If you haven't heard, the Baltimore region is sorta known for its video/computer gaming industry. There are several companies around the area -- such as Firaxis and Breakaway -- that have been creating video games for years.

And if you didn't know, the "godfather of computer gaming" is right here in the Baltimore area: Sid Meier, cofounder of Firaxis and Microprose. He'll be delivering the opening remarks tonight (6 p.m.) at a free event at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, called: "Gaming: A serious business in Maryland." (You should RSVP, though, if you wish to attend.)

After Meier's talk, there'll be a panel discussion with industry experts on the history and future of game development.

A state report released today in anticipation of the event tonight shows that the digital media (which includes software games) is a $5.6 billion annual industry in Maryland.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

If you're coming to Artscape in Baltimore this weekend, don't forget to check out the new Betascape part of this huge festival.

They'll be celebrating all things geeky and techy at Betascape, which will be at the MICA Brown Center (1301 W. Mt. Royal Ave.)

A full rundown of Betascape events and exhibits is available at the official Betascape Website. And if you're hitting the streets of Artscape with your cellphone, you may want to follow Betascape on Twitter.

Oh, and here's a photo feed of pics taken at Betascape.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

It may be easier than ever to appease your inner geek in Baltimore these days.

In Baltimore now, you could find a Web or technology-related event, group or happy hour to visit virtually every week.

In my time covering the Baltimore technology scene, I’ve seen a bunch of events sprout in the area, offering chances to rub elbows with entrepreneurs, brainy people, marketing and creative types and even potential investors. This year, the city’s annual Artscape event, a festive mix of creative arts, design and music from July 16 to July 18, will feature a technology section called Betascape.

“In the last three years, there’s been an explosion of events,” said Daniel Waldman, president of Evolve Communications and programming director for the Baltimore Social Media Club.

Below you’ll find a descriptive list of some of these groups and events happening throughout Baltimore. Clip this column out for your refrigerator and let’s see how many events or groups catch your fancy.

• Baltimore Social Media Club: This group, which brings together fans and practitioners of online social media in marketing and communications, just had its first happy hour event last week with 50+ people. Next event: July 23. Baltimoresmc.com

• Baltimore Node (Hackerspace): Interested in experimenting with, and creating, new gadgets with the camaraderie of other enthusiasts? The Node, in Baltimore’s Station North Arts District at 120 W. North Ave., is open for membership. Bring your ideas and projects – or let the Node inspire you. Baltimorenode.org.

• Bmore on Rails: For hard-core Website programmers, check out the friendly members of Baltimore’s Ruby on Rails Web development community. They meet weekly – for happy hours and technical sessions – to help improve their skills. Bmoreonrails.org.

• CrowdPitch Baltimore: Got a business idea but need some money and guidance? Make your pitch at CrowdPitch Baltimore, an event sponsored by a group called FundingUniverse. It’s a social, but competitive event for eager entrepreneurs looking to win cash and free services. Next event: Sept. 29. Details: http://bit.ly/a5pWPM

• Ignite Baltimore: A few times a year, there’s an Ignite Baltimore event – a place where smart speakers give rapid-fire, five-minute slideshow presentations on eclectic topics. It’s a good place to stimulate your brain and meet Baltimoreans. Hundreds usually attend. Next event: Sept. 30. IgniteBaltimore.com.

• Innovate Baltimore: Pure happy hour and networking fun for techies, marketing and communications types, entrepreneurs and start-up workaholics, every month. The last session in June had 150+ people. InnovateBaltimore.com.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Drat!!! <clenches fist>

Somehow, the second CrowdPitch event of the year didn't make it onto my calendar -- it was today at Towson University.

I really want to see one of these events in action. They're hosted by FundingUniverse and they're meant to give really, really new startups a chance to raise some money and obtain access to business services. Here's the link to the Baltimore chapter.

From the Website:

This event will bring entrepreneurs, innovators, mentors, support providers, and investors together in an informal and energetic setting. Think ´American Idol´ — selected entrepreneurs will have 4 minutes to pitch their company to both a panel of experts & a live audience, followed immediately by a 3-minute Q&A session with the panel.

Rose and others were avid Twitter broadcasters of the event -- take a look here. I'm still trying to figure out who won the event. Anybody who was there want to give a brief rundown in the comments?

UPDATE: Andrew Rose (@nadenlean) reports that ArtiNNet Corp. of Vienna, Va. won with its pitch for its mobile software that uses voice recognition to protect your cell phone. 

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: *NEWS*, Events (Baltimore area), Startups
        

The 10th annual Maryland Incubator Company of the Year awards were held last night in downtown Baltimore at the Center Club. Barbara Dreyer, CEO of Connections Academy, was the keynote speaker -- you may remember her from a Q&A I did with her a couple weeks ago.

The awards are a chance to highlight promising young startups across the state, to get them some publicity for their products or services, and to ultimately promote economic development and an entrepreneurial spirit.

Yesterday, I blogged about all the finalists for various award categories. Today, I present the winners:

* Life Science Company of the Year: CSA Medical Inc., of the Emerging Technology Center in Baltimore.

* Information Technology Company of the Year: Moodlerooms Inc., of the Emerging Technology Center in Baltimore. (I wrote about Moodlerooms recently.)

* Technology Service Company of the Year: B&D Consulting Inc., of the Technical Innovation Center in Hagerstown.

* New Incubator Company of the Year: Kempbio Inc., of the Frederical Innovative Technology Center.

* Technology Transfer Company of the Year: FlexEl LLC, of the Technology Advancement program at the University of Maryland College Park

* Homeland Security Company of the Year: Lookingglass Cyber Solutions, of the Emerging Technology Center in Baltimore.

* Graduate Company of the Year: Get Real Consulting, graduate of Shady Grove Innovation Center.

* Green Company of the Year: Clean Currents, of the Rockville Innovation Center.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: *NEWS*, Events (Baltimore area), Startups
        

Last night, Baltimore geeks meet up at the Emerging Technology Center in Canton to talk all things iPad.

There was pizza and booze, and even an iPad cake (left), for crying out loud! The event was the brainchild of Mario Armstrong, nationally-known tech commentator.

More than 50 people showed up, their iPads in hand. There were a bunch of speakers (I was one), and lots of free stuff given out, i.e. t-shirts, knickknacks and ... oh, free subscriptions to Wired magazine.

Below are images I culled from the Twitter feed from the event, under the hashtag #iPadBmore.

I talked about two of the things I'm excited about the iPad: 1) the way it shows off HTML 5-based websites, and 2) it's huge potential for educational uses for small children.

Other speakers gave talks about the device, including how it can be used by the blind and how it can be modified for use in your car.  

And Mary_Spiro again ... this time of @BrothaTech

Got anymore pics of the event? Send to gus.sentementes(at)baltsun(dot)com.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Today is the Baltimore Fiber symposium, where a couple hundred business folks are gathering at the University of Baltimore to talk about bringing ultra-high-speed fiber-optic capability to Baltimore.

A group of volunteers and city officials applied to Google for a chance to be part of a pilot project a couple months ago. But many involved in the effort are trying to plan for a future for Baltimore fiber optic that may not involve Google (in case the search giant loses its mind and decides NOT to pick Baltimore. :-)

You can watch today's symposium live at this web address:

http://pointers.audiovideoweb.com/stcasx/nj45winlive9756/play.asx

The Twitter hashtag for the event is #bmorefiber.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

I'm gonna plagiarize a little from Wikipedia here, but Ruby on Rails is an "open-source web application framework" that developers love to use because you can build web apps fast with it. Separately, if you've learned anything about geeks from reading BaltTech, you know they love to conference and un-conference and share what they know in an open setting.

So of course, there's a Ruby on Rails conference, and the next one is right here in Baltimore, which is home to the Bmore on Rails community.

Here's a guest post from Mike Subelsky and John Trupiano, two Bmore on Rails geeks who are helping out with the RailsConf at the Baltimore Convention Center on June 7-10:

Baltimore's Ruby-on-Rails programmers have been eagerly anticipating a tech conference being held in Baltimore next month: RailsConf, which focuses on the Ruby-on-Rails technology that powers many web 2.0 websites including Twitter. They've organized a few different projects to welcome Rails programmers to the city:

• Ignite RailsConf: an unofficial pre-party held on June 6th with a variety of lightning talks, featuring Ruby luminaries like Chris Wanstrath, Gregg Pollack, and Ilya Grigorik.
  
  
• Stay with a Local, a website to connect RailsConf attendees with Baltimore Rubyists. 9 Bmore on Rails members have opened up a total of 12 rooms in their homes to host attendees traveling to Baltimore.
• 
  
• BohConf, a free unconf running in parallel with RailsConf, organized by Baltimore software consultancy SmartLogic Solutions. It will be held in the convention center for the duration of RailsConf. This hacking-centric event will include community code drives featuring well known OSS authors, a code retreat, a programming competition, and barcamp-style discussions.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Two events are on the calendar this week for Baltimore-area entrepreneurs who are seeking to network and maybe meet like-minded professionals, potential investors and/or professional service providers.

:: First, we've got Capital Connection 2010 at the Hilton Baltimore (401 W. Pratt St.) kicking off Wednesday, May 19, at 9 a.m. It's a big event for dozens of entrepreneurs and startups to pitch their wares to the business community and potential investors. There are also panels geared toward top-level executives. The keynote speaker is Howard Schmidt, the Obama Administration's cybersecurity "czar." The conference goes until Thursday early afternoon. This is the kind of event you want your company to pay for: registration is more than $1,000 a pop.

:: Second, a more casual -- and free -- evening gathering, Innovate Baltimore, is holding its latest extended happy hour on Wednesday night, starting at 6:30 p.m., at Langermann's in Canton. The event draws denizens of Baltimore's entrepreneurial startup community and is open to the public, but registration is encouraged. This is a growing event -- over 120 people attended the last one.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

The folks who organized Baltimore's application for the Google Fiber for Communities project (where the city is vying with more than 1,000 other communities for a high-speed broadband project from the search giant) are moving the ball further by organizing a symposium next month on the topic of high speed broadband fiber in the city.

The thinking is that Baltimore should want to try to build out its fiber-optic broadband network for its citizens, even if Google doesn't choose us. So how do we as a city get there? That's what this symposium will be all about, I gather.

Here's the link for full details -- cost is $25 to attend.

Maybe I'll see you there?

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Just got this week's edition of the Startup Digest for Baltimore and one event stood out because it involves cool people and drinking: The Mid-Atlantic Venture Association-hosted Mix-and-Mingle event.

The social will take place Wednesday early evening at Langermann's in Canton. Hope to see you there. (I hope to be there.)

Speaking of startups, in case you missed it, the New York Times had an interesting column about "lean startups" this past Sunday. 

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Got an email yesterday from Tracey Baskerville, spokeswoman for the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, who said that the organization will "move forward with some portion" of the technology exhibit for Artscape this year.

Last week, I reported that a volunteer group called BmoreSmart had pitched a proposal to feature interactive technologies and tech-related exhibits at the hugely popular Artscape festival from July 16-18.

BaltTech will bring you more details about this tech exhibition, called Betascape, as the planning of it unfolds. Meanwhile, if you want to get involved, visit BmoreSmart and volunteer.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: *NEWS*, Events (Baltimore area)
        

FundingUniverse, an organization that helps entrepreneurs analyze their prospects and apply for funding, is hosting a "CrowdPitch" event in Baltimore on Feb. 25th at the University of Maryland BioPark, on the west side of the city.

Here's the link to the event.

Basically, entrepreneurs will be able to stand up and give a 4-minute pitch to a panel of judges and an audience.

The panel will ask questions and the audience will be given "fun money" to bet on the entrepreneur whose idea they like.

The two winners will get $10,850 worth of services from the event's sponsors.

(The services seem like they'd come in quite handy, too, if you're just starting out with your business plan.)

Any Baltimore-area entrepreneurs thinking about attending, either to participate or watch?

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Entrepreneurs & Risk Takers, Events (Baltimore area), Geeks
        

I attended last night's first ever "Maryland TechCrawl," an event where startup companies from all walks of Baltimore life gave 60-second pitches to whomever showed up at their booths.

I didn't have time to get through all 21 booths, and indeed, only got through six pitches. But I was blown away by all the smarts in the building over at the Emerging Technology Center in Canton, where the event was held. (Check out my story about the event from yesterday.)

I listened to Videntity, Heliograph, Localist, Figure 53, Lookingglass, mp3car and Direct Dimensions.

Direct Dimensions, by the way, won a $500 award for having the best 60-second pitch highlighting their product, Shape Shot, a 3D-photographic imaging device.

I regret not being able to hear pitches from Juxtopia, Nuvo Technologies, TrustedValet, AllegianceNano Solutions, Bloominescence, AwayFind, Vesta Mobile, Salar, ndexable, OtherInBox, Ark Sciences, Encore Path, 6th Street, and SmartLogic Solutions.

The organizers have grander designs for the event next year, I'm told.

If you're looking to get a flavor for some of the cool/geeky/techy things that are percolating in the Baltimore area at the startup level, the TechCrawl should probably be on your list of events to check out next year.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 8:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

The Maryland TechCrawl will be a show-and-tell of technology companies in the Baltimore area, tomorrow, starting at 4:30 p.m., in the Emerging Technology Center in Baltimore.

You'll be able to get a hands-on introduction of what each of those companies does. (Say hi to me if you see me there -- I'll be milling about.)

Techcrawl Presenters Information Sheet

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area), Startups
        

The beauty of TedxMidAtlantic wasn't just that it was a compelling, full-day event for the speakers and participants, with talks and presentations that were food for the mind.

The organizers and participants also did a great job of making the event resonate beyond the walls of MICA's theater where it was held. If you couldn't attend Tedx on Thursday, you could at least watch a live video stream of the event.

As each speaker finished, the organizers were able to instantly archive each talk, so that it was available on the Web site. Pretty impressive stuff.

A good, written play-by-play of the event can be found at the Inside Charm City blog, for those who want an indepth feel for how the event flowed through the day.

Over on Twitter, participants were posting their thoughts using the #tedx and #tedxmid hash tags.

The Flickr group for TedxMidAtlantic photos had 570 submissions as of this morning.

Several people blogged about the experience attending TedxMidAtlantic, including:

* Scott Paley

* Russell Heimlich

* Tyler Waldman

* Jim Doran

* Annmary Liu (handwritten notes!)

What other content is out there? Drop some links in the comments below! (Above, Flickr photo of Anna Vidovic by The Plan8 Podcast)

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

You may have heard about the big TED conferences that are organized around the world every year around the slogan: "Ideas Worth Spreading." At these events, hyper-smart people give talks on cutting edge -- or sometimes obscure but interesting -- topics, and the audience members are given lots of time to talk and network amongs themselves. The talks are video recorded and made available for free on TED's Website.

That basic format is coming to Baltimore's Maryland Institute College of Art, and it's called TEDxMidAtlantic. I wrote a story today that talks about how more than 100 enthusiastic volunteers came together to organize the free all-day event. The photo depicts several organizers, including Dave Troy in the middle, whose idea it was to bring the event to Baltimore.

It's gonna be a packed house. Stop and say hi if you see me!

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 7:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Big Ideas, East Coast, Entrepreneurs & Risk Takers, Events (Baltimore area), Events (DC/No. Va. area), Geeks, Social Media
        

At the University of Maryland Start-Up Boot Camp last week in College Park, Jim Chung, left, presented his list of common mistakes to avoid as a startup.

Chung is director of the MTech Venture Accelerator program at the university.

Here's his list (paraphrased):

Common Mistakes:

*) You have technology that's looking for a solution (as opposed to tech that immediately solves an existing problem).

*) You make too many assumptions about market share you stand to gain (you engage in top-down assumptions vs. bottom-up validation and lack customer understanding).

*) You have a "nice to have" vs. a "need to have" solution.

*) Thinking: "We have no competition."

*) You have no clear revenue model or path to profitability.

*) Your team is incomplete.

*) You don't have any metrics to measure your progress.

*) Lack of focus.

*) Failure to address the risks head-on.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 7:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Big Ideas, Events (Baltimore area), Startups, University Tech
        

The Greater Baltimore Tech Council tonight is throwing its annual bash, TechNite, starting at 5 p.m., at the Baltimore Convention Center.

On the agenda: a keynote by Gary Vaynerchuk, the social media guru, wine expert, and creator of Wine Library TV; awards to local Baltimore tech luminaries; some schmoozing with local companies giving presentations; and hopefully, if it's anything like last year, some good food and drink. About 1,000 people are expected to attend.

Drop a note below if you're going. Maybe I'll see you there!

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

What are you up to Wednesday night? Guest blogger Mike Subelsky wants you to check out Innovate Baltimore.

There's a promising new event debuting on Wednesday October 7th at the Gin Mill in Canton: Innovate Baltimore, described by its organizers as "an evening of fun mingling with other Baltimore area business leaders, entrepreneurs, creative and digital technology enthusiasts". It runs from 6:30 to 9:30 pm. Attendance is free but the organizers say you need to RSVP ahead of time.

Even if you're a habitué of Outlet Baltimore, Refresh, or TechNite, here's why you should check it out: it's organized by two people with a background in the games industry: Benjamin Walsh, a producer at Bethesda Softworks, and Tina Tyndal, a game marketing and brand consultant who writes the blog Girls Who Game. We haven't seen much gamer involvement in Baltimore's tech scene, so I'm betting Innovate will attract some new folks.

I'm totally on board with their mission: "...providing individuals with networking and educational opportunities which will allow them to generate new ideas, foster entrepreneurship and strengthen the professional community in the region. Our meetings spotlight local businesses, talent, emergent technology and trends, all while sharing a drink (or two) with friends."

Posted by Liz Hacken at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Entrepreneurs & Risk Takers, Events (Baltimore area), Geeks, Startups
        

Mike Subelsky tells us about a cool conference that's coming to town next June. Mark your calendars (if you've bought a 2010 calendar already).

RailsConf, an annual four-day gathering of Ruby-on-Rails enthusiasts, announced this week that their 2010 conference will be held in Baltimore. I've attended it for the past few years and always had a great time. Why is this a big deal?

1) Rails is an important web technology used to build web applications quickly and flexibly; the most famous example is Twitter.

2) This is the first time RailsConf has been on the East Coast (in years past it was held in Portland, OR and Las Vegas).

3) It's going to bring a couple of thousand smart technologists from all over the world to our region and will be a great opportunity to show off the city and state to people who might someday make a home here, start a business here or work for a startup here.

4) It will attract many programmers and entrepreneurs from the region to Baltimore who might not otherwise have a chance to be exposed to the cutting edge of web app development.

5) There's a pretty large group of Ruby and Rails programmers in the area, with regular meetups in Northern Virginia, DC, and Baltimore. This event will help put that community on the map!

Posted by Liz Hacken at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Here's another dispatch from David Troy of Beehive Baltimore to shed some light on what Ignite is all about.

If you had 5 minutes on stage and 20 slides that rotate automatically every 15 seconds, what would you say? That's the question that 48 presenters will answer at three upcoming Ignite events in Annapolis, D.C., and Baltimore.

Ignite was started in Seattle in 2006 by Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis, and is overseen by the technology book publisher O'Reilly. Since the founding of the program, hundreds of five minute talks have been given across the world.

Continue reading "Ignite events help build regional buzz" »

Posted by Liz Hacken at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area), Events (DC/No. Va. area), Geeks
        

TedxMidAtlantic, a locally-organized conference, last night announced the first five speakers for the all-day event in early November.

The conference will take place at MICA, at Falvey Hall, on Thursday, Nov. 5. Something like 20 some-odd speakers are expected to be lined up: all smart people with something innovative to share.

The conference is organized around the theme of "the power of stories" -- so it should be an interesting day. You may wish to take the day off from work if you're planning to attend. Why not?

In case you don't know, TedxMidAtlantic is organized by local folks under a license from TED, the larger international conference. TED stands for technology, entertainment and design, but the four-day conference encompasses many more disciplines. The speakers and audience who attend these events usually interact closely.

TedxMidAtlantic is free to attend, but you have to fill out an application first.

Below are the speakers they've lined up so far:

* Tyler Cowen, economist, professor at George Mason University and author of Create Your Own Economy and Discover your Inner Economist, among others

* Bob Duggan, founder, Tai Sophia Institute, a leading educational institution for the study of wellness

* Rebecca Hoffberger, founder and director, American Visionary Art Museum, one of the nation’s premier museums celebrating art produced by self-taught artists

* Naomi Natale, TED Fellow, artist, and Founder and Director, One Million Bones as well as The Cradle Project

* Sonja Sohn, actress (played Det. Kima Greggs on The Wire) and founder, Rewired for Change, a nonprofit organization that works to empower young people living in the most underserved communities across the country through education, media advocacy, and street-based intervention.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 7:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area), Events (DC/No. Va. area)
        

::Updated at 4:25, with embedded video below of Clay Shirky giving a TED talk on how "social media can make history."

::@TEDxMidAtlantic news breaking on Twitter now....

The TED conference has been licensed to some independent organizers who want to bring a version of it to the Mid-Atlantic in November 2009. And by "Mid-Atlantic," they mean Baltimore, hon.

Here's the Website: http://tedxmidatlantic.com/

Admission will be free but limited to about 250 people. No word on location yet. The theme of the conference, according to @TEDxMidAtlantic's Twitter feed: "The Power of Stories" - Humans organize the world in stories; it's how we perceive design and art. Every design tells a story.

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year's TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.

The event is being pulled together by Dave Troy, a Baltimore-based entrepreneur who helped organize the recent Barcamp Baltimore event. Troy has also started the Beehive Baltimore, a coworking space, and the Baltimore Angels, an investor group focused on funding promising Baltimore-area startups.

It's the latest event we've seen in the Baltimore area that's targeting the region's creative and entrepreneurial classes, to pull them together to bounce big ideas off each other. (We've had SocDevCampEast, Ignite Baltimore, Barcamp Baltimore, WordCamp Mid-Atlantic -- all in the span of about 18 months.)

How badly does Baltimore need stuff like this? What do you think?

Meantime, you can watch Clay Shirky talk about how social media is transforming our society.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 3:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area), Events (DC/No. Va. area)
        

Tomorrow evening (Tuesday, June 30) is the fourth installment of Outlet Baltimore -- an uber casual socializing and networkizing event for techies and creative types in the Baltimore area.

Outlet Baltimore in its own words:

Outlet Baltimore is a semi-regular gathering for New Media professionals in Baltimore and surrounding areas. The goal is to provide a mostly informal opportunity for us to convene in the real world and put faces to the names behind our blog posts, websites, Twitter feeds, and LinkedIn/Facebook profiles. It’s designed as a complement to some of the more formal and/or targeted events that Baltimore is already lucky to have, such as Ignite and Refresh.

This one is being held at the Windup Space, 12 W. North Ave., Baltimore, Md.

I've been before and it's a pretty chill scene. Maybe I'll see you there.

P.S. I think it starts around 6 p.m., right Outlet Baltimore? (I didn't see a time listed on the site. Past events have started at 6 p.m.)

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

We're entering the slow summer season and my tech calendar is starting to gather cobwebs.

Do you have a techy-minded or tech-related event going on in July and August? Job fairs? Networking events? Contests and competitions for geeks? Let me know.

Better yet: leave it in the comments below so everyone else can see, too. I'll try to plug it into the events calendar the next chance I get.

I can't promise I'll be at every single evening event, but I try to go to at least one per week. Keeps me from watching TV and playing on Facebook. :-)

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 3:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Our wee little Ignite Baltimore event that started last year has grown and grown and grown. If you may recall, Ignite Baltimore is where guest speakers get to talk about cool stuff -- but they're only given 5 minutes and 20 slides.

So, you've got eclectic topics, interesting speakers, and a crowd drawn from the Baltimore area's creative, technology, civic and business circles.

Best of all: It's a free event. When? Tomorrow night at the Windup Space, 12 W. North Ave., Baltimore, Md. Unfortunately, all the reserved spaces are filled, and there's a waiting list. Fortunately, the crowd cycles through pretty well through the course of the night, so there's a good chance you'll get in early.

I'm not a booster or a sponsor, but I do appreciate an event where I can meet interesting, non-drunk people -- especially on a school night in Baltimore.

Speaking this morning with Mike Subelsky, a co-organizer and founder of Otherinbox.com, he told me that Ignite Baltimore #4 will be held at a new venue: the Walters Art Museum, on October 22, 2009.  Schwanky. (Karl Jones at the Walters confirmed it for me just a moment ago...)

It will still be free -- it's just a bigger space, which was needed because the event's been maxing out at around 300 people, with a 100-person waiting list.

If you can't make it there tomorrow night, a local media website (RadarRedux) will be live-broadcasting from there. You'll be able to watch it on their website or here on my blog, as I'll embed their video player. Of course, it's more fun to be there in person.

The other co-organizers, by the way, is Patti Chan, of 600block.com.

A lot of the Baltimore tech community has really gotten behind the event. Subelsky sent me over a list of sponsors. It's a mini Who's Who of creative, techy folks and entrepreneurial companies in the Baltimore area.

Catch them on the jump.

Continue reading "Ignite Baltimore #3 tomorrow night at the Windup Space -- plus: new venue news" »

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 1:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Follow the Tweets from Barcamp Baltimore today. The ideas shared at this event today will probably percolate among the participants for long after the event, and people may continue to use the Twitter hash tag #bcbmore for a bit. Watch the geeky action unfold right here!

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Barcamp has started. The roughly 80 or so attendees who showed up this morning hashed out, through discussion and debate, more than 20 topics they want to talk about in small groups for the rest of the day.

It's taking place right now, Saturday, June 20th, at the University of Baltimore's Thumel Business Center. And it's free. If you're bored on a rainy Saturday in the Baltimore area and looking to chat with some smart folks and make some new connections, this may be a good place to start.

They've got free coffee, too! What is Barcamp? Some describe it as an "unconference." (Here's a wiki that tracks the events all over the world.) It's intended to be a democratic process where people from all walks of life and professional experience can come to talk about the things that matter to them most.
Here's just a sampling of some of the topics that will be covered in today's sessions: Right now, I'm sitting in a session on the future of journalism in Baltimore.

A discussion led by Dave Troy, a local entrepreneur who is promoting the idea of journalism startup (or startups) in the Baltimore area. On a big screen, he's got a thought-provoking and recently popular blog post by Clay Shirky, a new media thinker, titled "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable."

Other sessions: building green, future of social networks, online fundraising for nonprofits, social entrepreneurship in Baltimore, photography for beginners, location-based software and games, locally-developed cool technology, and many more.

And a happy hour at Brewer's Art afterwards, after 5 p.m. Debate hard, drink well, right? :-) On Twitter, the hashtag to follow is #bcbmore.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

The "camps" are proliferating around Maryland, and now you can add "HealthCamp" to the list.

For the uninitiated, the "camp" model (also known as barcamp) of conferencing has its roots in a techie/geeky period in California a few years back involving benevolent hackers, sleeping bags and a publisher of tech books. (This Wikipedia entry explains it better than I can in a few short words).

It's meant to be a format where people from diverse backgrounds and with varying skill sets meet on the day of a conference and pretty much decide what they want to talk about.... that day.

In Baltimore, we've seen a couple of "camp"-style conferences in the past two years, with more to come, including BarCamp Baltimore on Saturday (June 20th) at the University of Baltimore, where geeky people from all walks of life are expected to congregate and talk about what they all likely hope will be cool interesting things that could help trigger new ideas, startups, and programs in Baltimore.

(Yes, B'more geeks: You counted corrrectly. That's not one, but TWO camps later this week.)

Recently, I caught up with Mark Scrimshire, who's been busy organizing HealthCamp Maryland, which will take place this Friday (June 19) at Stevenson University in Owings Mills. (He's @ekivemark on Twitter, btw.)

Last year, his first year organizing it, about 8-10 people came. HealthCamp, Mark tells me, is about getting people with diverse backgrounds and interests in tackling the country's health care problems into the same room to hash out groundbreaking new approaches.

"I describe myself as chief instigator and troublemaker," Scrimshire told me. "I'm deliberately trying to bring together these different communities. I do want doctors and nurses to come along. I do want administrators, and software startups and entreprenuers."

Continue reading "HealthCamping in Maryland" »

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 8:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

I attended the Greater Baltimore Tech Council's summer wine event at the Emerging Technology Center in Canton on Thursday night, and it was a pretty packed place.

About 120 people showed up. The after-party continued for some at the Austin Grill.

It's a casual event -- helped along, of course, by the copious amounts of wine that was poured. Technology companies that want to introduce themselves to other business folks can volunteer to pour their favorite wines at these quarterly events.

Some choose to pour beer. Check out Scott Palmer and John Busteed, two employees of RWD Technologies, with their glasses of Resurrection ale. (pictured left)

For a list of the companies who poured, check out the GBTC's summary of the event. There's also a bunch of photos on Flickr, and of course, the requisite Twitter thread.

Mario Armstrong, a tech journalist who blogs and does radio reports for NPR, WYPR, and WEAA, was also shooting footage for new online video program highlighting the tech industries in the Baltimore/Washington area. It's called BWTechShow.com. Pretty cool stuff.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 8:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

It's Tuesday morning, and more than 100 people are about to gather at the Sheraton in Towson to listen to these four people talk about how their companies are growing in a recession. It's a talk hosted by the Greater Baltimore Technology Council. 

From the left, it's Art Jacoby, the panel moderator and business growth adviser; Tim Lorello, global commercial sales senior V.P. and chief marketing officer, Telecommunication Systems Inc. (service provider to wireless cos.), of Annapolis; Michele Perry, chief marketing officer, Sourcefire (computer network intrusion prevention), of Columbia; and Todd Johnson, president of Salar Inc. (clinical software for hospitals), of Baltimore.

Any questions you want me to ask these folks? Shoot me them via Twitter. (http://twitter.com/gussent)

I'll bring you the highlights in a later blog post. Meantime, can someone point me to the coffee?

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 8:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Two things I'm hoping you find useful on this blog are the events listings and the CareerBuilder jobs feed.

If there's a tech event in the area (and by "area" I mean the Baltimore/Washington area), feel free to shoot me an email (gus.sentementes(at)baltsun(dot)com) and I'll add it to the calendar you see below. The event will also appear in the events feed in the right column.

And, there's a good chance if the event is on this calendar that I'll be there, covering it in one way, shape or form.

The jobs feed (also in the right rail), I thought, was a real necessity.

There's a lot of churn right now in the technology sector in Maryland. Here's hoping that people who are cut free from jobs in the tech sector quickly land on their feet.

Any other useful things out there you think I should add to this blog as a resource? Drop me a note below.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)