Hosted by Hutch

Hutch is an intensive 24-month program that gives entrepreneurs a blueprint for building successful digital service firms, by empowering them with the tools, mentorship, and peer support they need to have a lasting impact. Created in 2019 by Fearless, a full-stack digital services firm based in Baltimore, Hutch focuses on woman-owned and minority-owned businesses at the intersection of government, digital services, and community. Hutch graduates and current cohort entrepreneurs share their journey through the program and how they are finding success in the civic tech space. Join us for an in-depth discussion on how civic tech is transforming government and how to effectively build a business during COVID.

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Hosted by Venture for America, Johns Hopkins FastForward U, Social Innovation Lab

Are you a student or recent graduate looking to connect with other innovators in Baltimore? Are you eager to get involved within the startup community or looking for others to partner up with? Look no further than the “Start Here, Venture Forward” networking hour. Venture For America, Johns Hopkins’ FastForward U and Social Innovation Lab are co-hosting a networking session to help YOU engage more meaningfully with others in the Baltimore innovation ecosystem.

Meet people from diverse backgrounds, dialogue around topics of shared interest, and make genuine connections. Sign up in advance to share more about yourself and your area(s) of interest. We will do the matchmaking, placing you in small group sessions to get to know one another.

Our goal is for each attendee to come away with at least one person they will follow up with. This is not the end of the conversation though! We will be following up with attendees to hear their feedback and ask what they would like to see more of in the Baltimore ecosystem. Based on feedback, we look to hold more connecting opportunities in summer and fall 2021.

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Hosted by ETC (Emerging Technology Centers), Hutch, and Spark Baltimore

Bring your furbaby and favorite beverage and join us for a very Yappy Hour! We'll tell stories (funny, endearing, and maybe some embarrassing) of how our pets have supported us during the pandemic and welcome you to share yours and show off your pets!

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Hosted by University of Baltimore, University of Maryland Graduate School Baltimore, and Loyola University Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted “life as we know it” in Maryland in countless ways -- including the labor market, where many people suddenly found themselves facing temporary or permanent unemployment, while others rapidly adjusted to working from home or elsewhere as offices closed. Many workers were deemed “essential” and continued to work -- in hospitals, grocery stores, on garbage trucks, and in warehouses – while other, previously indispensable positions, like waiters and bartenders, flight attendants and travel agents, became irrelevant. As we begin to recover from the pandemic, a number of questions are emerging: What will the economy look like? Whose jobs will remain essential and whose will disappear completely? And how will the new workforce take shape? This panel discussion, featuring representatives from several local universities, will assess aspects of the postpandemic economy and its lasting impact on the mix of occupations, the workforce skills required, and the role that higher education plays in shaping the potential for economic recovery.

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Hosted by Ennoble Venture Partners

In this interactive workshop, participants will learn about THRIVE, a transformational intervention designed to positively impact the culture of teams through bottom-up alignment of an organization’s mission, vision, values, and key performance indicators. The result is a sustainable peak performance culture with outstanding employee engagement and outcomes. THRIVE was developed by a team of business leaders with extensive background in customer experience, corporate finance and employee engagement as a highly-interactive, in-person workshop to be delivered on-site to teams struggling with a range of challenges affecting performance. In the midst of the pandemic, we were able to successfully adapt the workshop and principles to help transform distributed teams working virtually. This workshop will share both an overview of how the THRIVE model can be implemented in virtual and in-person teams of all sizes and will also address lessons learned from delivering training online.

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Hosted by TruState and Method Data

How do you identify the key technologies and partners you need for your new business? Lessons we have learned from our start-up journeys and a deeper dive into the key technologies.

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Hosted by TruState and Method Data

Please join us for a discussion on how we built a supportive and inclusive environment for ourselves and our employees during the pandemic, and how we will ensure that this will continue post-pandemic.

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Hosted by Moms as Entrepreneurs

During this session, Moms As Entrepreneurs will interview 3 mom innovators to get their perspective of what it's like to innovate in Baltimore not just as a women but as a mom. We will focus on the barriers and the opportunities in Baltimore.

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HOSTED BY ALLOVUE

Join Baltimore City Comptroller Bill Henry, Maryland State Delegate and Comptroller candidate Brooke Lierman, and State Delegate Stephanie Smith for this panel moderated by Jess Gartner, CEO of education finance company Allovue to discuss how Maryland is an emerging leader in civic finance innovation. These city and state leaders will share their ideas for modernizing procurement and civic finance practices through a lens of equity and transparency in order to help local women-owned and minority-owned businesses thrive in Maryland. City Comptroller Bill Henry will share his plan for improving Baltimore City Board of Estimates and other Comptroller-managed city functions. Brooke Lierman will discuss her platform for MD Comptroller with a focus on supporting small businesses. Delegate Stephanie Smith will talk about her proposed legislation for the creation of a public state bank. All of the panelists will discuss how their work centers equity and serves as a national model for civic finance reform.

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Hosted by Spread Karma

There are 1.6M social entrepreneurs in the US and on 2% them seek institutional funding. Social entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, and community change-makers experience a lack of funding, lack of exposure, and a lack of community. SpreadKarma is a social impact fundraising platform empowering positive social impact in marginalized communities through crowdfunding. Participants will learn about alternative methods to fund their innovation as well as crowdfunding know-how such as the various types of crowdfunding, benefits, tips, and tools.

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Hosted by Helpful

Helpful is a global social impact community of technologists and scientists who are looking to help solve identified problems in a broadly addressed fashion that de-risks innovation. The session is an introduction to Helpful and how we can work with communities to expand their innovation.

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Hosted by Cohado, Inc.

This session will provide an overview of the Cohado Collaborative Strategic Design Model, and how it is being deployed to open access to Black Entrepreneurs in Baltimore, and how it can be used to solve virtually any collaborative design challenge. The model is based upon the eight vectors of Cohado strategic design thinking. Most strategic design models skip the four essential stages of collaborative planning, moving straight to developing structures for implementation, and ignoring the critical elements of understanding how individual motivation, true relationship development, and utilizing creative generation to expand the culture of teams and collective impact initiatives to be truly collaborative and inclusive. We will utilize the model of how an emerging Baltimore initiative is utilizing these early stages of development to achieve deeper, more sustained and equitable results for Black Businesses.

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