Innovation + Job News

In an effort to find ways to lessen the United States’ dependence on foreign oil, the US Department of Energy Argonne National Laboratory has awarded a $150,000 research grant to Pixelligent Technologies to further develop its technology to make industrial and automotive lubricants more efficient. With the prospect of commercializing a product from the research, the Baltimore nanocrystal additive manufacturer is planning to relocate to a larger facility this year although details were not yet available.

The energy department’s Small Business Innovation Research Grant was awarded less than a month after it signed a two-year, $500,000 Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the Baltimore company for the Argonne Laboratory to analyze and test its proprietary nanocrystal technology. Pixelligent and Argonne will split the cost of the research project.
 
The Cooperative Research and Development Agreements are intended to speed commercialization of private sector technology. Craig Bandes, president and CEO, says that both grants are helping the company to reach its goal of commercializing a product, possibly a low-friction oil, out of nanocrystal additives this year.
 
Bandes says Pixelligent is one of several different technologies the government is looking at, including companies that use other types of additives and biofuels.
 
“We are not the only technology in the area, but we have attracted a high level of interest from the energy department,” says Bandes.
 
In preliminary testing with Argonne, results indicate that by dispersing nanocrystals into oil, there is a significant reduction in engine and equipment friction. Doing so prolongs the life of both, improves the efficiency of both and reduces fuel consumption.

“It’s not just that the oil is improved and gas mileage goes up,” says Bandes, “the department of energy is looking for next generation technology.”

Pixelligent was founded in 2000 in the College Park area. The company moved to an 11,000-square foot building in Baltimore in 2011 that allowed it to develop laboratory and manufacturing facilities. The company manufactures specific nanocrystal additives and polymer nanocomposites for the electronics, semiconductor and industrial markets.
 
Bandes expects to grow the current staff of 26 to 40 to 50 staffers this year. He is currently recruiting for five positions in manufacturing, engineering and business development.
 
Besides the energy department funding, Pixelligent has received $12 million from the US Department of Commerce and the National Science Foundation, and $8.5 million in angel investments.
 
 
Source: Craig Bandes, Pixelligent Technologies
Writer: Barbara Pash

Clear Guide Medical LLC is readying its first product, a medical device used in minimally invasive ultrasound surgeries that will be for sale in early 2014. Federal and state grants received this year aided the commercialization process for the Johns Hopkins spinoff, which hopes to receive another state grant early next year. 
 
The Baltimore life sciences company received a total of $550,000 from the federal National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, in 2011 and 2012, and $125,000 from the Maryland Technology Development Corp. in 2010 and 2012. It is waiting to hear about another grant from the latter, for $100,000.
 
“We are developing a medical device that will lower health care costs by allowing [procedures] to be done quickly and at less cost,” COO Dorothee Heisenberg says. The device clips onto an ultrasound probe and provides guidance to surgeons before and during minimally invasive procedures like needle biopsies, needle nerve blocks and vein catherizations. The device provides such information as the angle to hold the needle and how far to push to reach the nerve or vein.

Heisenberg says the advantage of the device is that it makes it easier for surgeons to learn how to use ultrasound, for which they need special training. She also sees a benefit for rural areas or areas where there aren’t a lot of medical facilities. Local physicians and clinics may be able to do a biopsy, and then consult with medical experts for a diagnosis.
 
Heisenberg expects Clear Guidance’s device to cost in the $12,000 to $15,000 price range. 

Clear Guide Medical was founded in 2010, a spinoff from the Johns Hopkins Department of Computer Science and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s radiology department. In 2012, it was the first company to move into the Johns Hopkins accelerator, located on the Homewood campus, Heisenberg says.
 
The company has five employees. It is in the midst of applying for a worldwide patent that covers the US, nations in Europe, Japan, Canada and Israel – countries that are most likely to develop competing devices. Johns Hopkins is paying the patent filing and application expenses, about $80,000, for which Clear Guidance will pay back in time.
 
“We want to sell our product without complications,” Heisenberg says.
 
Source: Dorothee Heisenberg, Clear Guide Medical LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash

Skyline Technology Solutions LLC expects to sign six new contracts next year, expanding its market reach. The Carroll County IT company currently has customers in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.
 
President Brian Holsonbake says the additional customers will result in a 10 to 15 percent growth in sales for Skyline, which averages over $35 million in sales per year. Most of the new states are located along the East Coast, although he declined to identify them until the contracts are signed.
 
The company offers fiber-optic cabling as well as inside and outside plant cabling; networking, customized software development and back-end application services for federal agencies, state and local jurisdictions and commercial customers; 24/7 managed services at its network operations center; and hosting services.
 
Holsonbake says the company is continuing to expand its video-interoperability product line, an appliance or cloud-based solution that enables different agencies to share live-streaming video at different locations simultaneously. The solution works with traditional and mobile devices.
 
Among its customers are the Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C., departments of transportation, City of Annapolis police department, and bus and transit companies in those jurisdictions. Commercial customers include companies in the financial and medical sectors.
 
The privately financed company was founded in 2004 with one employee. It now has 112 employees and is hiring 16 more, in software development, network engineering and VoIP engineering.
 
As the company has grown, it has added offices. In 2007, the company opened an office in Eldersburg, which remains the corporate headquarters. In 2009, it opened a 15,000-square foot office in Glen Burnie, Ann Arundel County, to which it later added 3,000 square feet. In 2012, it added a second, 9,000-square foot office in Glen Burnie. The company currently occupies three offices, two in Glen Burnie and one in Eldersburg.
 
Skyline Networking Solutions is a Knowtion Group company.
 
Source: Brian Holsonbake, Skyline Technology Solutions LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash

An amateur photographer in Maryland has won a national film contest sponsored by director Ron Howard and Canon USA. University of Maryland, College Park senior Dylan Singleton submitted a photograph to Project Imaginat1On, a combination photo contest and short film series that will be made by celebrity guest directors and shown in a film festival next year. 

Singleton’s winning entry was culled from thousands of photographs submitted by the public. Musician James Murphy, one of the celebrity directors, picked Singleton’s moody, atmospheric photograph of a swimming pool at night for inspiration, much to Singleton’s surprise. Eva Longoria and Jamie Foxx are among the other celebrity directors involved in the project. 
 
“I sent in a couple of photos. One day, I got a call that I was a potential finalist. I’m still in a bit of a shock,” says Singleton, a Columbia resident who is majoring in sociology. “I’ve been swamped with papers and finals. It hasn’t set in.”
 
James Murphy is best known as the leader of the Grammy-nominated band LCD Soundsystem. He also cofounded the DFA label, which released the band’s catalogue, and he provided the original soundtrack for the 2010 film, “Greenberg.” Most recently, he was executive producer of “Shut Up and Play the Hits,” a feature-length film chronicling LCD Soundsytem’s farewell show at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 2011.
 
For Singleton, a fan of online music blogs who has worked at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., being chosen by Murphy was a particular thrill. Has Murphy called to discuss the photo or his film?  “I’d love it but I’m sure he is a pretty busy guy,” says Singleton, who won a $500 credit to the Canon online store and two tickets to the film festival.
 
Murphy’s film will go into production next year. The location and date of the Canon Project Imaginat1On Film Festival has not yet been announced.
 
The photo contest was open to the public, who could submit photos in 10 categories with titles like “Backstory,” “Time,” “Mood” and “Obstacle.” Singleton entered “The Unknown” category.
 
The public voted on the winners – 10 winners in nine of the categories and a single winner in the 10^th category – for a total of 91 winners. The celebrity directors will make 10-minute films that are inspired by the photographs they chose.
  
 
Source: Dylan Singleton, winner “Project Imaginat1On”
Writer: Barbara Pash
 




 




 
 
 
 


 

Vircity LLC, the Baltimore back office resource center, will launch a startup crash course and is expanding into event planning next year. It plans to hire up to half a dozen workers to spearhead these projects. 

Janine DiPaula Stevens, founder and president, says she is hiring up to three people to organize a "startup program" launching in the second quarter of 2013. 

The program will provide a template, tools and workshops for people who are starting a business. “You can take courses but some people don’t want to do that,” says Stevens, who is considering what workshops to include in the program and how much it will cost.

Stevens says she will hire people with graphic design and event planning experience or recent college graduates to handle future events. She says that in working with nonprofit organizations and entrepreneurs, she noticed that they needed help coordinating and completing their events.
 
Stevens says one staffer had been doing event planning before. The expansion allows her to bring in larger events that require more staffers and more detail. She is expecting event-planning contracts to come in within the next two months..
 
Stevens founded Vircity in 2005 and moved to its location in Canton in 2006. The business is located on the ground floor at 2400 Boston Street, a retail storefront at the Can Company that gets thousands of walk-in customers per year.
 
Vircity provides a variety of back-office services for customers, including administration, bookkeeping, graphic design, digital and offset printing, high-speed scanning, packing and shipping.  Customers may also use Vircity’s address as their corporate address. Post Office boxes do not accept packages, Stevens explains, but Vircity’s mailbox does.
 
Stevens says fees depends on services. Customers can pay an hourly rate or per project. The annual fee for mailbox and faxing service is $300 per year; basic administrative support runs $40 per hour. For example, a nonprofit with minimal staff may hire Vircity to print, merge and post “thank you” letters to donors, at $40 per hour.
 
The privately financed Vircity is a Baltimore City-certified woman-owned business. Stevens was director of marketing at the Center Club before founding Vircity.
 
Source: Janine DiPaula Stevens, Vircity LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash
 

Believe Wireless Broadband is expanding its delivery area into the Washington, D.C., market and will install equipment on the roof of Union Station, Amtrak and commuter railroad station by Jan. 1. The Internet service provider is expanding from its current coverage area of Baltimore City, Baltimore County and parts of Anne Arundel and Howard counties.
 
Believe is also in the process of installing equipment on a tower on MD Route 100 in Howard County, to be finished in 2013.  It already has equipment on an existing tower on Moravia Road, Baltimore County. 
 
“This expands the areas we are able to serve. We are creating a multi point network,” Believe Vice President Marian Huller says.
 
Wireless broadband, aka fixed wireless broadband, connects to the Internet via a radio connection to its equipment. Believe offers business Internet services, wireless networks, voice over IP phone and point to point links of up to one gigabit per second.
 
Believe was founded in 2002. At the time, high bandwidth was not available in Baltimore City, and wireless provided a solution. The Baltimore County company’s mailing address is Owings Mills but its physical office is located in Towson.
 
The company has four full-time employees and is looking to hire a network administrator.
 
At a gb.tc event last month at downtown Baltimore's Lexington Market, the company installed Wi-Fi, the first time the market had been wired. After the event, Believe left the Wi-Fi in place, providing free wireless in the market’s seated area and conference room.
 
“The market holds lots of events. On one night I was there, students from the University of Maryland law school were giving free legal aid,” says Huller. So the company stole a page from the students by providing free wireless. “It was our way to give back to the community.”
 
Source: Marian Huller, Believe Wireless Broadband
Writer: Barbara Pash

InstantLabs Medical Diagnostics Corp. is entering the animal health/veterinary medicine field next year, with plans to develop a variety of tests for the detection and diagnosis of dangerous pathogens in animals.
 
CEO Steven Guterman says the tests will be based on its general purpose molecular diagnostic test kits, which can be refined for different markets. Located at the University of Maryland BioPark, InstantLabs commercialized its first test kit this year for the food safety market and currently is developing a test kit for the human health/hospital market.
 
“Our goal is to change the way people do food testing," Guterman says. "We spent a lot of time building a device with the power of molecular testing that is small, affordable and easy to use.”
 
Food companies typically send samples to an outside laboratory for testing, a process that can take three to five days for results. InstantLab’s test, for both extraction and identification, can be done on-site, with test results within 12 to 24 hours.
 
Customers include poultry processors, fish farmers and nutritional companies that use the kits to detect different and dangerous bacteria like salmonella, listeria and e-coli.
 
The food safety kits were first sold commercially in spring of 2012. So far, more than a dozen have been sold, half in the US and half overseas. By early 2013, the company will also have a test for the bacteria Vibrio.
 
In human health/hospitals, InstantLab is developing a test kit for MSRA, an antibiotic-resistant staphylococcus infection. It received a $100,000 award from the Maryland Industrial Partnerships to develop a test kit for the detection of MSRA.
 
The company is working with Jennifer Johnson, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, on the test. It should be ready by the end of 2013, after which the company will begin human trials and seek US Food and Drug Administration approval.
 
InstantLabs was formed in 2008. In 2010, it moved to the University of Maryland BioPark in order to grow internally and have its own laboratory. In 2011, it moved to a larger space in the BioPark, doubling the size of its office.
 
The company has five employees in Maryland. Guterman says it is looking to hire a senior molecular biologist in 2013 for its entry into the veterinary field.
 
Source: Steven Guterman, InstantLabs Medical Diagnostics Corp.
Writer: Barbara Pash

US Army soldiers in Afghanistan are using specialized radio equipment made by a Columbia defense technology company. Syntonics LLC recently signed the $10.5 million contract with the military to provide equipment and servicing that enables and enhances radio communications.
 
The current contract follows an earlier deal with the US Army for the same equipment, its Radio over Fiber system that relays radio frequency signals over optical fiber. In 2010, Syntonics signed a $7-million contract with the US Army for the system to be deployed in Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom.
 
The US Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, is the contractor, under a Small Business Innovation Research contract. The US Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare System Command funded development of key technologies for the system.
 
In Afghanistan, tethered aerostats, aka blimps, are connected to command posts. The tethers have power and optical fibers. Cameras are attached to the aerostats for wide-area observation. The Syntonics system is attached to the aerostats via special equipment, enabling it to become an antenna site and allowing for secure radio communication with the command post and multiple radios on the ground.
 
Besides the military, Bruce G. Montgomery, Syntonics president, says the system is used by civilian agencies that have tactical communications, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
 
This year, too, Syntonics expanded its market for another product, a distributed antenna system, from the military to a commercial customer. Its distributed antenna system allows you to put antennas in places that radio signals could not otherwise penetrate.
 
The system is already being used by US Marines and Army Special Op troops. In November, Syntonics signed a contract for the system with the operator of nuclear power plants, whom Montgomery declined to identify.
 
The antenna system uses MEMS technology that the company is developing with the University Of Maryland, College Park's A. James Clark School Of Engineering. In August, the Maryland Industrial Partnerships awarded Syntonics more than $140,000 for further research on the technology.
 
Founded in 2000, Syntonics was originally located in the Maryland Center for Entrepreneurship, of the Howard County Economic Development Authority.
 
In 2002, it moved to a commercial building in Columbia, where it has since quadrupled the size of its office, from 3,000 square feet to 13,000 square feet. It began commercializing its products in 2005.
 
The company has 30 employees, with the founding employees owning the company in a closely held arrangement.
 
Source: Bruce G. Montgomery, Syntonics LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash

Baltimore's Furbish Company unveiled its first product, SmartSlope, an eco-friendly green wall. The wall has been in development for two years and is now commercially available. It is being used by the first Costco in Washington, D.C., and constructionl was completed last week.  

Jimmy Dick, director of business development, says the "living" wall is intended to satisfy locally mandated storm water management regulations as well as for aesthetic considerations. The walls at Costco were installed as a vertical rain garden, with a circulating system that captures and recirculates storm water to water the plants that grow on the walls.
 
"The [DC] district told [Costco] it had to handle its storm water on site and this is how they are doing it," says Dick. Another green wall is scheduled to open next year at Phase 2 of The Shops at Dakota Crossing, in the DC area, as a component of its storm water management system.

Furbish was formed in 2003 to install and service green roofs. While it will continue that aspect of the business, Dick says it is developing products as well. SmartSlope, the living wall system, is its first product. Modern Foundations, in Woodbine, manufactures the system.
  
The living retaining wall system consists of individual concrete modules, each 20 inches wide by 15 inches deep by 8 inches tall. The modules link together.
 
After the modules are installed, SmartSlope provides native grasses, herbs and plants to grow over and cover the wall. The company’s system costs about $5 more per square foot than the typical concrete wall installation of $25 per square foot.
  
However, the majority of SmartSlope's business remains green roofs. This consists of installing a roof-top drainage system, layer of soil and plants that can withstand weather and wind.
 
Dick says that 99 percent of its green roof business is with commercial customers. “There’s no return on investment for residential customers,” he says. “Also, home roofs are not built for the weight” of a green roof.
 
Federal and municipal regulations and tax rebates for installation of storm water management systems have spurred growth of the green roof industry. Dicks says that SmartSlope already has $3 million worth of green roof contracts for 2013.
 
It has installed green roofs on behalf of Princeton, Rutgers and George Washington universities; a US Department of the Interior building; and the Baltimore Hilton, connected to the Convention Center.
 
In 2009, Furbish received an investment of $81,000 from the Chesapeake Bay Seed Capital Fund, a partnership of the state Department of Natural Resources and the University of Maryland. The funding was used to develop SmartSlope. The Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute is a minority investor.  In August, SmartSlope received about $200,000 from the Maryland Industrial Partnerships for development of alternative blends of green roof material.
 
Michael Furbish is the founder of the company. In 2008, it moved into an 18,000-square foot former warehouse in the Brooklyn area of the city that was renovated for office use and retrofitted with solar panels to provide radiant heating and hot water. The company has 15 employees.
 
Source: Jimmy Dick, SmartSlope
Writer: Barbara Pash

A $12 billion federal program is having a big impact on a small company. Howard County IT services provider 7Delta Inc. has more than doubled its staff, expects to triple sales and is hiring another dozen workers, thanks to work it is getting from the US Department of Veterans Affairs.

The VA is spending $12 billion over the next five years on a variety of tech projects. 7Delta is one of 15 companies that the Department of Veteran Affairs chose in summer of 2011 to participate in its Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology Program.  The 15 companies compete on contracts as they come up.
 
The Columbia firm has already won $100 million in contracts that it will fullfill over the next three years and is bidding on others,  says Mike Sawyers, president and CEO who founded 7Delta in 2005.
 
While 7Delta primarily provides IT services for the federal government, the company also services products for storage solution company EMC Corp. 
 
It has federal certification as a service disabled veteran-owned small business, meaning that 51 percent of the company is owned by a disabled veteran, according to Sawyers, a former chief information officer for the US Army Medical Service Corps.
 
The federal government has contract goals for certified companies. Specifically, 50 percent or more of the work must be done by a certified company or a combination of certified companies to reach the 50 percent mark.
 
7Delta originally began as a home office, then in 2008 moved to a 3,700-square foot office in a building in Fulton. This summer, it relocated to a 15,000-square foot office in Columbia thanks to the VA contracts' growth spurt.
 
In 2011, the company pulled in $15 million in sales, compared to a projected $48 million in 2012. The staff grew from 80 employees in 2011 to its current 183 employees. Sawyers expects to hire another 10 to 20 employees before the end of 2012, primarily IT professionals like project managers, software developers, code writers, and business developers.
 
The privately held 7Delta won the 2012 Maryland Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the technology entrepreneurship category, from the Maryland Center of Entrepreneurship and the Howard Technology Council, initiatives of the Howard County Economic Development Authority.
 
Source: Mike Sawyers, 7Delta Inc.
Writer: Barbara Pash

TAI Engineering is expanding its office this month as the consulting engineering and technical services firm plans to enter new markets and add employees.

The firm has built a 5,000-square foot addition to its 30,000-square foot headquarters in Owings Mills and is expanding into automation and control, plumbing and electrical and mechanical engineering. Alan Miller, TAI Engineering owner and principal director, says the company will also beef up its existing presence in geographical instrumentation and control. The company will hire up to six people in those fields.

Adam Soutar, TAI Engineering’s division manager for onsite services, says the company takes a "proactive" approach to hiring. It recruits experts in the markets to which it plans to expand and then uses the employees' expertise and contacts to help it grow.
  
Besides hiring for its own staff, the 175-person company places workers on behalf of clients, placing between 10 to 12 per year.
 
Some staff placements are for specific projects.  A client like CocaCola, for example, might need 30 people as they ramp up for a new project, says Laurie Giner, chief marketing officer.
 
Founded in 1989, TAI Engineering has several different in-house groups that design new industrial plants and commercial buildings; retrofit existing facilities; and support facilities with management and services.
 
“We can build an office building, to serve as the company’s headquarters, and a manufacturing plant for the company. We are capable of working in both areas,” says Miller, who notes that TAI Engineering has grown 10 to 12 percent per year in revenue over the last decade.

Recent client projects include engineering design for a 75,000-square foot LEED-certified “green” building for Raytheon Company, located in the technology and research park at Aberdeen Proving Ground; mechanical and electrical consulting for a LEED-award winning 125,000-square foot office building; and a 125,000-square foot COPT Cornerstone Offices building in Columbia, for which TAI Engineering won a best LEED commercial interior award.

TAI Engineering is privately funded, and has two satellite locations, in Linthicum and Newark, Del.
 
Sources: Alan Miller, Adam Soutar, Laurie Giner, TAI Engineering
Writer: Barbara Pash

A National Partnership For Women & Families survey has found that Maryland women earn anywhere from 1 percent to 24 percent less than their male counterparts in every congressional district.

Around the state, full-time working women are paid on average 14 percent less than men. In District 7 and District 3, Baltimore City's two major districts, the numbers are 15 percent and 14 percent respectively, according to the Washington, D.C., nonprofit.
 
Nationally, there is a 23 percent gender wage gap, with congressional districts in Louisiana, Utah and Illinois showing the greatest disparity.

The Partnership called its analysis of latest US Census wage data by congressional district  “unprecedented” and “the first such study,” says Beccah Golubock Watson, the Partnership's policy counsel, noting that of the country's 435 districts, 423, or 97 percent, have wage gender gaps.
 
The survey did not compare gender wage differences by industry. However, numerous other studies have compared women and men in the same industries and came up with gender wage gaps as well, says Watson. She cited a nationwide study of the financial industry that found women are paid 68 cents for every $1 paid to men.
 
Maryland's Congressional District 3 covers parts of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Howard and Montgomery counties and part of Baltimore City on the northern and southern edges. Maryland's 7^th District encompasess most of Baltimore City's neighborhoods, including downtown, midtown cultural district, Mt.Vernon, Charles Village, Belair-Edison, Coldspring, Pimlico, Sandtown, Montebello and Remington, as well as parts of Baltimore and Howard counties. In the 7th District, the wage gender gap means that women are paid $8,102 less per year than men. Given the city's 40 percent poverty rate and the fact that over 40 percent of households are headed by women, that represents a significant loss in earnings, Watson says.
 
Maureen O'Connor, spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, says that the department conducts employer surveys for wage data by occupation, but not for wage demographics.
 
Likewise, Janine DiPaula Stevens, president of the Baltimore Regional Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners, says its organization does not have gender wage data. Stevens is also CEO of Baltimore back-office resource center Vircity.
 
The survey's release is timed to coincide with Congress' possible consideration of the Paycheck Fairness Act. The bill would  protect against retaliation for discussing salaries with colleagues and removing obstacles for employees to participate in class action lawsuits.  
 
“The wage gap is taking a toll on women in nearly every corner of the country,” says Watson. “Unfortunately, Baltimore is not immune to this devastating issue.”

District 4, which includes parts of Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties, showed the least diparity with women earning 1 percent less than men. District 1, which includes Cecil, Kent, Queen Anne's, Caroline, Talbot, Dorchester, Wicomico, Worcester, Somerset and parts of Harford, Baltimore and Carroll counties, showed the greatest gap, with women earning  24 percent less. 
 
Sources: Beccah Golubock Watson, National Partnership for Women & Families; Maureen O'Connor, Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation; Janine DiPaula Stevens, Baltimore Regional Chapter, National Association of Women Business Owners
Writer: Barbara Pash

Blue Infusion Technologies has introduced its first product this month — a glove outfitted with Bluetooth technology that lets  the wearer operate a smart phone while keeping his hands warm. The Columbia startup is selling its BEARTek Gloves online before placing them in retail stores by fall/winter of 2013.

Blue Infusion Technologies' second product, a motorsports glove with Bluetooth technology, is being launched at the same time, also online first and later in retail stores.

“This is the first time the products are available for purchase,” says CEO Willie Blount, who founded the company two years ago. Blount is referring to the launches on Kickstarter.com, a competitive process that required sending a proposal, product descriptions and video demonstrating that it has a viable product.
 
BEARTek Gloves are priced at $150/pair and is outfitted with Bluetooth technology. A Bluetooth module contains a battery and custom hardware that enable a connection to a smart phone. Touching the thumb activates touchpoints on the fingertips, says Blount.
 
“You touch the thumb to a designated fingertip to make calls,” says Blount. “Skiers can call for emergency help if they aren’t carrying a phone or without reaching for a phone inside a jacket.” The motorsports glove is in the same price range and uses the same technology.
 
Blue Infusion Technologies is a virtual company that collaborates with the Maryland Center for Entrepreneurship, part of the Howard County Economic Development Authority. It is a Maryland-certified minority-owned business.
 
Last spring, the company received help on glove technology and product development from the Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program, which is funded by the National Aeronautical and Space Administration. In August, it received a $148,500 award from the Maryland Industrial Partnership to collaborate with Dr. Marc Cohen, a research scientist at the University of Maryland College Park, on the technology.
 
Blount says the idea for BEARTek and motorsports gloves came from his experiences and those of his business partner and COO Tarik Rodgers’ experiences. Blount is a former US Marine who has also worked for the US government as a specialist in electronics and aviation. Rodges, an engineer, is an experienced skier.
 
The company has arranged manufacturing of the gloves in a US factory, says Blount, who, with Rodgers, are the company’s two employees.  The company is a state-certified minority-owned business.
 
Source: Willie Blount, Blue Infusion Technologies
Writer: Barbara Pash
 

Baltimore startup HD Scores has launched its first round of financing this month in hopes of raising $1.5 million to support its main product, a website that it bills as the most comprehensive health department inspection data from jurisdictions in the US and Canada. HD Scores launched the site in May and plans put the data on the website in early 2013 and sell the data to clients.
 
Operating out of a virtual office, the company is currently hiring two key personnel, a chief technology officer and national vice president of business development.
 
The idea for HD Scores came to Matthew Eierman, a trained chef, when he sought health inspection information about a restaurant in Annapolis that friends were considering opening. It took Eierman, founder and CEO of HD Scores, almost three hours to track down the data, “and I knew where to look,” he says. “I thought, there’s an issue here."
 
HD Scores is collecting data from 3,200 counties around the US and Canada. The publicly available health department inspection data comes from local and state governments.
 
HD Scores will publish the data in its raw form, directly from the database, which will be available for viewing free. The company will also standardize it, meaning that, based on proprietary algorithms, the raw data will be put into an easy-to-read format searchable by multiple platforms.
 
Eierman says HD Scores expects the standardized data to be used for marketing and/or research. Potential clients include advertising applications and web platforms; government and media groups; academics; and commercial entities and restaurants. He declined to provide pricing information.
 
In January, HD Scores will launch a consumer feedback column on its website in which 30-second videos taken on smart phones will be posted. It also is putting together a panel of experts in food service and health inspection to devise its own independent rating system for restaurants, school and hospital cafeterias, and any commercial kitchen.
 
Source: Matthew Eierman, HD Scores
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Mitt Romney lost the presidential election but the Canton company that created the Romney shop on the Republican Party candidate’s website says it emerged a winner.

Digital agency Groove Commerce implemented and ran Romney’s e-commerce site, which they say attracted thousands of orders per day and is still operational.The campaign job has given the company a boost in the e-commerce world. "It's helped our visibility and reputation," says Groove Commerce CEO Ethan Giffin.

The company has 22 employees and is currently hiring four to six additional staffers, in particular skilled PHP developers, front-end developers, online marketers and an executive assistant.

Giffin emphasizes that Groove Commerce is not a politically focused organization. Rather, the company saw the offer to build a scalable website for a presidential candidate, a first for them, as a challenge.The Romney campaign set the prices for items in the store, from T-shirts for $30 to bumper stickers for $5. Also for sale are hats, posters, lawn signs, iPhone cases, water bottles and lapel pins.
 
Giffin does not know when the campaign website will be shut down. He can’t disclose sales information, which were donations to the campaign. He can say that at certain points in the campaign – such as when Congressman Paul Ryan was announced as the vice presidential candidate and during the Republican National Convention – the shop got thousands of orders per day.

The Romney campaign approached the Emerging Technology Center company because of its partnership with Magento, an e-commerce software firm headquartered in California. The campaign was interested in using Magento, an open source platform that has lots of services and add-ons that can be integrated and is highly scalable.

"It's very popular in e-commerce circles," he says of Magento. "It was a perfect fit in scale"  for the campaign shop. “It was a very cool project,” he says.
 
Groove Commerce began working on the website shop last spring. It officially launched a few days before July 4^th weekend with an offer on Facebook for a discounted Romney T-shirt. More than 20,000 T-shirts were sold.
 
Giffin says the company brought a new approach to the campaign online store. “Most political online stores are very basic and bland. Their focus is the political space but they don’t know the tactics the average retailer uses to sell more products,” he says. “We wanted it to be more of a retailer-shopping experience.”
 
The privately funded Groove Commerce was founded in 2007. It moved to a 2,000-square foot space in the Emerging Technology Center in 2010; it now occupies 4,500 square feet.
 
The company focuses on web design and development and on inbound marketing. Giffin describes the latter as using aspects of search engine optimization, content creation and blogging, email marketing and paperclick advertising – “getting people to take action once they come to the website,” he says.
 
Groove Commerce has 50 clients, ranging from Lax World, lacrosse retailers, to Corsair Memory, a builder of computer memory, and the state’s Habitat for Humanity chapter.
 
 
Source: Ethan Giffin, Groove Commerce
Writer: Barbara Pash