Emerging Technologies : Innovation + Job News

The National Healthcare Career Network has added several new partners to its job board alliance. The Hunt Valley-based company specializes in making connections between job seekers in the healthcare industry and recruiters looking for healthcare workers with specialized skills.

"By having intrinsic knowledge of the industry, we're able to develop solutions that address specific talent acquisition needs. We continuously gather feedback from employers to understand their challenges in order to create practical, cost-effective products and services," says Carol Barber, Managing Director at the National Healthcare Career Network.

First established in 2008, NHCN is an alliance of 267 healthcare professional association and trade group job boards. One of NHCN's founding partners was the American Hospital Association. The company recently announced that it has entered into new partnerships with three organizations. The Interamerican College of Physicians & Surgeons, the National Society of Genetic Counselors, and The American Academy of Ophthalmologists joining the NHCN means that the company now has connections to 60 physician-based organizations with over half a million members.

"Healthcare is the only industry that has continually added jobs in this recession. That said, the openings tend to be very specialized and not at the entry-level. Like all industries, healthcare has felt the effects of the economy and must be very targeted and efficient in recruiting," Barber says.

The National Healthcare Career Network is also working to improve it's connections to healthcare workers with a new mobile app offering job seekers access to other things at NHCN besides just the jobs boards, including candidate screening tools and strategic counsel.


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: Carol Barber, National Healthcare Career Network

Constellation Energy, the parent company of Baltimore Gas and Electric, has dedicated a new installation of wind turbines in Western Maryland. Constellation launched the project in 2010 upon acquiring wind power start-up Criterion Wind.

The 70-megawatt Criterion Wind Project consists of 28 wind turbines positioned through an eight-mile stretch along Backbone Mountain in Garrett County. This is Maryland's first major wind power generation facility. The new facility is expected to produce enough electricity to fulfill the needs of 23,000 households.

The energy produced by the Criterion Wind Project facility will be sold to Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, which entered into a 20-year agreement to purchase the power. Old Dominion is a non-profit wholesale power provider that serves public electric cooperatives in Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia.

Constellation Energy is continuing to expand its green energy profile. A participant in Maryland's Generating Clean Horizons initiative, Constellation  is working toward developing a 17.4 megawatt solar-based power generation installation. The project is slated to be developed on land that will be leased from Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg. The finished  installation will be  the largest solar photovoltaic power system in Maryland.

Upon completion, the system is expected to produce more than 22 million kilowatt hours of emissions-free electricity per year.


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: Kevin Thornton, Constellation Energy

As emerging consumer markets in Asia continue to heat up, US manufacturers are seeking new ways to get their goods into the hands of overseas consumers. Companies like 20 North are establishing a niche that facilitates the process. 

"Let's face it; there is a shrinking market for many consumer products in the US due to the economic downturn. We all need to look overseas for new customers and many of them find the products and brands we enjoy highly attractive," says 20 North Managing Director Richard Palarea.

20 North aims to provide a pipeline to the emerging consumer market in India by providing manufacturers of US consumer goods with a marketing, distribution, and supply chain that allows them to sell their products to the Indian market without having to establish their own sales and distribution presence.

The company allows consumers in India to shop for consumer goods at their website, with the item's price, including shipping and duties, listed in rupees. 20 North then processes the order for the manufacturer, who receives payment for their goods in US dollars and ships the order to a US warehouse for reshipment to India.

"There is a huge demand in India for specialty products that we take for granted here, such as iPhone accessories, home improvement products, gadgets and household items, watches, and niche apparel. We are solving the problem of 'where can we find more sales' for these types of manufacturers by connecting them to our already-built pipeline directly into India," Palarea says.


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: Richard Palarea, 20 North

Maryland's growing game industry was on display at Artscape this weekend. Sponsors MAGfest and Innovate Baltimore helped put together the showcase, held in the Pinkard Gallery at the Bunting Center on the campus of the Maryland Institute College of Art. Innovate Baltimore co-founder Ben Walsh organized Gamescape to encourage area video game fans to take a look at what Baltimore's game industry has to offer.

"I was inspired to create Gamescape because I love video games and wanted to share what the local community is creating. This gives us a chance to highlight the creative artists and technologists working in Maryland to create video games. We're hoping to inspire more people to pursue it as a career, and possibly follow the artists they see this weekend," Walsh says.

Over a dozen game designers and companies from Baltimore and other areas presented displays and demos of their most recent games, from iPad applications and Flash games to first person shooters and interactive story games. Gamescape also featured a fine arts display from prominent area game designers, and workshops by professional game developers to connect with artists considering game development as a career choice. Classic arcade games were also on display.

"With all of the great universities around, Baltimore has a ton of great emerging developers. However, historically, many of those graduating students have left Baltimore, so it is hard to find veteran experience. But Baltimore has many wonderful amenities, including affordable housing, that make it an appealing place for aging developers to come and raise a family," Walsh continues.

Walsh is currently launching a new Baltimore-based game company, Pure Bang Games. Their newest game, "My Pet Rock", was demonstrated at this year's Gamescape.


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: Ben Walsh, Innovate Baltimore

Inspired by stories he sees when filming in troubled parts of the world, Baltimore documentary filmmaker Richard Lakin is looking to use his company, 18 rabbits digital media, to inspire change and draw attention to the problems faced by people in some of the world's most challenged places.

"Most of our pop media is obsessed with the trivial; the scandals of political figures, what Kim Kardashian is up to, or yet another vampire story. When I'm on these travels, I meet a lot of people who are serious about making a real change in the world. Telling their stories is my way of clearing out some of the clutter and focusing on real issues," Lakin says.

The company has partnered with foundations, NGOs, and non-profits from the US and around the globe to create social media strategies that draw attention to the work being done in countries like Honduras and Kenya. 18 rabbits also works with organizations to promote corporate responsibility, sustainability initiatives, and education.

"I believe that social media has the ability to change perceptions and influence policy, and that is my approach to web campaigns. Some people still think that promoting their cause on outlets like Facebook and Twitter is not something to be taken seriously, and use traditional media outlets for their branding, marketing, and public image. They are being left out of the global conversation," Lakin notes.

18 rabbits digital media recently entered into a partnership with an organization that promotes sustainable business practices and corporate social responsibility initiatives in the Middle East/ North Africa region, and will be providing content production and web strategies.


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: Richard Lakin, 18 rabbits digital media

Advanced Technology & Research has been a specialist in robotics, motion control, and automation for over 30 years. In 2009, while looking for ways to keep the company relevant in the changing world of technology development, Rob Lundahl, Vice President for Automation and Systems at ATR, was inspired to get to work on a new product that could utilize existing infrastructure to create solar power.
 
"Driving to and from work every day," Lundahl says, "I saw light and utility poles all along the highway and in malls and shopping centers and thought, 'These are unused assets. Why not develop tracking mounts for solar panels that can be easily installed on light poles and produce grid-tied power to the local utility network accessible at the base of the pole?'"

The products that ATR developed on this theme include a one-panel, pole-mounted solar tracker that uses GPS to track the sun for optimal power output; a two-panel, ground-mounted tracker; a solar car charger; and a hybrid wind/solar power system. The ground-mounted, two-panel array was recently displayed at the Maryland Solar and Wind Expo.

"So far, we've seen lots of interest from consumers, businesses, and government agencies," Lundahl says. "We installed our first pole-mounted tracker for a very low cost at the ENVIRO CENTER, in Jessup, where it is generating energy as well as serving as an educational tool, including by displaying its power output online in real-time."

ATR produces the tracking mechanism and assembles the tracker at its Columbia facility. Triton Metals in Solomon's Island fabricates the tracking mount. ATR will be installing solar panels on a wind turbine on Tilghman Island in late June and will install its first solar-assisted car charger in Bethesda in late July.


Writer: Amy McNeal
Sources: Rob Lundahl, Alan Cohen, Advanced Research & Technology
 

Integrated BioTherapeutics, a firm that specializes in developing vaccines for infectious diseases and countermeasures for bio-terrorism threats, is growing. The company recently moved into a new, larger facility in the Gaithersburg Accelerator.

The move to a larger facility was spurred by the need for more secure, dedicated lab space as the company develops new vaccine technology. Integrated BioTherapeutics was recently awarded a grant from The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases to develop a second-generation Ebola vaccine in partnership with the University of Texas Medical Branch. The company also received a grant from NIAID in 2010 for research and development of a Staphylococcus vaccine. The second phase of that research project is due to wrap up this year. Integrated BioTherapeutics is currently working on projects to create vaccines for a host of infectious diseases, including Dengue Fever, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Marburg Viruses and Ebola. 

"We have a drive to make something that changes the world, to create a vaccine that mutes something that effects people. We strive to help others do that too," says Rob Galioto, Director of Business Development at Integrated BioTherapeutics.

Integrated Bio Therapeutics was recently honored at the inaugural TEDCO ICE awards as Company of the Year. The award was given in recognition of the company's growth. Since its launch in 2008, Integrated BioTherapeutics has secured over $30 million in government research funding, and increased its staff size from one employee to 30. The company is expecting to add five to ten staff positions in the next year.

Author: Amy McNeal

Source: Rob Galioto, Integrated BioTherapeutics

Maryland is taking a proactive approach to encourage the use of electric vehicles around the state. With the advent of a new network of public charging stations, Marylanders who choose renewable energy electric vehicles now have more places to plug in and fuel up.

Using a $500,000 grant under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the program includes the installation of charging stations at Baltimore area locations. Charging stations will be installed at 10 municipal parking garages throughout Baltimore City. A partnership formed by the Baltimore Electric Vehicle Initiative and two Maryland companies, SemaConnect of Annapolis and Autoflex of Baltimore, plans to install 55 charging stations in other locations around the state, including Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland College Park, Frederick Community College, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Hilton hotel in Waldorf, the White Marsh park-and-ride, and several office buildings in Montgomery County.

Two chargers were recently installed at the Fitzgerald mixed-use development in downtown Baltimore. The chargers are accessible to residents of the LEED-designed Fitzgerald apartment complex, neighboring stores, the Lyric Opera House, and the University of Baltimore campus. Chargers are also being installed in Owings Mills at the College Square shopping center.

The rollout of so many public charging stations will make Maryland the number two state in the country for available EV chargers. Only California has more. The MEA considers the installation of public charging stations to be the cornerstone of their efforts to make Maryland an EV-ready state. The Maryland Energy Administration plans to have 65 charging stations available for public use by the end of June 2011. A full list of Maryland's public charging stations is available at the MEA website.


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: Maryland Energy Administration

Oculis Labs in Hunt Valley, developers of information security technologies, has been recognized by two major organizations as a leader in innovation. The company was listed in April by fundedIDEAS as one of its "Top 300 Startups". The company was also honored in May at the TEDCO ICE Awards with the Innovation award.

Oculis Labs offers two information security products. Privateeye, designed for general use in offices where information may need to be kept confidential, uses facial recognition screen lock technology to keep documents secure to a machine's registered user. It can be used on laptops and desktops, and uses the computer's camera to establish the identity of acceptable readers for a protected document. When an unauthorized person comes into the camera's view, the screen blurs to protect the information. Privateeye can be used to protect confidential information by health clinics, financial institutions, or in other industries where confidentiality is a concern.

"This takes the user out of the security equation. It's very effective with proprietary and personal data," says Oculis Labs CEO Bill Anderson.

Chameleon, Oculis' most advanced security tool, is designed for use by people working with highly sensitive documents, especially in the intelligence and military sectors. The technology works similarly to the Privateeye program, but provides a few additional safety features. Using a special plug-in box for each machine, Chameleon tracks the gaze of the person reading the document, and scrambles the information ahead and behind the reader's view, allowing only what the registered user is looking at currently to be readable. Nonsense words appear in place of the protected data.

"We protect the last 2 feet of the internet," Anderson says. "There's security available for the rest of it, but this protects your data once it hits your screen."


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: Bill Anderson, Oculis Labs

Baltimore tech industry pioneer System Source in Hunt Valley is moving into a post-recession growth phase. The company is expanding operations and hiring new personnel to meet the area's rising demand for remote office management, IT training, and teleconferencing.

"In 30 years, we've lived through four recessions," says System Source President Maury Weinstein. "You have to reinvent yourself."

Opened in 1981, System Source has grown with Baltimore's tech industry. The company's newest focus is on remote managed service for small companies that can't necessarily afford to staff their own full-service IT department. System Source offers clients the opportunity to have a remote IT department that can handle their servers and equipment. The company is also expanding its portfolio of services with updated videoconferencing.

"With the price of gas, video conferencing really makes sense. For a business in Baltimore, driving to see a client nearby might not even be as economical," Weinstein continues.

System Source recently opened its 15th Learning Center classroom in Havre de Grace. The opening of this new facility is directly tied to the training opportunities created by BRAC. As more defense contracting and other BRAC-related jobs open in the area, job seekers and existing employees will need new certifications and applications training.

In response to this expansion of operations, System Source is looking to grow its team. The company is currently looking to fill 5 openings. System Source is looking for tech teachers for the Learning Centers, and sales support staff in the company's home office in Hunt Valley.

"We've seen explosive growth in some technologies," Weinstein says. "We're gearing up for something new."


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: System Source, Chris Riley and Maury Weinstein

Global Results is stepping into the mobile marketing field with a new mobile marketing tool. The Owings Mills-based company is launching a service to help business owners connect with clients through text message marketing. Business owners will create a keyword that interested clients can use to opt into their mobile marketing campaign. That client will then receive text updates from the business.

"Mobile marketing is a modern form of communication," says Global Results CEO Kathleen Dorsey. "Many of the younger generation look to receive communications through their phones more than any other format."

According to Mobile Marketing Watch, text messages have an average open rate of 98%. Email has an average open rate of 22%. Mobile marketing technology provides business owners with ways to communicate quickly with their clients. The service can be used to confirm appointments, tout specials, or send news updates.

"If business is slow at a restaurant, they can send a message out to those who are on their mobile lists to offer specials for that day only," Dorsey continues.

Opened in 2007, Global Results has grown from a SEO optimization firm to a full-service social media company. CEO Kathleen Dorsey was recognized by National Association of Women Business Owners-Baltimore Regional Chapter as its 2010 Trailblazer of the Year.


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: Global Results, Kathleen Dorsey, Mobile Marketing Watch

The Maryland Technology Development Corporation held its inaugural ICE Awards ceremony and conference at the National Electronics Museum in Linthicum on May 11. In addition to the awards ceremony, the program also featured a keynote speech by Peter Corbett, founder and CEO of iStrategy Labs.

TEDCO was established by the Maryland General assembly in 1998, with the mandate to be a leading source of seed capital funding and business assistance for entrepreneurs specializing in technology. In addition to funding, TEDCO also facilitates relationships between start-up tech firms and federal laboratories, research universities, and business incubators. Over 300 Maryland firms are associated with TEDCO.

"TEDCO is the largest seed investor in the region," says Robert Rosenbaum, president of TEDCO. "We thought it was about time that we should recognize the hard work of these folks."

The ICE Awards honor emerging industry leaders in innovation and entrepreneurship. The 2011 Innovation winner was Oculis Labs of Hunt Valley, a developer of encryption technology. Also honored as the 2011 Entrepreneur of the year was Dr. Chuck Daitch of Akonni Biosystems, a firm that develops and markets integrated molecular diagnostic systems. 2011 Company of the Year award winner Integrated BioTheraputics Inc. was honored for its growth and community involvement.

"This is a great forum for our community of collaborators to come together. Everything you see here, this is all 'wow' technology," continues Mr. Rosenbaum.

TEDCO is focused on finding the technologies and entrepreneurs of the future. The quasi-public company is looking to expand beyond state funding into venture capital.


Writer: Amy McNeal
Sources: TEDCO, Robert Rosenbaum & Kathleen Shaffer

Baltimore-based Moodlerooms, Inc., an open-source e-Learning solutions developer, has released its joule Mobile application for Android and Blackberry devices.

Available to any joule user, joule Mobile harnesses the capabilities of smart phones to deliver a feature set that satisfies the evolving e-Learning needs of students and faculty while enabling campus leaders to carry out administrative necessities.

"Moodlerooms' release of joule Mobile for Android and Blackberry provides faculty, administrators, and students convenient, 24/7 mobile access on and off campus through multi-platform mobile technology applications," says Lou Pugliese, president.

joule Mobile engages students by delivering access to courses, interactive maps, and campus-wide news, alerts and notifications, while educators are provided with a mechanism for delivering course related information and materials through the Moodle-based, enterprise e-Learning platform, joule. Administrators are also enabled to keep their respective campus informed with timely notifications and alerts. The application can also be configured to display themes, color schemes and logos specific to a particular institution. joule Mobile is the portal to your campus.

joule Mobile is also supported on the Apple iPhone mobile platform.

Source: Moodlerooms
Writer: Walaika Haskins

It's time we started giving credit where its due in the Baltimore area.

That's the thought behind the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore's (EAGB) new "Pride of Baltimore" campaign that will honor five area leaders as "rock stars who make things happen in Greater Baltimore."

The campaign, announced at the organization's 2011 Annual Meeting, will highlight people from industry, education, community leaders, government, and other sectors who help make Baltimore City great and an area that can outperform competing markets economically. It will include profiles of area leaders in ads, marketing materials, and web content.

"Our role is to promote this region as a place in which to grow a business, invest, and bring jobs. We found the best way to do that is to get the people behind our positive testimonials to tell their stories and give it more of a community feel. If we can connect those leaders, together we can better address opportunities that come along," says Thomas Sadowski, EAGB president and CEO.

The initial five "rock stars" recognized by the EAGB are: Maryland State School Superintendent Dr. Nancy S. Grasmick; former Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith; Thomas Wilcox, President and CEO of the Baltimore Community Foundation; Brian Rogers and the T. Rowe Price Leadership Team; and Juxtopia Founder Jayfus Doswell. According to Sadowski, featured leaders are either nominated or are people the organization considers standouts.

"We're working on a new list of honorees that will come out in the next week or so. Obviously they're certain people who stand out, and we began with the list that we did because they're obvious or should be obvious to most. T. Rowe Price and their contribution to the business community. Nancy Grasmick and everything she's done for education with us being No. 1 in public education, that's significant. BCF is doing great things in the community not just from a social perspective, but what they're doing in the tech community to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. We'd heard Jayfus Doswell's story a couple of times now and felt like it was a good one. Here's a guy who's doing great things in business and to give back to the community. They're a lot of people like Jayfus who're doing great things for our community and we want to tell their story," Sadowski says.

The idea to celebrate the region's heroes came from a trip to Austin, Texas where Sadowski says they've invested a lot in highlighting these members of their community. "A lot of them were grown out of Dell and some of the other companies that have launched there. These firms have made great strides and are now giving back to the community. They're readily known in the business community and are serving as mentors. We have a lot of that going on in Baltimore, but we're a bigger market and a little bit more diverse given the federal government agencies in the area. We thought it was a great idea and figured let's do what we can to start introducing these champion leaders to one another," Sadowski says.

Source: Thomas Sadowski, Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore
Writer: Walaika Haskins