IT : Featured Stories

As lending from banks and venture capitalists shrinks, many entrepreneurs have turned to crowdfunding to launch their startups. Using Kickstarter and other sites can also offer a valuable way to test new ideas and get exposure for a new company. But getting money from strangers requires a lot of planning. 

Maryland company Structural has helped preserve the buildings that house the National Aquarium in Baltimore and Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. The company also plans to hire 100 over the next three years. 

Baltimore's main networking group for the tech community shook things up last year when it appointed a new executive director, Jason Hardebeck. Now, he talks to Bmore Media about his plans to make the group relevant at a time when innovators are making connections on their own through social media. His ideas include giving members more of a say in where their money goes and providing mentoring opportunities for budding entrepreneurs. And he wants Baltimore to learn how to fail.

Information is power, and in Mary Hartney's view it's access to information -- and a better understanding of how to use it -- that represents Baltimore's most pressing issue as we work to forge the future.

Over the past decade, "cyber" has become a catch-all term stuck in front of anything remotely related to IT or Internet technologies. It's come to mean everything but define nothing. That got us wondering what "cyber" really means in the Greater Baltimore Area. Here's what we found out.