education : Innovation + Job News

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded a $100,000 grant to a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to improve the health of mothers and children in rural, hard-to-reach areas by increasing vaccine coverage.
 
Dr. Alain Labrique, director of the Johns Hopkins University Global mHealth Initiative, received a Grand Challenges Exploration Grant from the Gates foundation. This is the first time that Labrique and Hopkins’s public health school have received this particular grant although members of Labrique’s team have received other Gates’ grants.
 
“Grand Challenges pioneered funding for innovative research, for researchers to receive seed funding to take their ideas to the next level,” Labrique says. He is working with a team to develop a virtual vaccine registry, called mTikka. Part of the study will look at the impact of mobile phones on rural health delivery. 
 
Labrique says the registry builds on 12 years of public health work in rural Bangladesh, particularly on behalf of maternal, neonatal and child nutrition and survival. His team works in partnership with the Bangladesh ministry of health and family welfare and social enterprise partners mPower Health. mTikka will be test-piloted in rural, remote areas of Bangladesh for future use in other developing countries.
 
The Grand Challenges grant covers a 12- to 18-month long period. Researchers can reapply for another Grand Challenges grant after that but “you cannot hold more than one seed grant at a time,” Labrique says.
 
Grand Challenges grants have two levels, each with its own requirements. The Phase 1 grants are for $100,000 each. The Phase 2 grants start at $1 million. Will Labrique be applying for a Phase 2 grant in the future? “Oh, certainly,” he says.
 
Source: Dr. Alain Labrique, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Loyola University Maryland is partnering with a California venture capital firm to fund new startups and help grow existing businesses in the Govans area of York Road. Loyola and Wasabi Ventures formed a business accelerator with an office in Govans, a neighborhood in Baltimore City.

Karyl Leggio, dean of Loyola’s Sellinger School of Business and Management, says the accelerator will help revitalize the nearby York Road business corridor.

Leggio says the university bought and renovated a two-story building in Govans that is serving as the local office of Wasabi Ventures and out of which the accelerator is operating. Loyola University faculty are offering advice on business plans and marketing. About 20 Loyola students per semester serve as interns at the accelerator.

Wasabi Ventures was co-founded by T.K. Kuegler, general partner and a Loyola graduate. Wasabi is providing professional staff to manage the accelerator. Through Wasabi Ventures and its partnering organizations, funding is available for startups companies, although funding amounts have not yet been established.

Leggio said funding would be based on the level of need. She said, for example, that Loyola has funded student ideas up to $25,000 in cash and services. However, startups and businesses that use the business accelerator may need more funding than that.

Leggio said that the accelerator is interested in technology concepts and startup companies that want advice and assistance to reach the development stage, as well as existing companies in the area that want to grow.

The accelerator is starting with seven staffers, and Leggio says it may hire additional staff as the need arises.

“We are looking to help any kind of business that is willing to locate in the Govans/York Road area, not necessarily technology,” she says.
 
Source: Karyl Leggio, Dean of Sellinger School of Business and Management, Loyola University Maryland
Writer: Barbara Pash
 

K12 Enterprise, a business software firm for public school systems, intends to double the number of employees from its current 40 within the next two to three years. The Towson firm's expansion is the result of its acquisition last month of Sartox, a Virginia-based firm that also specialized in business software for public school systems.

The company will hire developers, IT consultants, sales and marketing staff and help desk workers, K12 CEO Andrew Fass says. 

Of K12 Enterprise's employees, 11 came from Sartox. K12 Enterprise employees are being trained in the Sartox system in order to retain Sartox's customers and attract new ones. 
 
K12 Enterprise is Microsoft's leading enterprise-grade financial and human resource management software for school systems used from kindergarten through the 12th grade.

“Sartox occupied the same space but different geography,” Fass says.
 
K12 Enterprise operates primarily in Pennsylvania, with a presence in New York State, Connecticut, Virginia and Texas, according to Fass. Sartox’s customers were mainly in Virginia and North Carolina, where it served more than 50 percent of the latter state’s 110 school systems. K12 Enterprises intends to attract customers in those and other southern states, Fass says.
 
K12 Enterprise installs the software, converts the school system’s data to the system, trains school personnel on its use and provides ongoing support and maintenance. The price is based on the number of students in a school district, and can range from $40,000 to $250,000 and up.
 
K12 Enterprise and Sartox established a partnership in 2010 when Sartox became an official reseller of K12 Enterprise software. Terry Garber, Sartox’s president, has become general manager of K12 Enterprise’s Virginia office. 

Source: K12 Enterprise CEO Andrew Fass
Writer: Barbara Pash

Two Baltimore City public high school students are representing Charm City at the prestigious Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in May.

The students, both grand prize winners in the Baltimore Science Fair, are enrolled in a little-known nonprofit, the Ingenuity Project. The project spends $1 million a year to encourage middle and high school students in Baltimore City public schools to excel in science.

"We're one of the best-kept secrets in the city," says Karen Footner, Ingenuity's spokesperson.
 
Footner, an educational consultant, says the project dates to 1993 when educators and advocates of the city school system asked why Baltimore had never had a winner in the Intel Science Talent Search, the nation’s oldest and best known youth science competition.
 
Acceptance into the project is competitive, based on school grades and multiple tests. Students apply in 5^th and 8^th grades. The project is held at three middle schools (Roland Park, Hamilton and Mount Royal) and one high school (Baltimore Polytechnic Institute).  If accepted into the project, students have to request to attend those schools.
 
“The money is spent mainly for teachers for accelerated math and science classes,” says Footner, noting that 80 percent of the funding comes from the Abell Foundation and Baltimore City Public Schools.
 
There are currently 486 students in the program, split evenly boys and girls and of whom half are African-Americans.
 
Since 2005, seven Ingenuity students have been semifinalists, and three have been among the top ten winners nationally in the Intel Science Talent Search. “For Baltimore City kids, that’s extraordinary,” Footner says.
 
The Ingenuity Project will host a fundraiser April 17 at the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park Museum, featuring  science writer Flora Lichtman.
 
Source: Karen Footner, educational consultant
Writer: Barbara Pash

The University of Maryland has begun a new master’s degree program in applied economics for working professionals looking to advance their careers. The program is designed to train people in the economic analysis of policy issues.
 
After completing core courses, students choose a specialty in environment economics, health economics, law economics, marketing design and game theory, and program analysis and evaluation, says Marianne Ley Hayek, executive director of professional masters programs at the University of Maryland College Park’s department of economics.
 
“Any government agency increasingly has to justify and measure results,” says Hayek.
 
The program is designed to be convenient for working professionals. Classes are held at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., near a metro stop. Classes are offered in the evenings and are taught by people with “real-life experience,” she says.
 
The first class in the program enrolled 25 students. Hayek expects the program to grow but class size will be kept small.  
 
Candidates for the program must have a bachelor of arts degree, taken two economic courses during their undergraduate years and meet other requirements. The 15-month-long program consists of 10 courses, at a fee of $2,750 per course. There is no difference in the fee for in-state and out-of-state students. The University of Maryland issues the diploma.
 
The fall 2012 program is accepting online registration by June 1.

Source: Mariane Ley Hayek, executive director of professional masters programs, University of Maryland, College Park department of economics
Writer: Barbara Pash

They thrilled you at the Olympics. You loved them at the World Figure Skating Championships. Now, ice skating is coming closer to home.

Young ice skaters can take their talent to the Next Ice Age, a Baltimore-based ice skating company that last month formed an apprentice company.
 
Tim Murphy, co-founder with Nathan Birch of The Next Ice Age, says the apprentice company, for ages 8 to 12 years old, will train and work with aspiring young skaters in the region.
 
The apprentice company will give its debut performance Sat. April 7 at 6 p.m. at Gardens Ice House, at 13800 Old Gunpowder Rd. in Laurel. The performance is free and open to the public.
 
Murphy and Birch, both former members of the John Curry Skating Co. who have worked with Dorothy Hamill, founded the Next Ice Age in 1988. It is a five-member professional company that performs for 10 weeks per year at the Carousel Hotel in Ocean City and venues like at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and the Columbia Festival for the Arts, in Howard County.
 
Murphy says that two years ago, The Next Ice Age decided to open an educational arm by founding the student company, for high school age skaters. The apprentice company followed in 2012.
 
“We can train the students the way we’d like, with the music and choreography, in the hopes of their moving on to the professional company,” says Murphy.
 
Entry into the 12-member student company and 10-member apprentice company is by invitation only. “We teach ice skating so we know the students in the area,” says Murphy.
 
The companies practice at the Gardens Ice House, in Laurel, although members come from throughout the area, including Baltimore City and Baltimore County.
 
“The Next Ice Age is the resident company at the ice house,” says Murphy. “It’s their first residency. We have to go where the ice rinks are.”
 
Source: Tim Murphy, The Next Ice Age
Writer: Barbara Pash

Learn It Systems, an educational systems developer based in Owings Mills, is planning to hire more than 100 educational professionals to staff its services in the Baltimore area.

The employment growth stems from new contracts with public and private schools to provide educational services. The company currently serves 30,000 children in around 1500 schools and online, in more than 200 school districts, and across 37 states, with 160 full-time employees and 6000 part-time teachers, paraprofessionals, and aides.
 
Learn It wants to hire individuals with certification in teaching, speech therapy, occupational and physical therapy, counseling services, and speech-language evaluation to fill part-time and full-time slots.

“Baltimore is becoming a sort of Silicon Valley for the for-profit education sector,” says Learn It Systems CEO Michael Maloney.
 
“You can flex up and down based on the case load you desire. If you’re a certified therapist, we may assign you in the state you currently reside in, or to work from home with a student that lives in another state. We’ll work through and support that certification process,” Maloney says.
 
Many hired individuals will work in summer school, and others will help Learn It pilot an online speech therapy platform.
 
Interested education professionals should contact Learn It Systems via their website: Learn It Systems Join Our Team.

Writer: Sam Hopkins
Source: Michael Maloney, Learn It Systems

An Atlanta software company and a Bethesda mobile security firm are the newest companies to join a University of Maryland, Baltimore County incubator sponsored by Northrop Grumman.

Both AccelerEyes and KoolSpan Inc. say they plan to grow their staff at the Northrop Grumman Cync Program, which looks for startups in the cybersecurity arena.

AccelerEyes currently has one employee at the Catonsville school but its Director of Business Development Scott Blakeslee says it could add sales and engineering staff in the next six months to a year as it hopefully makes inroads in the defense industry.

Late last year, AccelerEyes launched a new product called ArrayFire, a software library that speeds up application development. It also offers a consulting service to help businesses speed up their development of software code.

Blakeslee says the company joined the incubator to take advantage of the technical resources and research assistance thatUMBC and Northrop Grumman provide.

AccelerEyes employs 10 in Atlanta.

KoolSpan, which employs around 25 in total, also has just one employee at UMBC. But CEO Gregg Smith says he hopes to add software talent from UMBC as the company expands its mobile security products worldwide. With clients in 42 countries,KoolSpan is “aggressively growing its international business,” Smith says. 

Writer: Julekha Dash
Sources: Gregg Smith, KookSpan; Scott Blakeslee, AccelerEyes

Many of Baltimore's neighborhood recreation centers are scheduled to close, or have closed already, as a result of the city's continuing budget woes. Members of the Riverside community and Digital Harbor High School boosters have been looking at ways to transform the soon to be shuttered South Baltimore Recreation Center into a neighborhood technology center.

A meeting on the subject will be held Wednesday, Feb. 29 at the Baltimore Room at 100 Harbor View Dr. The meeting is being held jointly by the Key Highway Community Association and the HarborView Social Committee.

Andrew Coy, an educator at Digital Harbor High School who was named one of “10 Rock Stars Making A Difference In Baltimore” by the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, will fill the community in on plans to pay for the transformation. Coy is looking at using grant money to get the centers up and running. Digital Harbor students will also be presenting information about how technology impacts their education. The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m..


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: Jane Wehrle, founder of the Loop, an activity network in South Baltimore 

AVF Consulting founder Andrew Fass and his team have launched a new business. Dynamic Shared Services will provide accounting, membership management, dues processing, and reporting services to school systems, non profits and local unions nationwide.
 
“It is exciting to identify and develop new business opportunities that compliment AVF,” says Andrew Fass, CEO and founder of AVF Consulting, Inc. “As a Microsoft Silver ERP partner, AVF provides Microsoft Dynamics financial management software and services to unions, nonprofits, and other businesses. It makes sense to leverage our experience into new opportunities.”
 
The business emerged from an opportunity created by AVF's relationship with the country's fastest growing union - Service Employees International Union. SEIU was looking for ways to provide accounting services for some of their local union members.  
 
“Many organizations and small school districts do not have the bandwidth to perform all the necessary, accounting, reporting, and processing required to maintain their operations,” says Fass.“DSS’s experts are proficient at these services and can provide them at a cost savings. Because DSS is a shared service organization, our clients have access to technology that they may not have been able to afford on their own.”
 
Jeanette Gaines, co-founder of the new business, will be the chief operating officer of DSS.
 
Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: AVF Consulting

Baltimore-based calendar management firm Localist has been designated the sole source vendor for online calendar projects run by public organizations in four states. Localist has won this designation from Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Rhode Island.

"Several public run institutions have agreed that Localist is the only company that can adequately meet their needs when it comes to offering a unified events calendar to students," says Localist co-founder and CEO Mykel Nahorniak

The Localist platform gives schools and organizations that they work with the opportunity to upgrade their online calendar offerings from something static to something dynamic, including linking the calendar to Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare.

"We're going to use the great momentum that we're seeing to continue to establish a critical mass in the education space. We're also getting great feedback from our work with media organizations, like TBD in Washington, DC. We plan to pursue this space more thoroughly in 2012," Nahorniak continues.

Localist also recently announced that the company has been selected by 8 new universities -- including Georgetown University, Towson University, and Virginia Military Institute -- to provide an interactive calendar platform for student life on campus. Baltimore Collegetown, an organization of 14 area schools, has also chosen Localist for its online calendar.

The growing company is looking toward the future with a possible deal in the works with a major southern university. Localist is also monitoring what kind of technology students are using on campus, and developing new features to reflect those choices.


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: Mykel Nahorniak, Localist

As the way that many readers access books is changing, the Pratt Library is changing to keep up with the times. Starting August 8th, two branches of the Enoch Pratt Free Library system will begin offering e-readers to library patrons for check out.

"We're always asked what will be the future of libraries and books with the arrival and boom of e-readers like the Kindle, Nook, and iPad. So instead of shying away from this change, the Pratt Library has decided to embrace it," says Roswell Encina, Director of Communications for the Enoch Pratt Free Library.

The Barnes and Noble "Nook" branded e-readers will be available for checkout at the Reisterstown Road branch and the Waverly branch. Each e-reader comes preloaded with titles ranging from new bestsellers to children's books.

"Currently the e-readers are preloaded with 22 titles that includes best-sellers like Tina Fey's Bossypants, Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay and David Baldacci's The Sixth Man. Its a combination of fiction and non-fiction. There are also children's and teen titles as well as several classics, like Little Women," Encina says.

E-readers can be checked out by Pratt library patrons 18 and older who have a good library record, a library card, and a photo ID. Patrons will be allowed to keep the e-reader for 3 weeks. The Pratt Library system is hoping to expand the e-reader program to other branches in the future, and is looking for sponsors to help with that expansion. The library plans to offer additional e-readers through the Student Express Department at the Central Library. E-readers preloaded with the year's reading list will also be offered to middle schoolers at Saint Ignatius School.


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: Roswell Encina, The Enoch Pratt Free Library

Maryland leads the country in university conducted life sciences research per capita, according to a new report published by The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. The Life Sciences Maryland: Jobs and Economic Impact Report was released by Governor O'Malley at the BIO 2011 International Conference in Washington, DC.

The life sciences sector has been a major source of new job growth in Maryland in the last decade. Between 2002 and 2010, the life sciences sector was responsible for one third of Maryland's job gains. Life sciences jobs pay an average of 76% more than other jobs in the state, with an average salary of more than $91,000. The majority of the region's jobs in life sciences are in Research, Testing and Medical Labs, and Drugs and Pharmaceuticals. These specializations account for 94% of Maryland's life sciences jobs.  

Life sciences activity, including private sector jobs, Federally related jobs, and academic activity accounts for 71,618 Maryland jobs, or 3% of all jobs in the state. There are 15 Federal facilities, 16 universities or colleges, and over 500 private companies conducting life sciences research in Maryland. With more than 1700 private companies supporting and producing products for the life sciences sector in the state, Maryland ranks fifth in the country for overall concentration of jobs that are directly tied to life sciences.


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development

Business coaching has been a growth industry in the economic downturn. As business owners seek new solutions to their problems, including work-life balance, growth strategies, and marketing, some entrepreneurs are adding a business coach to the company team.

"In many cases, the owner needs someone on the outside of their business to give them a different viewpoint. In other cases the owner needs to have a trusted adviser that they can be honest with and who will be honest with them. In almost all cases, the owner needs someone to serve in the capacity of an objective friend that will hold them accountable to getting results," says ActionCOACH certified business coach Gary Stokes.

Coaching fees can start at $100-500 for a one day workshop or seminar. One-on-one coaching can run into the thousands of dollars per month depending on the size and scope of the project and the business.

"Most businesses engaged in one-to-one coaching will invest around $2000 per month," Stokes says. "The average client for ActionCOACH stays with a program for over a year."

Business coaching has been trending upward in the last 5 years. In a 2010 survey of  over 1000 companies in diverse industries, The American Management Association found that 52% of them had coaching programs, and 37% of the companies that did not have a coaching program were working to implement one.


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source:  Gary Stokes, ActionCOACH; The American Management Association

Computer training firm Bit BY Bit has grown from from one entrepreneur's idea to a thriving company in downtown Hampden. Founder Kimberly Branch is using her company's success as an opportunity to give back to the community by providing computers to disadvantaged families in Baltimore.

"In providing training, I realized that a lot of people don't have computers in the home. How can they retain what they are learning or even keep pace with the rest of society with out access to technology?" Brand says.

"I ask clients, friends, family, anyone that I can think of for donations. I take the donations and refurbish them. Then I donate them to my students who need computers."

Branch's desire to use her company to help those in need was inspired by her own experiences. While receiving public assistance in the 1990's, Branch participated in a program offered through the Department of Housing and Urban Development that encouraged residents of public housing to take entrepreneurship and business training classes offered by The Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore. Her experiences in the program encouraged her to both open her business and give back to the community.

"I started working with Housing clients and others who are considered to be a part of the 'economically disadvantaged' population, [and] I realized that people needed to see a real person who had come from where they are. A person who had a desire to make a change and despite the 'Nay Sayers' to take steps to do so," she says.

Bit BY Bit is continuing to grow with the changing technology market. The company is increasing its network and database security programs to meet increased demand for those services.


Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: Kimberly Branch, Bit BY Bit Computer Training