Innovation + Job News

Even as the recession continues to drag on there's reason for Baltimore area job hunters to hope on the horizon. A new report released last week by the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program placed Baltimore in the No. 18 spot as a result of its comparatively small increase in unemployment during April, May and June.

The report, which compares the effects of the current economic downturn on the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country. Baltimore is also among 20 cities that have begun to show early signs of a recovery and a slow down in economic decline.

Source: Brookings Institute
Writer: Walaika Haskins

Two Baltimore area businesses have made to the semi-finals of Forbes Magazine's "Boost Your Business"contest. Encore Path, a developer of neural regenerative stroke rehabilitation devices for stroke survivors, and GiftCardRescue.com, a gift card exchange site, are among the 20 semi-finalists competing for a $50,000 cash prize and another $50,000 in advertising on the Forbes.com site.

The contest relies on the public to vote for the companies "with the most promising growth prospects, if they were given a bit of nourishing investment capital." Participants may vote for up to five companies.

Encore Path is currently in second place. Voting closes on September 30, 2009.

Source: Forbes Magazine
Writer: Walaika Haskins

In an effort to boost the profile of Baltimore's screenwriters, The Baltimore Film Office, in conjunction with Morgan State University's Film and Television Writing Program, and Johns Hopkins' Film and Media Studies Program  has launched a search for aspiring film writers for itsfifth annual Baltimore Screenwriters Competition. 

Designed to create awareness of screenplays as a literary art form and to encourage new screenwriters into the entertainment industry the contest offers applicants the opportunity to win prizes including cash and all access passes to the Maryland Film Festival.

Early submission begins Thursday, October 1 through Monday, November 30, 2009 with a $35 application fee. The final deadline is Friday, January 29, 2010 with a $50 application fee.

Writers interested in participating in the contest can submit applications and original feature length screenplays that must be set in or around Baltimore. Materials can be mailed or delivered to the Baltimore Film Office, Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, 7 East Redwood Street, Suite 500, Baltimore, Maryland 21202. The Baltimore Screenwriting Competition is a project of Mayor Sheila Dixon and the Baltimore Film Office at the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts and sponsored by Municipal Employees Credit Union of Baltimore (MECU), Maryland Film Festival, NEXTCAR and Visit Baltimore.

All eligible scripts will receive coverage by local screenwriters. Additionally, film industry professionals will judge final scripts. Participating judges will be announced at a later date. Competition winners will be announced during the Maryland Film Festival on May 6-9, 2010.

To download the 2010 Baltimore Screenwriters Competition application, visit Baltimore Film or call 410-752-8632.

Source: Baltimore Film Office
Writer: Walaika Haskins

The Downtown Partnership of Baltimore took the wrapper off of a new and improved website last week. The release of the new site came the same week that the business organization held its 25th annual meeting.

The new site includes a redesigned homepag and  easier navigation.New functionality includes a RSS feed and an interactive events calendar.

Source: DPOB
Writer: Walaika Haskins

The Obama Administration announced $100 million in Economic Recovery Act funding for 43 transit agencies that are pursuing cutting-edge environmental technologies to help reduce global warming, lessen America's dependence on oil and create green jobs.

"This is a sign of things to come," says U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who made the announcement in Atlanta, the site of the largest award. "This shows how investing in green transportation not only helps the planet, but creates jobs and strengthens our economy. It also shows how much more we can do."

The 43 winning proposals were submitted by transit agencies from across the country as part of a nationwide competition for $100 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ( ARRA ) funds. Selection criteria included a project's ability to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions and also to provide a return on the investment. Other criteria included readiness to implement, applicant capacity, degree of innovation and national applicability. The Federal Transit Administration reviewed more than $2 billion in applications for these funds.

"These grants will put Americans to work now while improving our environment in the future," said FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff. "The transit industry continues to be at the forefront of reducing pollution and creating a cleaner, safer environment for our nation."

Some $7.2 billion have been dispensed by federal grants since President Obama signed ARRA into law on in Feb.

The Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) won a  $522,000 grant. The funds will be used to replace Halon 1301 The MTA currently has approximately 5 metric tons of Halon 1301 ( CBrF3 ) deployed at 24 MTA facilities in and surrounding Baltimore City. Each metric ton of Halon 1301 released to the atmosphere - intentionally or inadvertently - is equivalent to releasing 6,900 metric tons of carbon dioxide. The scope of this project includes destruction of MTA's inventory of Halon 1301 and replacement with another clean agent.

Source: Ray Lahood, DoT
Writer: Walaika Haskins

Job hunters take heart, a new survey from CareerBuilder and Robert Half shows businesses are looking forward and making plans for the time when the recovery begins - including the need to make sure they're prepared for the upturn. The survey shows where employers are headed with post recession hiring. According to the survey, managers are planning to hire a combination of workers to support both thier long- and short-term projects. Fifty-three percent of employers expect to hire full-time employees over the next 12 months, while 40 percent will hire contract, temporary or project professionals and 39 percent will add part-time employees.

Other key survey findings include:

• In the next 12 months, more than half of employers polled plan to hire full-time employees, four in 10 will hire contract, temporary or project workers, and four in 10 will hire part-time employees.
  
• Technology, customer service and sales are the top three areas in which employers expect to add jobs first once the economy rebounds.
  
• The average time to fill open positions, depending on the job level, is 4.5 to 14.4 weeks, the same time range as last year.
  
• Despite an abundant labor pool, six in 10 employers are willing to negotiate with qualified candidates for higher compensation.
  
• Four in 10 employers expect the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to create jobs in their organizations over the next two years.
  
• More than half of employees polled plan to make a career change or go back to school when the economy recovers.
  
• Forty percent of hiring managers said that when the economy improves, giving pay raises will be their primary method for retaining top performers.

Gov. Martin O'Malley  has relaunched the once defunct Maryland Economic Development Commission (MEDC). The official swearing in of commission members occurred in August and reopens the MEDC at a time when private economic investment is vitally needed.

The MEDC, first created in 1995 has been inactive since 2006. It's25 member panel will help shape Maryland's business policy, regulation and legislation. As part of its mission, the Commission also will develop a 10-year strategic plan for the state's economy, solicit input from businesses from each region of the state and provide recommendations to the Gov. on issues that currently or could potentially impact Maryland's businesses.

"The Maryland Economic Development Commission will play a vital role in charting a course for Maryland's economic future," says Governor O'Malley. "We are fortunate to have brought together some of Maryland's greatest visionaries in science, education and business from every region of the State to undertake this important mission and I look forward to learning their recommendations for how we can best support Maryland's business community."

Commission members serve staggered three-year terms. Chairing the Commission will be Dr. Elias Zerhouni, who is currently Senior Advisor for Johns Hopkins Medicine and Senior Fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. From 2002 to 2008, Dr. Zerhouni was the Director of the National Institutes of Health, where he successfully led a series of reforms that were adopted by Congress in the NIH Reform Act of 2006.

"It's an honor for me to lead this Commission of my fellow Marylanders dedicated to strengthening Maryland's economy," said Dr. Zerhouni. "I look forward to working with Governor O'Malley and my Commission members to develop a long-range strategic plan to build on Maryland's unparalleled assets."

Writer: Walaika Haskins
Source: Dr. Elias Zerhouni, MEDC

According to the Department of Business and Economic Development, outreach efforts by the State have helped persuade roughly 50 percent of the 30,000 employees affected by Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) to follow their jobs to Maryland. That, however still leaves as many as 15,000 Department of Defense (DoD) jobs that must be filled in Maryland by September 15, 2011. These remaining DoD jobs and additional defense contractor and other mission support jobs provide outstanding career opportunities for the State's highly-skilled workforce.

BRAC is the largest single employment growth activity in Maryland since World War II. BRAC and its related DoD decisions will bring at least 60,000 new jobs to Maryland.

That means the time is ripe for those seeking opportunities in engineering; life sciences; information technology; logistics, support and maintenance; administration and business; and clerical fields to pursue new career opportunities.

For information on BRAC career opportunities, visit Maryland Workforce Exchange

Writer: Walaika Haskins
Source DBED

Dr. David Ramsay, President, University of Maryland Baltimore, (UMB) has been named the Greater Baltimore Tech Council's (GBTC) 2009 BETA (Baltimore's Extraordinary Technology Advocate) award winner. The BETA Award is presented at the GBTC's annual TechNite celebration to an individual whose words and actions have had an outstanding impact on the Greater Baltimore technology community.

"Dr. Ramsay has continuously pushed the envelope in terms of growth and development throughout his career. The tremendous expansion of the university's research enterprise, the investment in state-of-the-art facilities, and the creation of the University of Maryland BioPark, has built a foundation that is generating jobs and transforming the region into a bioscience hub spinning out new discoveries and new companies. And it's all happening thanks to the leadership of Dr. Ramsay � he is truly deserving of this award," says GBTC Executive Director, Steve Kozak.

Writer: Walaika Haskins
Source: Steve Kozak, GBTC

Engineers at Johns Hopkins University have designed an innovative computer software capable of sifting through hundreds of genetic mutations to highlight the DNA changes that are most likely to promote cancer.

The engineers' goal is to provide critical help to researchers who are poring over numerous newly discovered gene mutations, many of which are harmless or have no connection to cancer. According to its inventors, the new software will enable these scientists to focus more of their attention on the mutations most likely to trigger tumors.

A description of the method and details of a test using it on brain cancer DNA were published in the August 15 issue of the journal Cancer Research.

"It's very expensive and time-consuming to test a huge number of gene mutations, trying to find the few that have a solid link to cancer," says Rachel Karchin, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering who supervised the development of the computational sorting approach. "Our new screening system should dramatically speed up efforts to identify genetic cancer risk factors and help find new targets for cancer-fighting medications."

The new computational method is called CHASM, short for Cancer-specific High-throughput Annotation of Somatic Mutations.

Writer: Walaika Haskins
Source: Rachel Karchin, Johns Hopkins University

While much of the attention in the current debate over health care concentrates on the impact of escalating health care costs on small businesses and the uninsured, new data from the Johns Hopkins Nonprofit Listening Post Project shows that health care costs are also producing a heretofore unnoticed crisis for the country's nonprofit organizations and the nearly 13 million workers they employ.

Nearly all, 98 percent, of the responding nonprofits offering health benefits indicated that they are concerned about their organization's health care costs, with 59 percent ranking health care costs as one of their organization's top challenges.

The impact is already being felt as organizations decide to stop offering, or reduce coverage of, health benefits; institute higher employee co-pays and shares of insurance costs; and in pressures to hold down wages, shift to part-time employees, and even reduce mission-critical services.

The nonprofit workforce is the fourth largest industry in the U.S. A labor of love for most, employees generally work on lower pay scales. Nonprofits take a greater hit because thier health benefit costs are unusually high since nonprofit employers have used decent benefits packages to attract and retain quality staff. With health benefit costs steadily rising those flush benefits packages are no longer possible for large numbers of nonprofits, according to the July 2009 survey conducted by Johns Hopkins researchers.

"The evidence is now in," noted Lester Salamon, report author and director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies. "Escalating health insurance costs are taking a dramatic toll on our nation's nonprofits and the devoted employees who work for them."

Other findings from the Johns Hopkins health benefits survey include:

• A striking 80 percent of the nonprofit respondents reported offering health insurance coverage for their employees. Nevertheless, the proportion not offering such coverage rose by 62 percent compared to the results from a comparable survey in 2004.
• Virtually all (99 percent) of the large nonprofits responding reported offering health benefits to employees but less than half (46 percent) of the smallest organizations did, and cost was a major factor at work.
• Nearly three out of every four nonprofits offering health benefits reported that their organization's total direct health insurance costs increased during the past year, and for over a third of the respondents the increase was over 10 percent�well above the national average of 5 percent per year.

Writer: Walaika Haskins
Source: Lester Salamon, Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies

Avatech Solutions,a design and engineering technologies company, rolled out the latest service for its clients -- the Avatech Client Portal.

Designed as a destination for Avatech's client base, the Client Portal (CP) will provide 24/7 instant access to information and services of special interest to Avatech clients.

Initially CP will only be available to clients who have an Autodesk Subscriptions through Avatech or to our technical support clients. Subscription clients have access to free Avatech productivity software downloads. The Portal could enable Avatech customers to receive thousands of dollars worth of free software that automates tedious manual tasks and dramatically reduces design time. The CP will also streamline technical support. Clients will be able to quickly and easily submit support questions and technical problems, as well as view and search all past issues and resolutions.

Avatech is already making plans to expand the portal that may include additional free software downloads, access to a support knowledge base, on-demand learning, product tips, links, special offers and promotions, RSS, and communities. The company says it will actively solicit user feedback to expand and populate the portal with information and services that its clients want.

"We are constantly pushing ourselves to provide the maximum value to our clients. It's not enough for us to provide initial services to customers; we strive to partner with clients not only as their businesses grow, but during tough times as well. We're in it for the long haul and we want our clients to know that," says George Davis, president and CEO of Avatech. "The Client Portal is just the latest salvo in this continuing effort."

Writer: Walaika Haskins
Source: George Davis, Avatech