Gather entrepreneurs, technologists, investors and policy leaders in a room, and you’ll pick up on plenty of shifts in how economic development is being reframed in an era characterized by increased innovation and digital connectivity. Even the whales are discussed differently these days, as was seen at Maryland’s premier entrepreneurial celebration — TEDCO’s Entrepreneur Expo.
In the past, economic whales might’ve been discussed in hunting terms. Landing a whale meant attracting the next big corporate headquarters or factory that would become a key employer and driver of growth.
But as leaders have watched small teams who scaled with lightning speed become some of the economy’s biggest winners, the focus of economic attention has changed. So, as Governor Wes Moore discussed his vision for spurring tech-driven economic growth in Maryland during a fireside chat at the influential event, he was more interested in what happens around the whales that already exist.
The metaphor went like this: Spot a whale in the ocean, and you’ve found a place where marine life is thriving. That’s not only because whales are large, but because they attract schools of smaller fish and plants that cluster around the massive cetaceans, with each organism benefitting from the presence of the other. Everyone plays a role.
In this scenario, the most important thing is the ecosystem that the whale creates—a reflection of how Moore looks at Maryland’s innovation economy.
“We have a lot of whales,” Moore told TEDCO CEO Troy LeMaile-Stovall during a keynote fireside chat. The state benefits from a wealth of institutional assets that has made it a leader in “eds, meds and feds,” from federal agencies and major research universities to large corporations.
Around these whales, there is room for new discoveries to take root and new companies to grow. Many of these emerging ventures were represented in the room, along with a host of collaborative, public-private organizations like TEDCO (the Maryland Technology Development Corporation), a state-backed agency providing funding, resources and connections to early-stage technology and life sciences companies in Maryland, that are spurring along the risk-takers.
“What we now need to do is make sure we’re fostering ecosystems so that people can continually feed off of them,” Moore said of the whales. “That’s how you create an entrepreneurial culture.”
Growing support for the state’s entrepreneurs was a key focus for the governor and the 1,048 entrepreneurs, business leaders, economic development organizations and public officials who gathered at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel on December 4.
Throughout the day, the Expo provided networking and pitch opportunities for entrepreneurs, while showcasing resources available to them in the state. And after ten years of success, the event continues to be a rare moment where the people who drive the innovation economy across the state, and others who are evaluating the potential to do business in Maryland, are gathered in one place.
During one of the two keynote sessions, Moore and several other state economic leaders laid out the vision for the state’s role in creating a strong ecosystem for entrepreneurs, described the lines of effort to get there and provided a glimpse at the opportunities for all who were assembled to join in this effort.
“We want all of you in Maryland, if you’re not here already, because I really do believe that this is going to be the tech center for the country over this next decade,” Moore said.
He declared that, to make this a reality, the state must recognize and leverage all assets — the whales and the benefits they bring. He readily ticked off the list: 55 colleges and universities, 16 community colleges, four HBCUs, dozens of military facilities, the highest percentage of people who possess top secret clearances of any state in the nation and the most-educated population.
At the same time, Moore said his administration is aiming to be “intentional” as leaders go about the work of expanding support for entrepreneurs.
This means aligning investment with areas of technology strength. For instance, the fact that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is headquartered in Gaithersburg and the National Security Agency is headquartered at Fort Meade forms a strong basis for investing in cyber, artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum technologies. Federal agencies are already focused on pushing those rapidly advancing technologies forward, with top-tier talent in many cases working on the cutting-edge, ahead of industry.
With the right environment around these agencies, and continued encouragement to transform technologies from experiments and security initiatives to products that improve everyday life, expanded commercialization opportunities are bound to follow.
The message of the chat was clear – find creative ways to support entrepreneurs, and they will continue the cycle and support each other. With success from these companies, more will take root and funding will follow. The entire process provides a greater chance that, before long, a busy fish will become an influential whale.
Source: The Daily Record