Today’s Gazette highlights the Prince George’s County Board of Education race between District 1 candidates David H. Murray ’14, economics, and Zabrina Epps, CCBC academic adviser.

Murray told the Gazette, “One of most important things we have to do is try to recruit the most effective teachers we can.” He supports an external audit on the school system’s operating budget, to redirect funds toward increasing teacher pay.

As one of three candidates in Prince George’s County who are currently university students, Murray argues that his age and familiarity with the school system as an alumnus afford him an important perspective on issues that matter to students and faculty today.

bwtech@UMBC Helps Jump-Start Small Companies

It started back in 1989 – with two trailers and just five companies. By 2006, the bwtech@UMBCResearch and Technology Park was a major player – boasting 42 companies, bringing thousands of jobs to Maryland, and generating $100 million in income. Now, six years later, bwtech just topped 100 companies and is widely recognized as one of the top parks for nurturing small companies.

There are about 20 incubators in Maryland, but bwtech is one of only two working to grow the region’s cybersecurity industry. Twenty-four companies call the cyber incubator home, along with the CyberHive, a unique venture which provides a virtual incubator for companies outside the region and physical space for networking. The incubator’s contributions were recognized last year, when Ellen Hemmerly, president and executive director of bwtech, received the 2011 Innovator of the Year Award from The Daily Record.

“I’ve been involved in incubators for twenty years,” says Hemmerly, who has spent 15 of those years at bwtech. “In all my years of working with area incubators, the bwtech cyber incubator is the fastest growing and has much potential economic impact.” That, she says, is due in large part to its relationship to UMBC and to its partnerships with both the private and public sectors, such as Northrop Grumman and the Maryland Department of Economic Business Development.

But, it’s not all about cyber. For bwtech diversity is key. While cyber accounts for 40 percent of the companies at bwtech, the life sciences make up 40 percent and clean energy 10 percent. The remaining 10 percent are organizations dedicated to training and research.

There’s no question that the diversity of companies at bwtech contributes to the park’s success.

“With diverse companies developing innovative products and services in cybersecurity, clean energy and life sciences, bwtech@UMBC addresses the most compelling issues we face as a state and as a nation.” says Christian Johansson, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development.

The defining characteristic that draws all the park’s activity together is a focus on nurturing early stage companies.

For example, the Life Sciences and Clean Energy Tech incubators host a monthly round table where 10 to 15 CEOs gather. Sometimes the research park will bring in an outside speaker, says David Fink, director of entrepreneurial services at bwtech. The bwtech park also supports entrepreneurs-in-residence, who help companies not only define their goals, but achieve them.

Kimberly Brown, CEO of Amethyst Technologies, values the opportunities to connect with other companies. Other CEOs, such as Eric Fiterman of Rogue Networks, say that having access to the entrepreneurs-in-residence is key to learning about business. “I’m just an average Joe,” says Fiterman, “I’ve never done this before.”

Kathleen Turano, President of Plant Sensory Systems agrees. “We were new to the business world,” says Turano, a former professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, “and the most attractive feature of bwtech@UMBC was the mentoring service.” That experience, she says, was invaluable. It also appears to have paid off. Turano’s company, Plant Sensory Systems, entered a collaboration this past October with DuPont Pioneer to evaluate proprietary genes for increasing the nitrogen use efficiency in corn.

Delali Dzirasa, CEO of the cybersecurity company Fearless Solutions, says Victor Hess, his entrepreneur-in-residence, tells him to focus. More than once, Hess has helped Dzirasa take a step back: “He’ll tell me that I’m kind of looking at too much.”  

Companies like Brown’s, Turano’s, Fiterman’s and Dzirasa’s usually come into the incubator with a couple of people and stay for a few years. Then they “graduate” and become accelerator companies, moving into more long-term space at the park.

In its six years at bwtech, Amethyst Technologies has grown from two to 24 people, starting in the incubator and quickly moving to the accelerator. The company stays for the creative energy of the park and the financials, says Brown. “We get lab space at a below-market price.”

The company started with 400 square feet of office space; now it’s up to 4,000 square feet of office space and 1,000 square feet of wet lab space.

As companies grow, they can take advantage of partnerships with large, mature companies that work with bwtech, and sometimes call it home. Take for example, the Northrop Grumman Cync Program, a partnership between Northrop Grumman and the cyber incubator. The Cync Program, as it’s called, is designed to grow companies that commercialize cyber technology. The program, which has seven companies, provides rent-free space and cyber business expert support.

“One of the goals,” says Chris Valentino, director of cyber at Northrop Grumman, “is to help them build their brand.”

After all, nurturing small companies that will meet the product and service demands of the 21st century is what bwtech is all about.

(10/17/12)

An exhibit curated by Debra Corrie ’92, visual and performing arts, featuring Latin America’s and the Caribbean’s cultural wealth and diversity, as seen through the lenses of 22 leading contemporary photographers from 13 countries, is currently on display at Dulles International Airport. The exhibit, The Big Picture: A Photography Exhibition in Celebration of the 20^th Anniversary of the IDB Cultural Center, will be located at the Gateway Gallery through the end of October.

Corrie serves as art collection coordinator and registrar for the Inter-American Development Bank; the show is a collaboration between the Cultural Center of the Inter-American Development Bank and the Airports Authority Arts Program.

“Through this exhibit, which is slated to be the most visited show in the IDB Cultural Center’s history, Dulles International Airport will become a museum of modern art for several months, giving countless travelers an opportunity to become acquainted with our peoples’ colorful and expressive heritage, traditions and imagery,” said Ivan Duque Marquez, chief of the IDB’s Culture, Creativity and Solidarity Division.

For more information about the show, click here.

A new Salon column by UMBC political science professor Thomas F. Schaller responds to what Romney strategist Eric Fehrnstrom called “hit[ting] a reset button for the fall campaign.” Moving from the primary to the general election, Fehrnstrom remarked, “everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again.”

Schaller argues that the Etch-a-Sketch metaphor is apt in that Romney aspires to “invite all center-right voters, be they hardcore conservatives or libertarian Republicans or fence-sitting moderates, to compose whatever sketch of him they find most appealing — and then vote, accordingly, for him.”

Instead of the presidential election, Schaller’s latest Baltimore Sun column focuses on Maryland’s 6th District, which he calls “the only consequential contest on the ballot.” He writes that the Western Maryland district was recently redrawn to include to include chunks of heavily Democratic Montgomery County, with the intent to unseat Republican incumbent Roscoe Bartlett. Bartlett will debate Democratic nominee John Delaney four times in the next two weeks.

Update (10/18/2012): See Schaller’s newest Salon column, responding to the presidential debate, “Cool cat Obama shows his claws.”

On Friday, October 13, Kimberly Moffitt, assistant professor of American studies, discussed the vice presidential debate on WYPR’s Midday with Dan Rodricks.

Rodricks opened the discussion by asking if the vice presidential debate mattered.  Most viewers found the debate entertaining, but would anything that the vice presidential nominees said change voters’ minds?

“I do think this was a sideshow, but it was a pretty entertaining one for us all,” said Moffitt. “These are two individuals who do matter, but they aren’t the voices we want to hear most significantly in the election.  They made a difference in terms of reenergizing, for both camps, this interest in what’s happening.”

The full conversation can be heard here.

InternationalStudent.com is excited to announce the launch of the 2012 Travel Video Contest!

We have been getting a ton of emails already asking about this year’s contest, so here’s the skinny. This is our seventh year in a row, and the Grand Prize will be $4,000! There will also be some great runner-up prizes. Entry deadline is Halloween – October 31.

To enter the competition, you need to create a short movie (no longer than 5 minutes in length) telling us why you want to study or travel abroad. If you are already studying abroad, the movie can be about any trip you would like to take. Review all of the rules and regulations to make sure you are eligible, and be sure to check out our previous winners so you can see what it took to win in the past.

Finally, we are delighted to welcome our judges panel consisting of two previous winners of the contest (returning judges Sandy Florez, 2009 Winner, and Matt Brattin, 2006 Winner), as well as two international education gurus (returning judge Jim Crawley and first time judge Joe Avison). Judges, thank you in advance – it’s tough to choose a winner, and the pay really stinks!

Good luck contestants!

Kathy Boyle ’72, French, will display her original hand-carved bird sculptures for the 29th time at the Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland, next month. Easton’s Star-Democrat newspaper profiled the carver over the weekend.

“I became interested in carving through collecting. After collecting carvings for several years, I decided to try carving as a hobby,” says Boyle. “When my son was born, I took a year off from my job. My son will be 34 this year and I never looked back.”

Read the full article in the Star-Democrat here.

Boyle prides herself, she explains on her website, on thoroughly researching the bird before carving in order to achieve realistic color and form. She worked for the federal government after graduating from UMBC, but became a full-time carver in 1978.

See Boyle’s work here.

The Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education (CUERE) welcomes  Dr. Christopher Ellis, Associate Professor of Plant Science an Land Architecture at the University of Maryland, College Park as guest for the seminar “Landscape Performance: Measuring Benefits of Designed Communities” this Friday, October 19th.

The seminar is the latest for CUERE’s Fall 2012 Seminar Series, which has been held annually since 2003. It begins at 2 PM, and will be hosted in Room 206 of the Technology Research Center, and is free and open to the public.

Donald F. Norris, professor and chairman of UMBC’s Department of Public Policy, commented in today’s Gazette on both the Dream Act and same-sex marriage, topics of two referenda on Maryland ballots this November.

In “Same-sex marriage ad campaign begins,” Norris argued that in general advertisements won’t sway voters already committed to a position. However, he suggested, ads featuring black ministers supportive of same-sex marriage rights could persuade some black voters whose churches oppose the measure to vote for it themselves.

In “Dream Act fiscal impact remains murky,” Norris argued that a recent UMBC report which found the legislation to be economically beneficial for Maryland is “not going to change the minds of the hard-core opposition.” On this issue, he said, “Many have made up their minds regardless of cost.”