Practice ‘relentless incrementalism’

Newsletter for May 20, 2024

If you caught last Thursday's newsletter, you know we recently experienced a major change: Alanah Nichole Davis is moving to a role as chief storyteller in the city's i-team. If you missed our announcement, check out Alanah's poignant going-away column below.

What's that mean for you? For now, I'm back to writing these newsletters, and we'll be sending them on Mondays and Wednesdays. Any comments or thoughts are welcome!

Today, check out some takeaways from UpSurge Baltimore CEO Kory Bailey's keynote panel with other ecosystem builders during the Technical.ly Builders Conference. We also feature our CEO's latest reflections on the state of current tech — specifically, the role software plays .

— Sameer, Technical.ly editor for Baltimore and DC

This week’s newsletter is brought to you by My NEXT RAISE, the newest offering from NEXT powered by Shulman Rogers. The investor readiness platform launches in beta next quarter, and 250 founders will be selected to participate, getting free access for a year — over $2,000 in value. Find out more and sign up here.

UpSurge Baltimore's work revolves around the concept of equitech: the idea that tech and innovation sectors cannot thrive nor exist without a true commitment to equity. CEO Kory Bailey brought that message to his keynote address and an associated panel he moderated in Philadelphia at Technical.ly's Builders Conference earlier this month.

Bailey and his peers doing similar ecosystem-building work in Philly, Pittsburgh and Birmingham (Alabama, not England — a necessary distinction) discussed the importance of data, quality-of-life factors and other components they feel make for strong innovation sectors. Their insights, including a recommendation to embrace what Bailey calls "relentless incrementalism," speak to the challenges any American city faces while trying to build an economy without historic inequity.

➡️ Learn more in our recap here.

That proclamation might sound dramatic, but don't stop making software — we definitely need all that! Our CEO Chris Wink's new column bridges the recent history of federal funding with the current AI landscape to argue that tech's next horizons revolve around things like semiconductors and robots — in other words, physical things.

"That’s not to say software won’t be involved; of course it will be," Wink wrote.
It’s just that software is just kind of baked in now — a bit like washing machines and the telephone."

➡️ Learn more about the economc implications in the new column.

• ICYMI: Read Alanah Nichole Davis' reflections on her time with our newsroom, why she loves Baltimore innovators and what she's up to next. [Technical.ly]

• The latest cohort of Johns Hopkins' Social Innovation Lab wrapped on Thursday with a special demo day at the Pava Marie LaPere Center for Entrepreneurship. Pava Center leader and 2024 RealLIST Connector Josh Ambrose confirmed that each team got $5,000. Audience Prize winners Metallic Luxury (focused on sustainable community development) and NGLA (training multilingual youth as interpreters to help communities navigate health and legal ecosystems) each took home an additional $2,000. Cohort members also chose Salama Wellness, which aims to provide ongoing postpartum care and maternal wellness resources, to win the $15,000 Grand Prize. [The Pava Center]

• Nearly two months after it hit and destroyed the Key Bridge, the container ship Dali was cleared out of the middle of the Patapsco River. Check out a cool timelapse showing its move back to port. [Baltimore Sun]

• Seize the Day won the 149th Preakness Stakes last weekend. By the way, I definitely saw a bunch of you on Instagram flaunting your best pastels and hats. [ESPN]

• What the latest post-bridge collapse developments mean for the largely Indian crew of the Dali. [Baltimore Banner]