ET #142: Spring Into Action
Do you feel that momentum? Coming off of a beautiful evening of presentations from this year’s Baltipreneurs, welcoming the third Techstars Equitech cohort, and celebrating the major milestone of submitting the second phase of the EDA Tech Hubs proposal, we are feeling the energy of our ecosystem bubbling in time for Spring. This coming Tuesday, our community will mobilize to another integral cog of our ecosystem for #Equitech Tuesday at FastForward U. Come early (5-6pm) to FFU for a panel on Early Stage Survival Playbook featuring Nick Culbertson, Protenus, Sherman Williams, AIN Ventures, Jen Pilcher, The Veteran Fund, & Mike Leffer, Riptide Ventures.
Now for a message from our co-hosts through the words of Myra Norton, Head of Innovation, Startup and Ecosystem Acceleration, Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures (JHTV):
Hello Baltimore Champions and Changemakers!
We are honored to invite you to join in conversation with us at this week’s Equitech Tuesday hosted at Fast Forward U, which is soon to be officially renamed and dedicated the Pava Marie LaPere Center for Entrepreneurship. Before Equitech Tuesday, AIN Ventures and UpSurge Baltimore will host a panel discussion on using grants and non-dilutive funding for startup founders—please join us!
The month of March is always a deeply reflective time for me. It is the month I lost my father 15 years ago; and every year I am reminded of the dance between grief and gratitude that we will all experience at some point in our lives. I am reminded of the power of ancestry – not merely our blood lineages, but those remarkable humans who paved the way before us, the community who stood (and stands!) with us on hard days, who enable us to live the miraculous possibility inside each of us.
My father was my hero – he was principled and brilliant, tough and kind and funny. And while I grieve his absence deeply, the gratitude I feel for having been born his daughter is worth every ounce of grief. Isn’t that how it is doing this entrepreneurship thing? There are hard – I mean really hard – days when you question whether the hard is worth it. But oh man – those good days when you change a person’s life, when you see someone use your product, when an incredibly talented person chooses to join your team, when you close that deal you’ve been working on for months, when you get that round of funding you’ve been hustling for – those days are filled with gratitude for the opportunity to do what we love and make a real difference in the world. Grief and gratitude.
Equitech Tuesday is a space where we can bring our grief and our gratitude, a place of safety and support to build what we are called to build, to be who we are meant to be, and to change the world around us in the process. Come join Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures and the Carey Business School for this regular, open-to-all weekly networking event for the Baltimore innovation community. Connect with entrepreneurs and changemakers across our ecosystem as we continue to celebrate and support tech in Baltimore!
Myra Norton
See you at #Equitech Tuesday… where the tech community gathers.
Robbin Lee
UpSurge Baltimore, Director of Partnerships & Mobilization
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