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During his keynote at a recent conference, Gov. Wes Moore offered a version of his usual praise for Maryland’s founders.
“Entrepreneurship is the backbone of the economy,” he said in a conversation with Troy LeMaile-Stoval, the CEO of TEDCO.
The remarks from one of the innovation economy’s highest-profile boosters underscored the optimistic mood at TEDCO’s latest Entrepreneur Expo, which returned after a five-year hiatus to bring more than 100 speakers, over 80 exhibitors and attendees from as far as Singapore to the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel earlier this month.
The Maryland-backed investment vehicle organized panels and presentations into five tracks: leading innovation to market, cultivating the ecosystem of tomorrow, forging Maryland’s tech frontier, scaling innovation beyond borders, and fast track to federal resources.
These options rendered the expo a choose-your-own-adventure, with a central plenary for the keynote sessions and plenty of common seating for folks to take a break, meet someone new or work. Here are just some lessons from the many that were offered.
How to build entrepreneur-friendly ecosystems
The morning kicked off with a panel moderated by TEDCO Growth Director Isabel Wen and featuring Seema Alexander, founder of Virgent AI and cofounder of DC Startup and Tech Week; Robbin Lee, director of partnerships and mobilization at UpSurge Baltimore (which recently integrated with Greater Baltimore Committee); Ernesto Chanona, founder of CSSi LifeSciences; and Michael Binko, cofounder and regional CEO of Startup Maryland.
Their conversation emphasized taking advantage of key regional strengths. Alexander noted that the DMV has “the most AI developers by region,” while Lee highlighted the area’s density of immigrants and small businesses.
But they didn’t shy away from identifying challenges either.
“We don’t have a recruitment issue, we have a retention issue,” said Lee, referencing Baltimore’s struggles to keep the talent it attracts.
Chanona pushed for more cohesion as a region despite the cultural differences around Maryland.
Binko also outlined his “four Cs” of ecosystem building: celebration, coaching, curation and capital. He emphasized that the ecosystem should not only provide resources but also cultivate a culture of belonging and collaboration.
What immigrant innovators can do for Maryland
Each opening session member credited their immigrant families for planting the seeds of their entrepreneurial drive. A subsequent panel on immigrant founders underscored how personal experiences and diverse perspectives often spark innovative ideas. Karen Zuccardi of TEDCO moderated the discussion with Kobby Osei-Kusi, founder and CEO at The Pirl; Derese Getnet, CEO of Simmbion; and Andrea Pais, cofounder and CEO of Novel Microdevices. Each founder of these TEDCO investment recipients shared their journeys of identifying problems and solving them through entrepreneurship — all while embracing their immigrant heritages. Their solutions ranged from an affordable diagnostic platform (Pais) to bioengineered treatments for chronic illnesses (Getnet) and accessible EV charging technology (Osei-Kusi).
Osei-Kusi captured the ethos of the panel with a simple statement: “The human spirit wants to create.”
But for immigrant entrepreneurs, starting a business in the US can be particularly challenging. Pais pointed out that while “on a student visa, it is functionally impossible to start a company.”
The panelists also noted that Maryland offers unique advantages for entrepreneurs. Getnet, a former US Army microbiologist and immunologist who now serves in the Army Reserves, stretched his financial runway for years by staying in Baltimore and conducting experiments using local wet lab space.
“It’s better here… to be helped by 10 in Maryland than one in California,” said Osei-Kusi, adding: “There’s a Maryland way of building companies that’s very different than from how they build companies in other places.”
Another conversation featured Tammira Lucas, venture growth advisor at TEDCO and CEO of the Cube Coworking Space, alongside Samantha Scott, CEO of JuneBrain.; Martha Jimenez of Maryland Women’s Business Center; and Jasmine Clemons of the Maryland Board of Public Works. They tackled a range of topics, including implicit bias during fundraising and shifts in political support, that speak to the specific ways women have to navigate the ecosystem.
Scott noted the difference in questions directed at women versus men during pitch competitions.
“I get asked, ‘Why might you fail five years from now?’ Men get asked, ‘What will it take for you to succeed five years from now?’” she said.
Barriers to, and solidarity for, women’s success
NasaClip founder Liz Clayborne continued on this theme by discussing how women-led companies, no matter how much more likely they are to perform better than male-led ones, are judged as riskier. “How do we address the implicit bias that many women have and face that they are a riskier investor?” she said. “Performance isn’t enough because women are outperforming … So then what does it take?”
The back and forth between panelists and audience members underscored the importance of not just representation but also structural change to address these biases. Lucas echoed this by closing the session with her own questions to the audience.
“What if women advocated for one another in front of investors?” she said. “What if, when we got money from investors, we required funding not just for our ventures, but for our communities as well?”
This article references Technical.ly client TEDCO and DC Startup and Tech Week, for which Technical.ly served as a media partner. The author also previously worked for UpSurge, an organization that was mentioned in this article. Neither relationship had an impact on this report.
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