Welcome to Baltimore Innovation Week 2014

Collaboration is damn hard thing.

People don’t always have the same vision. If you build a movement with enough supporters, you welcome even more perspective. And that comes with challenges. People try different things, test out different ideas and lend support in different ways. It can seem like the process moves slower, but the hope is that the result is so much stronger because of those many voices.
Just look at the Baltimore technology and entrepreneurial communities.
A generation ago, the idea that something like that could exist here was defended by a few institutional leaders and one-off examples. A decade ago, a larger group of stakeholders began meeting and supporting each other. Today, there are meetups and coworking spaces and investment groups and event series and social networks and, yes, news sites that are all pulling together — sometimes with different tactics but almost all with the same strategy, that a Baltimore better known and better connected for innovation will retain more of its best and come to support more of its most in need.
So there isn’t just one university, one incubator or one event that is Baltimore tech. The diversity is its success. It’s not an organism, it’s an ecosystem. Support whom you can and cheer for the rest. We are all better served when we do this together — and to do that, it will always take collaboration.
Baltimore Innovation Week is about facilitating those collaborations. Join us, starting today, in making them happen.
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