Welcome to the weekly roundup of the latest from DC's tech and entrepreneurship scene. Want this in your inbox? Subscribe for free.
This week on Technical.ly we published a comprehensive guide to work visas and other immigrant employment pathways, with updated details amid Trump administration changes. Also new: A profile of impressive Arlington entrepreneur Aisha Bowe, an astronaut-turned-founder whose STEM platform will get the spotlight thanks to her upcoming Blue Origin spaceflight — with Katy Perry, no less.
What else is happening in the DC tech and startup world right now? Read on.
📰 News Incubator: What else to know
• After helping build successful companies in Afghanistan and India, a pair of DC-based investors with immigrant backgrounds raised $56 million to support resilience-minded fintech ventures. [Technical.ly]
• DC residents suffer some of the country’s highest rates of student loan debt and money lost to fraud. [Axios]
• Experts deemed an audio clip with over 2 million views on TikTok — which is still up for sale after Trump extended the deadline for its ban — that allegedly shows JD Vance badmouthing Elon Musk to be an AI-generated fake. [404 Media/Technical.ly]
• Mayor Muriel Bowser released a new portal, MOST-DC, to help district parents find after-school and summer programs for their K-12 kids. [DC Mayor’s Office]
• The University of Maryland and a Chesapeake Bay-focused startup fund released a new ecosystem map of climate-related entrepreneurship resources in the mid-Atlantic. [UMD/Chesapeake Bay Seed Capital Fund]
• Speaking of UMD: Maryland’s primary land-grant university produced both a buzzer-beating March Madness success story and a well-regarded hub for quantum computing. If that technology succeeds worldwide, though, could it break our encryption and send us toward something dystopian? [Wired/Technical.ly/ESPN]
• DMV nonprofits got money and innovation sector leadership to pursue equity-minded missions. New Majority Ventures‘ Melissa Bradley is leading investment strategy for the Black Economic Alliance Entrepreneurs fund, which raised over $28 million to help underrepresented entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, Flikshop CEO Marcus Bullock (a 2022 RealLIST Connector) landed a $2 million grant for The Perspectives Partnership, his new org to help formerly incarcerated individuals get jobs and start their own ventures. [Washington Biz Journal/Technical.ly]
• Starlink, a Wi-Fi service and subsidiary of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is reportedly being deployed throughout the White House. [New York Times]
• Comcast granted the DC Public Library Foundation $100k to help expand its digital navigator program and create a digital skills center in Anacostia. [Comcast/DCPLF]
🗓️ On the Calendar
• AI policy shifts and antitrust implications take center stage during Morgan Lewis’ online session on March 26. [Details here]
• Learn how local technologists use DC’s open data at a showcase on March 26 hosted by Civic Tech DC and the DC Office of the Chief Technology Officer. [Details here]
• Connect with technologists, founders and investors at DC Tech Party’s next event on March 26. [Details here]
• See featured talks from media CEOs, philanthropists, nonprofit leaders and more experts at the Just Economy Conference between March 26 and 27. [Details here]
• Learn how to navigate state and local government grants at a Johnson & Johnson Innovation event with the Washington DC Economic Partnership, TEDCO and the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation. It all goes down on March 27. [Details here]
• California defense technology contractor Saalex Corp is hosting a job fair in DC on April 8. [Details here]
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