2 Maryland universities are launching pilot programs to grow tech and entrepreneurship pathways

This fall, Maryland tech and entrepreneurship students will have three new opportunities to get involved in the local startup world. 

State-created funder TEDCO just made investments in three pilot programs from Bowie State University and Frostburg State University through the agency’s Maryland Innovation Initiative. Bowie State will launch the Entrepreneurship XTreme Pilot, thanks to a $77,540 investment. Frostburg will host a Bobcat Innovation Launch Pad and Regional Cyber Operations Center Feasibility Study via $100,000 and $150,000 investments, respectively. 

For Frostburg, the two-year Launch Pad pilot program will apply technology as an economic driver for the region. With the Launch Pad, 50-100 students will compete in a three-day event to build solutions in the climate and environmental tech space. They’ll have access to subject matter experts and faculty throughout the event before presenting their solution before judges. The top three teams will win cash prizes. 

Al Delia, the Western Maryland-based university’s regional development and engagement VP, said the event will primarily feature Frostburg students. But it will also be open to students from Allegheny College of Maryland and Frederick and Hagerstown Community Colleges. 

While this event is about getting students interested in building something, he said the goal isn’t to have something ready to go to market at the end of the three days. 

“We’re looking for them to really think through how to do this, to begin to develop a business plan, to begin to develop a prototype, a business rationale for why this would work — whatever this is — and they will work through those problems,” Delia told Technical.ly. 

Additionally, Frostburg will use the funds for the aforementioned Regional Cyber Operations Center Feasibility Study. This study, which will be in partnership with Deloitte, will look at building a regional cyber operations center in Western Maryland. Researchers will observe what issues are present in the area and the affordability of creating a center, which Delia said could be a model for future builds or serve as an internship option for students. 

“Being in Western Maryland with a relatively small, low population, rural area, if you’ve got a business organization — whether it’s a K-12 school system or a university or a three-employee company, nonprofit or for-profit company — you’re basically on your own in terms of protecting against any kind of cyber incursion, whether it’s a fishing expedition or whether it’s a ransomware attack,” Delia said. 

At Bowie State in Prince George’s County, the pilot program will pair tech-inclined students and founders in the surrounding area. Computer technology sophomores will assist entrepreneurs with their tech needs and receive a stipend for the three-month program. 

Lethia Jackson, professor chairman in the HBCU’s Department of Technology and Security, said that she hopes this program will give students a simulation of what a job in the tech field can be like.  

“I hope that they can see the courses that they have learned are applicable in the real world, and I hope that this is something that they can move forward and to a real career,” Jackson said. “They could own their own business — entrepreneurship, that will do this.”

Students will provide website development, software development, testing and more to local founders for 15 hours each week. They’ll also work with Bowie State’s entrepreneur-in-residence at the school’s Entrepreneurship Innovation Center. 

Johnetta Boseman Hardy, executive director of Bowie’s Entrepreneurship Academy, said that the school hopes to provide students with as many entrepreneurial opportunities as possible to set them up for success after graduation. 

“The most important thing we want them to understand is how to solve other people’s problems,” Boseman Hardy said. “How they can use entrepreneurship as a pathway to success and be able to generate income from it.”