Events Roundup: Baltimore Collegetown’s Industry Days creates space for students and companies to meet

Events Roundup is a Technical.ly column where we highlight events happening in the Baltimore area each month. Have a submission for the next edition? Email us the details at baltimore@technical.ly.

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As it works to bring local colleges and universities together, Baltimore Collegetown Network has a hope for students: “Come to school here, fall in love with the area and then stick around after graduation,” said Madison Boris, the nonprofit’s assistant director.

That means getting acquainted with the city beyond campus and the things to do. But on a day-to-day basis, there’s also the consideration of what job opportunities might be available.

With an upcoming event series called Industry Days, Baltimore Collegetown Network is offering an informal way for students and employers in the region to meet each other. Boris called it an “antitode to brain drain.”

“We like to think of ourselves as the conduit between employers who are searching for talent, and students who are looking for jobs,” Boris said. “We think of this Industry Days series as the bridge between the two.”

College students from any university and any year of study are welcome. Boris has seen seniors getting ready to graduate meeting companies they could apply for, and sophomores making key connections that formed the basis for relationships they built over a couple years.

“We want to create opportunities to connect students no matter their backgrounds as the newest members of the job landscape here in Baltimore, Boris said. “No matter their background we think they deserve connections to hiring managers and economic drivers.”

It’s the third year of the series, and it’s going virtual in 2021 through the Vevent platform, which offers companies a chance to set up virtual, brandable booths where they can connect with students, as well as space for speakers and other content. The virtual booths are being offered free to companies.

Each of three events will take a specific focus around industry categories:

• Biohealth — Wednesday, March 24, 4 to 5:30 p.m.
• Emerging Technologies — Wednesday, April 7, 4 to 5:30 p.m.
• Sustainability — Wednesday, April 21, 4 to 5:30 p.m.

Baltimore Collegetown Network is collaborating with Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore and Maryland Technology Intership Program, which Boris said were sponsors as well as thought partners. EAGB, for instance, has profiles with data on industry sectors that helped to inform which industries were focal points.

“We hear how difficult it is for companies to find an available and right-skilled workforce,” said Sharon Markley Schreiber, EAGB’s COO. “We’ve also heard that too many of the students who have chosen to attend schools in the Greater Baltimore region leave after graduating because they don’t know about the amazing careers in future-facing industries that are right here in Baltimore — especially tech, life sciences and energy. This event is a powerful and intentional way to reach and retain students.”

Along with shaping the local economy, there’s also the challenges the world faces to think about. Organizers are thinking about how growing the knowledge economy in the local workforce can influence the world.

“Given the world we’re living in here in 2021, advances across all of these sectors will help humanity at large adjust, recover and evolve from the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis as well,” Boris said. “We as a society really need to set the up and coming workforce up for success as they come out of college and jump into jobs that are directly associated with major issues that we’re living through, as well as major sectors that are hiring en masse right now.”

Get a job local. Act global.

Here are a handful more upcoming virtual events around the region:

NET/WORK 2021

Technical.ly brings its annual tech jobs fair virtual this year and for a pretty nice price tag: totally free. We’re including all the communities we report on daily — and remote-only jobs, too. You’ll have a chance to engage with 30+ companies hiring for more than 200 roles. The hiring companies specialize in the likes of ecommerce, big data, gaming, sports betting, software development, retail, marketing and sales.

• Thursday, March 18
• Noon to 6 p.m.
• Register

Data Science Product Management

At the next virtual Data Works MD meetup, Matt LeMay presents a talk titled, “Data Science Product Management: The Highs, Lows, and Oh Nos.” LeMay is the author of “Agile for Everybody” (O’Reilly Media, 2018) and “Product Management in Practice” (O’Reilly Media, 2017).

• Saturday, March 20
• Noon to 1:30 p.m.
• RSVP

hack_it 2021

Ellicott City-based cybersecurity company Huntress hosts a two-day virtual event offering cybersecurity training for IT resellers, where “attendees can sharpen their tradecraft, network with security professionals and get hands-on training they can use.” Sessions include “Making the Malware,” “Hacker Horror Stories” and “Tradecraft Tuesday.” A pre-day on March 22 includes a session on “Hacking Windows,” targeted at IT pros seeking to defend their networks.

• March 22 to 24
• Register

2021 Cyber Maryland Conference

The annual conference from the Federal Business Council is taking the theme of “Building the Cyber Generation,” with a series of speakers and sessions considering aiming “to ensure the cyber-safety of today and educate the cybersecurity professionals of tomorrow.”

• March 24 to 25, 2021
• Register

Digital Health Forum

EAGB and BioHealth Innovation are teaming to host a forum on the growing digital health community in the Baltimore/Washington region, and beyond. Two panel discussion will cover topics including digital health in academia, the healthcare system and international collaboration

• Thursday, March 25
• 1 to 3 p.m.
• Register

R-Ladies Baltimore: Building Websites in RStudio

The meetup, which promotes gender diversity in the community around the programming language R, features a talk from Dr. Maria Tackett, assistant professor of the practice in the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University.

• Thursday, April 1
• 3 to 4:30 p.m.
• RSVP