The September Anchor Ventures event, the sixth in the TEDCO-funded series, was sold out, drawing a crowd of over 200 people to celebrate the concentration of innovation activity related to “Smart Garments” and other applications of technology in apparel.
The evening provided an opportunity to reflect on the textile mills that built Baltimore and to look ahead to the mills of tomorrow that will be filled with smart garments, technical textiles and wearables.
Attendees were able to visit a wide range of displays by fourteen companies showcasing athletic apparel, high fashion and medical devices made with functional textiles. These included At Night Athletic, Baltimore Museum of Industry, ClearMask (which previous won JHTV’s Social Innovation Lab cohort prize), DiPole, Fashions Unlimited, Force Smart Glove, Integrated Pharma Services, MICA, Nano Direct, Next Step Robotics, Harbor Designs, Semforex, Tanzen and Think Biosolution.
The panel, moderated by Ken Malone, co-founder of Early Charm Ventures, featured Paul Campbell of W. L. Gore & Associates, Randy Harward, of Under Armour and Sammy Hoi of MICA. This representation by academic and industry was reflective of the very spirit of Anchor Ventures as a collaborative ecosystem event.
A collaboration between Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures, UM Ventures and the University System of Maryland, Anchor Ventures is a speaker series aimed at inspiring and supporting the development of startups and other technology companies across Maryland. It is based on the Venture Café model that started in Boston and has led to an entrepreneurial groundswell in cities across the nation. The next Anchor Ventures event, “Cybersecurity Issues in Healthcare,” will explore and celebrate the cybersecurity industry in Maryland on Thursday, October 11.