MARYLAND TECHNOLOGY ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

Mtech’s Chesapeake Bay Seed Capital Fund, in conjunction with Bethesda Green and the Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy, hosted the first Chesapeake Bay Green Entrepreneur Round Table on Thursday, March 13, 2025, online.

The event was designed to highlight environmental and social entrepreneurs, helping to connect them to resources, build awareness of their work, and amplify their current needs—including funding, partnership-building, customer introductions, team-building, and more.

During the roundtable, attendees heard from entrepreneurs addressing ecological and collective health in communities across the Chesapeake Bay watershed, including:

What the Sprout (Quandra Gray, founder)

• ​Quandra is leading an effort to build food security in Baltimore through community-focused agricultural education focused on microgreens. 

​Living Energy Lights (Sam Butler)

• ​Living Energy Lights is helping multi-family buildings and apartments become energy independent—with solar thermal heating, PVs designed to minimize battery needs, on-site biogas, and thick wall insulation that stores carbon.

Growing, harvesting, and producing consumer goods on marginal lands (Michael Maddox, project coordinator, UMD Climate Resilience Network)

• ​Mike is coordinating an effort to form a cooperative of growers producing miscanthus on salty/marginal lands throughout the Chesapeake Bay region at an industrial scale for use in producing paper and other commercial products. 

Good Idea Solar (Justin Aydelotte, president & founder)

• ​Justin works with family farmers to convert a portion of their land to community solar, providing clean, renewable energy to the surrounding community at below-market rates.

The Chesapeake Bay Green Entrepreneur Roundtable increases connectivity between different stakeholders in the region’s climate and entrepreneurship ecosystems, including entrepreneurs, supporters, funders, government, community members, and more. 

The next roundtable event will be on May 29; if you’re interested in attending, please register here. 

If you’re interested in participating in future roundtables, please reach out to Scott Christensen at schris14@umd.edu.