Archives For Ignite Baltimore

Last week Ignite Baltimore held their 15th round of lightning talks and as usual it was a fun mix of local perspectives and ideas.

If you’re not familiar with the concept of a lightning talk, speakers have 5 minutes and 20 slides that advance automatically to share their stories and make a point. There are, to my knowledge, no limits (other than time and slide quantity) to what speakers may cover so these evenings of about 15 speakers are generally pretty interesting.

Here are a few of the speakers from last week. Check out the rest on Ignite Baltimore’s YouTube Channel.


Courage to Code by Brigitte Warner


Radical Redemption: Prison Hospice by Kristin Metzger, R.N.

Last week I had the chance to enjoy the thirteenth installment of Ignite Baltimore, an ongoing lightning talk series. In case you missed the event, here are a few of the more memorable talks from the evening:

Paul Mathews‘ look at Baltimore’s historic Mt. Vernon neighborhood was a great crash course for newcomers and longtime Baltimore lovers alike:

Trevor Villet’s talk on Detroit and Baltimore:

Adam Ruben took a look at the public perception of science:

Possibly the most vigorously applauded of the evening was Catharine Robertson‘s talk about discovering details around her birth mother:

Another clever and well received talk was Brad Wray‘s look at how people choose to win benefits through cooperation or competition:

Tronster did a nice job of closing out the evening:

You can check out the full list of speakers on Ignite Baltimore’s website and watch videos of all of the speakers on their YouTube channel.

The videos of last week’s Ignite Baltimore 5 are all available on YouTube; life is good.

The event itself was great; bigger and even better than IB4.

Here are a few of the more memorable presentations:

transcript of Brian Sacawa’s talk
Part of what I liked about this talk was the belief in Baltimore he expressed– that we are not simply, “Brooklyn’s farm team.” His tongue-in-cheek humor didn’t hurt either.


Wolverine AND Teddy Roosevelt in the same presentation?! Yes, please. Why do I have a feeling Tom has a master’s thesis worth of notes on this topic lurking in his sketchbooks.


A great, smart young woman who is working hard to change the world around her.


To me, this was the most important talk of the night–a brand strategist talking about the power of storytelling and the values of theatre being applied in business.