Baltimore Innovation Week 2017

John W. Davis, II, founded Notice and Comment (N&C) in January 2013. He is the former Director of Major Crimes Division and Chief Homicide Prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice in the U.S. Virgin Islands, during the Clinton administration. Following his several years of public service, John practiced as a criminal defense attorney, debate coach, and professor of ethics and communications law at George Mason University, Howard University, and Towson University.

John has served as a consultant to numerous federal agencies through Debate Solutions Inc., a Washington, DC-based frm he launched to organize debates between student teams from leading national universities. These venues focused on actual policy issues of the day, eliciting unique insights for regulators as they considered specific rules.

Prior to his policy debate work, John served as Vice President with Northern Trust, based in Chicago, where he spearheaded the bank’s program to attract high-net-worth clients. Until recently he served as chairman of the board of directors of Sharp Dressed Man, a nonproft organization based in Baltimore, dedicated to providing professional clothing to disadvantaged men who are seeking employment.

Julia Spicer serves as the Executive Director for the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association (MAVA) and fosters innovation and company building by bringing together private and public investment capital and high growth enterprises across stage and industry. As head of MAVA, Ms. Spicer presents industry thought-leaders and best practices in support of emerging as well as established companies. From helping the earliest of innovators secure seed capital to discussing the latest in market intelligence important to high growth enterprises, she supports the full life cycle of company growth and investment interests. Her corporate technology career, experience in private investment, and most notably, her early entrepreneurial roots as company founder provide a useful foundation for fostering the success of high growth technology companies, from start-up to exit. She joined MAVA from Columbia Capital, a private equity growth capital firm specializing in communications technology. Previously, she served as Corporate Vice President of Strategic Planning and Communications for GTE Corporation, with responsibilities for investor relations and both public policy and strategic positioning for the company’s $4B emerging technology businesses which included wireless, mobile, air-to-ground, satellite, and R&D operations. Ms. Spicer also served as President of the GTE Foundation, one of the top 20 corporate foundations in the United States, focusing principally on science and mathematics education and the arts. An industry leader, Spicer founded TechBUZZ which to date over a five year period has helped launch more than 330 early market-entry companies, which have collectively raised more than $700M in reported seed and follow-on investments. In 2008, she was instrumental in launching a first-ever Mid-Atlantic Bio initiative to further support the biotechnology industry and encourage collaboration among investors, industry, academia and companies from laboratory to exit. Spicer has served or is currently on the boards of the Network of Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), an international organization assisting disadvantaged children through chapters located in 33 countries; the University of Maryland’s Clark School of Engineering Board of Visitors; Summit Executive Resources; and Able Flight, a scholarship program providing assistance to individuals with disabilities by challenging them through flight training. Through a gubernatorial appointment, Ms. Spicer serves on the Commonwealth Health Research Board, which has the primary responsibility to make grants for human health research, especially for those efforts that have the potential of maximizing human health benefits for citizens of the Commonwealth. Ms. Spicer is a graduate of the University of North Carolina, where she was a Morehead-Cain Scholar.

John H. Cammack is Managing Partner of Cammack Associates, which specializes in early stage investing in enterprises advancing brain fitness, business services and educational attainment. Representative investments include Curiosityville, Moodlerooms, Allovue, Calvert Education Services, UnboundConcepts, ReifyHealth, Interaxom, eMindful, Pear Therapeutics, Fusiform and Happlify.

From 1991 to 2009, Mr. Cammack was a senior executive at T. Rowe Price where he served as Division Head and member of the firm’s Operating Steering Committee, Institutional Marketing Steering Committee, Compliance Oversight Committee and member of T. Rowe Price Investment Services Board. Current board assignments included CureViolence.org, PersonalGenome.org, ABAG (Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers), Baltimore Corps, Betamore, Fusiform, and Calvert Education Services. Past roles include the Chairmanship of the United Way of Central Maryland and the Mutual Fund Education Alliance.

Mr. Cammack graduated from Denison University with a BA in History and received his MBA from Columbia University.

Dr. Abigail McElhinny joined Personal Genome Diagnostics as Senior Vice President, Research & Development and Operations in May 2016 from Ventana Medical Systems (Roche Tissue Diagnostics), where she held a number of different roles of increasing responsibilities. At Ventana, Abigail held the position as Vice President of Assay and Reagent Development where she built and led Research & Development teams with the goal of developing new assays for the BenchMark and next generation platforms. Dr. McElhinny represented Ventana on the pivotal PD-L1 Blueprint initiative, and successfully oversaw key scientific projects critical to the business, while her organization doubled in size. Abigail previously served as Senior Project Leader for CDx lifecycle projects, working with regulatory, clinical affairs, quality, and biostatistics teams to build the necessary processes and requirements to support pharma clinical trials and obtain FDA approval for CDx assays, including Ventana’s ALK (D5F3) CDx IHC assay and HER2 Dual ISH assays. Abigail received her Ph.D. from Northeastern University in Immunology and Biochemistry, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at University of Arizona in Cell Biology, focused on molecular mechanisms of cardiac muscle development, cardiomyopathies and muscle remodeling.

Param first experienced the inefficiencies of today’s manufacturing when setting up fabrication pipelines for orthopedic devices in rural India. Through his nonprofit, he provided orthopedic treatment to children with muscular disorders to change the stigma against disability. He turned his experiences there into FactoryFour, a software company creating the Internet of Manufacturing to enable manufacturers to take advantage of the future’s digital technologies.

Olivia is a Information Security Engineer at Mapbox, She works on securing their cloud infrastructure, ensuring it performs well under high demand, and keeping everyone at Mapbox safe and secure. She also is active in the Baltimore-Washington tech scene and organizes CharmCityJS events in Baltimore, MD. She is a First Lieutenant in the Pennsylvania National Guard, working as their Automation Officer where she plans and supports network and radio communications for 500+ users. Prior to joining Mapbox, Olivia worked with various other companies to improve their security posture through automation, testing, and implementation of security best practices. Olivia can often be found playing video games, cuddling her family of pets, or sharing her love of emojis and gifs to the team. She has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a focus in cognitive science.

Our team project, "ABSP - Active Bed Sore Prevention," was a creative concept and prototype model to prevent bed sores through a sensor-based pad that may be placed on an existing patient bed. The idea was to detect the location and magnitude of pressure differences, then use a feedback mechanism to create an air pocket at the target site in order to alleviate the pressure. Our presentation included a consideration of the potential for a large public health impact across the world, as pressure ulcers currently result in a largely preventable mortality risk and incur a heavy economic burden.

Babila Lima is the Director of the Business Process Improvement Office for the Department of General Services. Since 2007, Babila has worked in City government in a number of different agencies and capacities including the City Council President’s Office, Mayor’s Office and as a consultant on cross agency process challenges. Prior to the current role, his City projects included an overhaul of the City’s special event permitting process, and the establishment of a regulatory, licensing and management system to support the growth of food trucks and mobile vendors in the City of Baltimore. He also developed and managed a yearlong initiative in Mongolia to improve garbage and recycling collection through a business social responsibility program funded by USAID.