By: Robert J. Terry

Jennifer Gunner hopes people leave the Greater Baltimore Technology Council’s “TechNite” celebration Thursday with “a renewed sense of energy.”

“I want them to understand this is the region to be in to build your business. We also know everything is challenging right now,” Gunner, the GBTC’s interim executive director, told me Wednesday morning shortly before her team’s final meeting before the event. “We as a community can make a difference and move things forward.”

TechNite, a staple on Greater Baltimore’s October events calendar since the late 1990s heyday of the Internet bubble, will be a marked departure from years past (Disclosure: The Daily Record is a media sponsor). Gone are the Cirque de Soleil-like performers, the Baltimore Convention Center venue and the ear-bleedingly loud marching band signaling the end of the happy hour.

In its place are the Ram’s Head Live, a local DJ opening the show and performing at an after-party, and editorial cartoonist KAL (Kevin Kallaugher, formerly of the Sun) talking about how digital technology changed his line of work.

About 700 people are expected to attend.

The changes are meant to reflect the GBTC’s changing membership, Gunner said — creative startups, led by folks who’ve demonstrated the ability to organize pretty ambitious movements and events on their own using nothing more than Twitter and Google Groups. Some of those companies are competing in a contest of the 15 hottest technologies in town. More than 5,000 online votes had been cast, Gunner said, with Fulton-based mobile tech firm Gloto in the lead.

One holdover from prior TechNites will be the BETA Award, given to Baltimore’s extraordinary technology advocate. This year it will be combined with the GBTC’s Connector award, given to the type of person Malcolm Gladwell highlighted in his book “The Tipping Point.” The finalists this year for BETA 2.0 are:

• Newt Fowler/Rosenberg Martin Greenberg LLP
• Christian Johannson/Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development
• Tom Loveland/Mind Over Machines
• Mike Subelsky/Ignite Baltimore
• Dave Troy/Roundhouse Technologies

And speaking of Troy, another call to arms of sorts has been issued by the local tech entrepreneur via his blog, Fueled by Randomness.

In his latest post, Troy offers several ideas — borrowed from other high-tech communities across the country — to spark innovation and entrepreneurship. You can read Troy’s post here, but a couple of his ideas touch on matching startups with startup capital, critical for turning ideas into reality. Another intriguing one is Startup Weekend, where folks come together on a Friday, form teams, and by Sunday are expected to have a product ready for a demo.

The mix even goes so far as to include hacks, we journalists whose idea of innovation has typically been along the lines of, say, switching from a ballpoint to a fountain pen to take notes. But today, as the website Hacks/Hackers notes, more and more journalists — including some really good local ones — are using technology “to find and tell stories.”

Count me in.