technology

This Arlington startup aims to uplift artists with cryptocurrency education

By Jo DeVoe

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups, founders, and other local technology news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring 1515 Wilson Blvd in Rosslyn. 

Cryptocurrency — and the technology underpinning the latest developments within this world, like non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — are complex enough to make the average person’s head spin.

Enter OVRT, a new Arlington-based crypto-community that exists to offer locals and D.C.-area artists free education on cryptocurrency, like bitcoin, and how they can dive into this wholly digital financial world and make money in it.

OVRT is co-founded by Scott Parker, who is behind a bevy of businesses throughout Arlington like Don Tito’s restaurant and Bearded Goat Barber, and Northern Virginia local Ryan McNey, who Parker considers a “borderline certified expert” in cryptocurrency.

“We both have a lot of energy, we both love to work on stuff, and we’re both were excited about this space,” Parker tells ARLnow. “It makes sense for me to be able to connect him to local business people, entrepreneurs, artists — anyone I can help with OVRT. I’ve been successful with helping a lot of people come join the OVRT movement, and I’m excited to be a part of it.”

Their aim is threefold: first, educate locals about cryptocurrency; second, help artists earn a more sustainable living from their art using NFTs; and finally, open up conversations about this wholly digital financial world with lawmakers and regulators.

OVRT logo (courtesy photo)

So what are all these concepts?

Cryptocurrency is a form of encrypted digital currency. It is stored on the blockchain, which is basically a “digital ledger.” People use blockchain technology to make non-fungible tokens, or unique versions of things like digital artwork or sports memorabilia that can be digitized.

And how does all this benefit artists?

NFTs are fundamentally a way of verifying someone owns something digitally. There is a contract attached to that image, McNey notes, and every time an NFT gets bought or traded, the person who issued it can take a cut. That contrasts with physical art that is sold by the artist once, only to appreciate in value without returning any of that value to the original creator.

For artists, NFTs can mean significant income in royalties without cuts to managers and middle men. They can use NFTs to make money on their artwork, which might otherwise circulate the internet via screenshots and illegal downloads, without them seeing a penny, he says.

The co-founders of OVRT say successful artists will make great reference points when they discuss the benefits of cryptocurrency with lawmakers and regulators, who will eventually be drafting policies and regulations governing these transactions.

“As someone who’s been in crypto for eight years, I know that for us to succeed, it’s vital that policymakers and regulators are making informed and educated decisions versus reactive ones,” McNey said.

But the conversation cannot begin with heady jargon like “yields, staking and decentralized banking,” he says. It has to begin somewhere tangible.

“I’m going to talk to them about art,” he said. “We have to meet them where they are.”

OVRT is fully remote right now, but eventually, Parker and McNey would like to open up a space — likely in Arlington, given Parker’s local connections — where they can showcase artists and host events. Next Wednesday (March 30), they are launching OVRT’s first NFT called “HYPEES,” made by Matt Corrado, a prolific D.C. artist who has worked with Nike, Heineken and Converse.

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The new ‘property tech’ industry has this Arlington startup at the forefront

By Jo DeVoe

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups, founders, and other local technology news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring 1515 Wilson Blvd in Rosslyn. 

As a commercial real estate broker, Greg Carpentier always felt he was missing or struggling to find two important pieces of information when negotiating office deals.

Floor plans and square footage.

“It was a treasure hunt,” he said.

If that information did exist, Carpentier says it was disorganized and did not reflect the upgrades landlords would make to suites and amenity spaces. But those numbers had to be accurate since the constantly fluctuating amount of usable space determines the price to buy or lease office space.

So he set out to do something about it. Carpentier talked to colleagues and clients — who shared similar frustrations — and researched the competition. Finding few competitors, he hired an overseas software developer to build a prototype solution: a platform for real estate brokers, architects and landlords to store, access and share floorplans and other office layout information.

That’s how floorwire, based out of Carpentier’s apartment near Rosslyn, was born. He incorporated the company in 2019, had domestic software developers build a new version of the software, and began taking on clients in 2020. He assembled a small team of employees in August.

Brokers, architects and landlords are not the only people who benefit from a 21st-century alternative to scrolls and scrolls of paper floorplans. The product saves tenants time and money and gives them peace of mind, says Abby Caldwell, a former client of Carpentier’s who is now the Director of Operations for floorwire, the first letter of which is deliberately displayed as lower case.

“I was in a few situations when I was a tenant where I was under pressure to move quickly and acquire additional space on a tight timeline,” she said. “The current leasing timeline is longer than you might think, and we save you time by creating a more efficient process. Also, the tenants sleep easier at night knowing the data is accurate.”

A promotional graphic from floorwire (courtesy photo)

Carpentier’s company began taking on clients during the pandemic, which he says was the catalyst the commercial real estate market needed to abandon its outdated, low-tech approach to calculating and keeping tabs on square footage.

“What Covid did, as a whole, is make everyone realize how far behind commercial real estate is with regard to technology,” he said. “It exposed the problems and sped up the need for technology.”

For example, he said, Covid pushed people in commercial real estate to invest in sensors that are more accurate than architects at measuring office layouts, which are being reconfigured on a massive scale to entice workers back into the office.

“It’s a great opportunity to change the model,” he said.

This emerging industry sector is dubbed “proptech,” or property tech. Carpentier says venture capital funding is flowing into the sector, which he predicts will grow rapidly in the next five years.

“There’s so much opportunity for such a fundamental industry,” he said. “There’s a lot of money in commercial real estate. It’s a huge market: second to the stock market.”

As proptech grows, so too does floorwire. In August 2021, the company was able to hire full-time employees. In 2022, its leaders aim to take on new clients and keep working with existing ones.

“I’m really excited to take groundwork we laid in 2021 and run with it this year,” Caldwell said.

Arlington is playing up Amazon, D.C. and tech to attract relocating companies

By Jo DeVoe
1/3

When Amazon decided in 2018 to build its second headquarters in Arlington, the county’s economic development team heard one question from the business community: “Why?”

The county was, in the eyes of many, still the smaller and lesser-known neighbor of D.C., says Kelly Rindfusz, the communications director for Arlington Economic Development.

“We had to prove our worthiness,” Rindfusz said.

After two years of work, AED officially unveiled a new logo, motto, website and advertising materials that she says better answer the question, “Why Arlington?”

The new look and pitch plays up the obvious attractions — being close to D.C. and home to Amazon — and highlights the county’s tech scene, its high concentration of educated workers and thought leaders, and the region’s diversity.

“What was attractive for Amazon and will be attractive for other companies,” she said.

That will be the playbook as AED continues selling Arlington as a destination for multinational companies and key industries, such as cybersecurity and government contracting. Winning over such employers has a direct impact on the county’s economy, lowering its relatively high office vacancy rate, encouraging job growth and generating tax revenue.

The most notable change is AED’s new website, which requires fewer clicks to find resources and makes important information more digestible, Rindfusz said. It also features a searchable small business directory.

“We think it’s a much better marketing tool and it’s certainly easy to navigate,” she said. “It’s clean and concise and hopefully it is meeting its mark.”

To improve its marketing, AED asked companies why they did, or didn’t, choose Arlington. The most basic considerations have to do with cost and office lease availability, but there are others, like transit availability and access to tech companies and universities, Rindfusz said.

“One thing people liked about Arlington was not just its proximity to the nation’s capital, but also being near to the ocean and the mountains, and being a plane ride to New York City,” Rindfusz said.

Despite being a reason for the rebrand, the Amazon factor was a tad more divisive for other businesses.

“Most businesses thought it was a great opportunity, but some were concerned it was going to be too crowded,” she said.

AED’s response to that concern will be to show how Amazon is the reason Arlington is nabbing investments in public infrastructure, Rindfusz noted.

While rebranding was a massive effort for the organization, Rindfusz says AED’s outreach work is just beginning.

“We are in the spotlight and want to make sure we’re shining in it,” she said.

Morning Poll: Should summer camp registration shift to a lottery system?

By ARLnow.com
A man clicks a mouse (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class William Tracy)

Yet another year of summer camp registration drama is prompting action by the Arlington County Board.

The online registration system used by Arlington’s Dept. of Parks and Recreation again melted down as camp registration opened at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, despite efforts to beef up the systems this year.

Camp registration is competitive in Arlington, with parents jockeying for position to claim some of the prime camp slots the second registration opens. That makes it tough to keep up with demand, amid hundreds or even thousands of people trying to register at the same time.

At stake is not only enrichment opportunities for kids, but affordable de facto childcare for parents.

After another year of stories of frustrated parents spending an hour or more trying to get the registration pages to load, Arlington County Board Chair Katie Cristol said the Board has “been in touch with the County Manager and department leadership about expectations for a full reform of registration.”

DPR will be “designing a new process” and the Board has “asked for details… including a timeline for implementation,” Cristol said in a statement she posted on social media.

What’s unclear is what a new registration system might entail.

One possibility is that the process remains competitive, with more robust technology preventing server crashes and those with quick clicking fingers continuing to get an advantage.

Another possibility, as suggested by some parents in the wake of last week’s fiasco, is a lottery system that would remove the need for parents to wake up early and try to register as quickly as possible, but would add some additional uncertainty to parents’ summer childcare plans.

In a lottery system, one might have to try to register for multiple camps in order to increase the odds of getting a given time slot. Then, they would have to cancel the registration for any duplicate entries. But if everyone adopted that strategy, it might lead to a chaotic registration process and make it hard for DPR to predict the true demand for a given camp.

Which do you think the parks department should choose?

NEW: Arlington’s summer camp registration system melts down again, despite changes

By ARLnow.com
Cover of Arlington’s 2022 Summer Camp catalogue

(Updated at 11:50 a.m.) Like death and taxes, Arlington summer camp registration drama is inevitable, despite efforts to avoid it.

This year, of course, was supposed to be different. This year, beefier systems and new monitoring tools were supposed to help avoid the technical meltdowns of past years.

But Arlington moms and dads and their fast clicking fingers are undefeated, instantly bringing down the Dept. of Parks and Recreation’s camp registration website when the virtual gates were opened this morning at 7 a.m.

“Pulled up the web page at 6:50 this a.m.,” one frustrated parent of a seven-year-old tennis enthusiast recounted to ARLnow this morning. “Found the only camp I was trying to register… Waited until 7:00 a.m. when registration opened and tried to register… [spent] 40 minutes trying to log in.”

Numerous others reported similar experiences. The lucky ones were able to register for some camps after nearly an hour of navigating various error messages.

“With so many two parent working families in this county, summer camps are child care — plain and simple,” another parent who reached out via email wrote. “How can a county that proclaims equity have such a crappy website that crashes when it comes to summer child care? Every single year this happens.”

That parent, who was also prepared in advance and started clicking at 7 a.m. on the dot, was only able to notch a hollow victory in her registration quest.

“I got [my daughter] into one [camp] after an hour of watching the wheel turn saying please wait, trying to add the camps to my cart only to get kicked out, and then the website timing out completely just as I was about to register,” the parent wrote. “She is now waitlisted for 4 of the 5 camps. I have no idea what I am going to do for childcare over the summer.”

The parks department was, as in years past, apologetic.

“Thank you for your patience,” DPR said in a message posted to it website. “Due to increased registration volume the system is performing slower than anticipated. DPR is working hard to address the problem. Please stay in queue. We are seeing registrations go through slowly and have been working with our vendor all morning.”

Late Wednesday morning, a parks department spokeswoman provided the following statement to ARLnow.

We understand how important summer camp is to Arlington families and we strive to make the customer experience positive from beginning to end. That clearly did not happen today. We apologize for the frustrating experience that many people had this morning trying to register for summer camp. The DPR team is working diligently to help enroll our customers who have been waitlisted or otherwise unable to successfully register this morning. 

Last year our contractor added resources to support an even higher transaction volume and implemented. However, this year due to substantially higher registration volume these efforts didn’t go far enough.    

DPR will do a full review of the summer camp registration process; this will include exploring both technology and operational solutions to provide a better registration process for 2023.

More parent accounts of this year’s registration issues are below.

(more…)

Parks department beefs up systems ahead of summer camp registration

By ARLnow.com
A man repeatedly clicks a mouse (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class William Tracy)

Get your clicking fingers ready, Arlington’s often competitive summer camp registration process will be opening next week.

Arlington’s parks and rec department has made some changes to try to ensure last year’s technical problems don’t happen again. The problems stem from a crush of parents all trying to register for limited camp slots at the same time.

“Summer Camp registration is the busiest registration for Arlington County Parks & Recreation,” department spokeswoman Susan Kalish tells ARLnow. “And for good reason. We provide more than 600 camps to our community, from classic camps to computing. We recognize the importance of providing options for our diverse community with indoor, outdoor and a combination.”

The camps this year run from June 21-Aug. 26. Registration for Arlington residents is set to open next Wednesday (Feb. 23) at 7 a.m., a month earlier than last year’s registration date.

“We have space for about 20,000 campers throughout the summer,” noted Kalish. “We anticipate about 50% of these spaces will be taken the day registration opens.”

Last year ARLnow heard from multiple people about the registration system going down shortly after opening. It was fixed an hour later, but not before considerable consternation among parents.

“The Arlington County Parks & Rec summer camp registration website was a total mess this morning,” a tipster told us at the time. “It opened at 7 a.m. for parents to register and immediately started crashing and timing out… I suspect there will be many angry parents this morning.”

It wasn’t the first time for such problems.

“Another epic registration system meltdown this morning for Arlington Parks & Rec summer camps,” said another tipster, referencing past issues. “Having an open comments section on this topic will drive significant traffic of all the parents who need to get out their rage after spending 1.5 hours on a platform that timed out repeatedly.”

Screenshot of the Arlington parks department camp registration going down in March 2021

The problems are also not unique to the parks department. Arlington Public Schools has repeatedly had issues with its similarly competitive extended day registration process.

This time around, county officials say the technology contractor used by DPR for camp registrations has beefed up their systems to account for the zeal with which Arlingtonians try to register at the earliest opportunity.

“To ensure we have the capacity to support community interest, our contractor has added resources to support an even higher transaction volume and implemented additional monitoring tools to provide more visibility into our software’s performance,” Kalish said.

“Camp registration is an all hands on deck event,” she added. “We pull in staff from various units to make sure it is as seamless as possible.”

Broken links on county’s new website still frustrating many residents

By Matt Blitz
What appears when a broken link is clicked on Arlington County’s new website (via Arlington County)

Despite promising improved functionality, Arlington County’s new website launched last month remains riddled with broken links that are frustrating some residents.

Last month, Suzanne Smith Sundburg was preparing to make public comments at an upcoming Arlington County Planning Commission meeting. As someone who is a passionate about weighing in on local issues, she uses the county website often for research and updates on county happenings.

But, starting in mid-October when the new website launched, Sundburg started having issues accessing information through the county website. She’d click a link and it would take her to a dreaded “Page or Site Not Found” error message.

“I searched for something on Google and tried to click on several of the county links that popped up. All were broken,” Sundburg writes to ARLnow in an email about her troubles. “So I then went to the site to see if I could use a more direct method to find what I needed. No dice.”

The changeover to the new site caused links from both search engines and websites like ARLnow to break. As of last week, one link-checking website listed nearly 900,000 broken links to arlingtonva.us pages.

Listing of broken links pointing to the Arlington County website

Arlington County launched its brand new website, complete with the county’s new logo, on Oct. 18. The intention was to improve the website’s security, performance, look and navigation.

“The County website is the first and sometimes only stop for important information about Arlington for many of our residents,” County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said in a press release. “This upgrade will help ensure that the website is an easily accessible, safe, and reliable resource for our residents and businesses to engage with their government.”

For website users encountering broken links, however, that’s not yet the case.

Sundburg isn’t the only one who has noticed a number of dead-end links. ARLnow has received a tips in recent weeks from other users who have encountered broken links preventing them from accessing county webpages, documents and information, such as information on how to pay a parking ticket or the county’s Community Energy Plan.

“The Arlington County revised website is horribly broken, with links that don’t work,” said one anonymous tipster. “It’s a travesty.”

The Lyon Village Civic Association says it is still working with the county to update all the county links on its own website.

“We have asked the County webmaster to get these reestablished, some have, but not all,” it said in a recent post.

Last week, Sundburg wrote an open letter to county officials expressing her displeasure about this missing information.

“This revamp of the county website has been akin to the burning down of a library with half of the books still inside,” she wrote. “In this case, the ‘books’ still exist — the community simply has no access to them.”

County officials acknowledge the issues and say they’re working on it, noting the broken links are a result of issues migrating from the old site to the new site.

“The County is aware and actively working to resolve the issue of broken links on our new website, which launched last month,” county spokeswoman Jessica Baxter said. “Website migrations are highly iterative processes and we want to thank our residents and other website users for their patience during this time.”

Searching through Google for county webpages does result in a “higher prevalence” of broken links due to a “glitch,” she said.

“Our website provider, OpenCities, worked on resolving this glitch and we are beginning to see improved external search results to County webpages,” Baxter said.

Various county departments are prioritizing fixing broken links connected to current projects, plans, programs and services, since these are accessed most frequently, Baxter said.

“Our goal is to resolve as many of these broken links as possible by Thanksgiving,” she said. “An overall website clean-up is targeted to begin by the end of the year.”

Sundburg notes that, overall, county staff has tried to help and is “relieved” the link problems are being worked on, but she remains disappointed in so much older information remaining inaccessible.

“I understand prioritizing current items, that leaves out a significant portion of the site’s repository of documents,” she writes. “For those of us long in the tooth who have been around for decades, we have a greater knowledge base. But it’s not encyclopedic, and referring back to historical materials is frequently useful.”

GMU holding new investor conference in Arlington to help rising startups

By Jo DeVoe

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups, founders, and other local technology news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring 1515 Wilson Blvd in Rosslyn. 

(Updated 2:25 p.m.) This week, George Mason University’s Virginia Square campus will hold Accelerate 2022, a new startup competition and investor conference.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) and Wednesday, the campus will host dozens of top tech companies and students who will showcase their ideas to venture capital investors and the D.C.-area tech community. They’ll be competing for cash prizes and potential investments as well as “fame, glory, and bragging rights,” the website said.

The competition targets companies from Virginia, Maryland and D.C. with $2 million in revenue or less, students with business concepts that could be viable in the long term, and entrepreneurs seeking seed funding.

“This will be pretty exciting,” said Paula Sorrell, GMU’s associate vice-president of innovation and economic development. “There’s a lot of interest. Knowing the early-stage tech economy is important to the region and expanding rapidly, we’re all running at a rapid pace and this is one example of that.”

Founders Hall and Hazel Hall at George Mason University’s Arlington Campus (via Alexis Glenn/Creative Services/George Mason University)

Taking into account some last-minute registrations, Sorrell says there will be “a couple hundred” participants this year, spread across four indoor-outdoor venues.

Accelerate 2022 is one of the early fruits of Mason’s planned expansion in Arlington and the Commonwealth’s Tech Talent Investment Program, which aims to graduate thousands of computer science students. Both were sparked by Amazon’s decision to establish its second headquarters in Arlington, construction of which is now well underway.

“The feedback we got pretty consistently indicated that there were a couple of gaps,” Sorrell said. “One was in seed capital and the other was in late-stage funds. In Mason’s role as educator and convener, the feedback was we can play a role in getting together ecosystem partners, curating partnerships between local investors and those not in the region to create more of a strong edge here.”

The associate vice-president said Accelerate will give smaller companies the opportunity to pitch in front of investors, allowing them to get feedback on their business models and pitches.

“This helps make better companies in the long run,” she said.

Students from the D.C. area will learn the process of entrepreneurship and funding, which are “critical experiences for those who want to run their own company or join a startup,” Sorrell said.

Accelerate 2022 draws on GMU’s experience hosting global investor conferences, she said. The new event has attracted more than 28 sponsors and a number of presenting companies, including Wednesday night’s keynote speaker Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of global innovation policy and communications and an alumnus of GMU’s law school.

Sponsors include Arlington Economic Development and Accenture, which has a presence in Arlington. Sorrell said Mason already has attracted sponsors for next year’s conference, and the university aims to host Accelerate annually.

Meanwhile, work continues on the physical aspect of Mason’s expansion, built atop the now-demolished Kann’s Department Store on the west side of the Fairfax Drive campus. With state funding, GMU is building an Institute for Digital Innovation that will house a 5G testing area, an incubator space, and other tech-related education opportunities.

Amazon is Building a Tech and Innovation Lab at Wakefield High School

By Jo DeVoe
1/3

A new tech and innovation lab funded by Amazon is expected to launch at Wakefield High School by the end of the year, according to Arlington Public Schools.

Construction is currently underway on the “AWS Think Big Space,” which will provide a dedicated space for hands-on learning in robotics, the fields of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (known collectively as STEAM), and training in cloud computing-based technologies.

“This lab will provide stimulating learning environments for students to work individually or collaboratively on entrepreneurial, STEAM, and Design Thinking projects,” said Wakefield Principal Chris Willmore. “All students in grades 9-12 will be encouraged to extend their learning of STEAM topics beyond the classroom through engagement in the lab. We are grateful and excited that Wakefield was chosen by Amazon for this public-private partnership. All of our students will benefit from this learning environment.”

The Amazon-funded lab, which will open to students across the school system, also has the support of some private community sponsors.

Wakefield High School is first high school in the Americas to receive a Think Big Space, according to APS. It is the second in Virginia, after Amazon funded and built its first lab in 2019 at an elementary school in Prince William County.

Amazon has built similar spaces around the world.

“At Amazon, we are committed to making a positive impact in the communities where our employees live and work,” said Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice president of public policy. “We are proud to call Virginia home and to support our neighbors as we grow in Arlington. This AWS Think Big Space at Wakefield High School will provide students across the community with the tools and connections they need to build, imagine, and innovate their best future. We can’t wait to see what they will create.”

Wendy Maitland, who most recently served as the Resource Teacher for the Gifted at Wakefield, will oversee the new space.

“We believe that this AWS Think Big Space will act as a significant point of access for students who may not normally take advantage, of or be aware of, STEAM career paths. At Wakefield, we are committed to eliminating opportunity gaps to ensure access and provide excellence in education for every student, especially first generation and low-income students,” she said. “Our partnership with Amazon will allow us to build a community of learners who collaborate, explore, and seamlessly apply technology throughout all aspects of teaching and learning.”

The AWS Think Big Space is expected to receive final School Board approval at a meeting on Thursday, Oct. 28.

Rosslyn-Based Bitpath is Reimagining TV Broadcast Tech in Internet Age

By Jo DeVoe

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups, founders, and other local technology news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring 1515 Wilson Blvd in Rosslyn. 

Rosslyn-based Bitpath is working to roll out a 21st-century use for a midcentury technology: TV broadcasting.

The company says the architecture used by TV stations to broadcast their programming can also support the secure and efficient transmission of data. After all, TV and radio broadcasters and mobile phone service providers all send information wirelessly the same way, using radio frequency spectrum.

“We’re trying to be innovative and smart about how radio frequency spectrum is used,” said John Hane, the president of the startup.

The ability to repurpose broadcast TV for data services already has approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the broadcast airwaves. But broadcasters have yet to jump on the new tech because they are too small and too decentralized — relatively speaking — to do research and development and provide the services at a national scale, Hane said.

Bitpath was founded to do just that, he said. The startup is developing a platform comprised of a nationwide network of TV stations and aims to market it to companies that could benefit from better and safer data services. Bitpath is funded by big players in the TV industry, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group, which are keen to roll out this technology.

And Hane said Bitpath may be fully operational soon.

“We’re going to be launching services next year,” the president said.

The Bitpath logo (courtesy Bitpath)

This innovation to broadcast comes as more “smart” devices come online and are competing for fast, high-quality data streaming, while big mobile providers are rolling out 5G to support the rising data demand. But no matter how fast these networks get, the networks still have to transmit data through individual streams, which Hane said slows things down.

“The nice thing about the broadcast architecture, it never slows down,” he said. “That releases the cell network to be used for critical uses that can only be carried that way.”

People gravitate toward internet, even when broadcast makes more sense — for instance, streaming a big sporting event — because they are accustomed to the customization the internet provides. Bitpath’s innovations integrate the efficiencies of broadcast with the personalization of the internet, Hane said.

Consumers will one day see the tech in action in a variety of ways, he said. Regional TV stations will be able to air more personalized political advertisements or weather alerts. GPS resolution on devices will get more precise, improving a navigation app’s ability to pinpoint where a driver is and thus the quality of the directions. And security can be enhanced for certain applications.

“You associate TV stations with providing TV. That’s the majority of what they’re going to do, but a small amount of their capacity can provide amazing new services,” Hane said.

Hane says mobile providers were able to pioneer this territory because they were not as regulated as TV broadcasting is.

“Cell networks have grown so fast, because there’s been so much investment in them,” Hane said. “We use them for just about everything, even when we don’t realize that it doesn’t make the best economic sense.”

For Bitpath’s project to work, it has to make sure the hardware is consistent enough for e-commerce companies, car manufacturers and banks to buy in.

“They’re going to want fully developed services, and a platform that just works the same everywhere,” he said. “They’ll have one point of contact, one set of standards, one set of operations, and one point of support, but the capacity actually is comprised of stations all across the country owned by 20 different owners.”

Virtual Hiring Events Company Grows Amid Remote Work, Labor Shortages

By Jo DeVoe
Ryan Healy and Ed Barrientos of Brazen, in 2015

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups, founders, and other local technology news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring 1515 Wilson Blvd in Rosslyn. 

Founded in 2007, Clarendon-based Brazen experienced significant growth since the start of the pandemic.

And it’s no wonder, since the company has offered virtual hiring event technologies before virtual-anything was a societal norm. Brazen aims to help companies, universities and organizations engage students, job candidates and employees and improve recruitment and retention, via virtual job fairs and other online events.

“While the mission has remained the same, the types of organizations that saw a need to leverage virtual technologies to help with recruiting and retention expanded greatly in the past year,” the company tells ARLnow.

Brazen said its clientele has expanded from recruiting teams at Fortune 500 companies to state and regional workforce organizations to universities.

The mid-sized, remote-first startup has raised $13.4 million in funding and maintains headquarters in Arlington. Amid pandemic-era labor shortages, it has managed hiring initiatives for Spectrum, University of Southern California and CVS Health, among others.

The company says hiring in general is on the rise right now.

“The war for talent took a break but it’s only heating up more,” it said. “When you add the pressure of 2020’s events and the call for action around diversity, equity, and inclusion, it’s more important than ever for employers to hire, for universities to stand out and support their students and alumni, and for associations, organizations, and government entities to connect more people with more opportunities.”

Ryan Healy and Ed Barrientos of Brazen, in 2015

While Brazen’s offerings have also evolved over the last 14 years, its focus remains virtual hiring events.

“Our product innovation has accelerated in the past couple years to make recruiting and hiring even better,” Brazen said. “We’ve added live video broadcasts, video chat, a live chatbot, and more to help facilitate more meaningful connections for all people.”

Those features distinguish Brazen from the likes of Zoom and Cisco WebEx, to which companies rushed to keep up business and host virtual events.

Unlike the other platforms, Brazen said its platform supports everything a team needs to host a virtual event: customizable landing pages, chat management tools to ensure recruiters chat with the most qualified candidates, live broadcasts and follow-up features.

Like Zoom and Cisco WebEx, Brazen says its platform attracted new customers during the pandemic.

“At the onset of the COVID-19 lockdowns and remote work, companies all over the world flocked to Brazen to allow them to continue to hire and retain talent through virtual hiring events and virtual career fairs,” it said. “The genie is out of the bottle and virtual hiring is here to stay.”

The company pointed to in-house research, which found that 83% of surveyed talent acquisition professionals — who are not Brazen clients — said a majority of their hiring events will remain virtual post-pandemic.

“Now that organizations, from enterprise businesses to universities, and anyone working to connect employers and job seekers, have turned to virtual event platforms like Brazen, they’ve seen first hand the benefits of these tools,” it said.

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