Startup Maryland announced initial dates and the route for Stage One (April 15–May 31) of the STRT1UP Road Show, the sixth annual statewide tour and celebration of entrepreneurship and high-growth innovation-centric startup companies.

The first stop on the 2017 tour will be the TCO Labs Hatch Innovation Conference, being held on the Homewood Main Campus of The Johns Hopkins University, from 1–5 p.m. The event is free and open to the public; however, registration is required. Details and additional information can be found at http://hatch2017.com.

The STRT1UP Road Show again will traverse the state all in the name of celebrating Maryland’s diverse ecosystem of innovation venture-building.

“After celebrating our fifth anniversary last year, we are now refining our mission and attention to the next 50 years, and what we have learned in our first five years is how dynamic the Maryland and broader mid-Atlantic region are with regards to industry sectors and innovation categories,” said Mike Binko, founder and CEO of Startup Maryland. “In order to drive a deeper awareness of Maryland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, we decided to extend the STRT1UP Road Show and the Pitch Across Maryland competitions to be a year-long series of events. This change affords us more time to be on-site with each tour stop host community and to share more of the Startup Maryland mission and initiatives.”

The expanded STRT1UP Road Show efforts will include programming tailored jointly with the Startup Maryland Champion community and designed to help the Startup Maryland portfolio inflect their visions forward. As the tour unfolds, entrepreneurs climb onto the Startup Maryland bus and pitch their idea/business in the mobile UpStart Show video studio. Videos are uploaded to the Startup Maryland YouTube Channel and then are opened to public viewing/voting.