OPPTY Spring 2017

3D manufacturing is happening in the Greater Washington backyard

Leading the Way

Participants at the 2017 Outlook conference discuss technology, new ventures, and the millennial workforce.

Critical Upgrade

An innovative solution to the bottleneck at Baltimore’s Howard Street Tunnel will bring more shipping opportunities.

The Co-operative Effect

WeWork’s dynamic approach to collaboration changes the face of work and business.

The Future is Here

3D printed cars, online education, and innovation in athletic clothing brings Tomorrowland to the present.

Biblical Proportions

The Bible receives its own high-tech museum in Washington, DC.

Founded in 1889, the Greater Washington Board of Trade has been providing actionable data and tracking top regional trends for more than a century. OPPTY provides members with information to help shape the future of this growing world-class region’s unparalleled opportunities.

Terry D. McCallister, CHAIRMAN Chairman and CEO, WGL Holdings, Inc. and Washington Gas

Kim K. Horn, CHAIR-ELECT President, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States, Inc.

Jim Dinegar, PRESIDENT & CEO

Design & Content by Washingtonian Custom Media washingtoniancustommedia.com • 202.862.3500

Held at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Resort, the 2017 Outlook brought together insights, trends, and expert thoughts.

The 2017 Outlook for the Greater Washington Board of Trade

Leading the Way

BUSINESS CASUAL Conference participants listened intently to experts on a variety of topics and mingled afterwards at dinner outdoors.

More than 100 identified trends, insights, findings, and expert thoughts were shared during the Outlook conference held at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Resort recently. Speakers addressed a spectrum of topics critical to the region: innovation, transportation, Metro, infrastructure development, workforce trends, personalized medicine, and updates to Union Station in DC and the Port of Baltimore.

The annual conference gathers business leaders across the Greater Washington region to learn from each other in formal sessions and casual gatherings, where they mingle and converse during an al fresco dinner followed by dessert around a fireplace.

The timely topics and expert insight created a lively

discussion among conference participants, who gained critical insight and competitive advantage in their respective industries.

A major takeaway from the Outlook conference was the omnipresence of technology. 3D printing is simplifying the manufacturing of products by eliminating the need to import/ export parts and by significantly cutting down time. Pediatric care is surging ahead through innovation in genetics at Children’s National Medical Center and the Children’s Research Institute. People are connecting with others through members-only networks of talent to complete projects. Workforce trends are guided by the interconnectivity of technology and the pushback against time spent commuting.

by RIN-RIN YU

“Ninety percent of the world’s information has been produced in the last 24 months,” noted Alec Ross, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Johns Hopkins University and author of the bestselling book, Industries of the Future. During his session, he talked about the exponential growth of world connectivity through devices, and how in four years, it will grow from 16 billion to 40 billion devices. “It will create entirely new industries, and impact agriculture, real estate, so many who contend with the forces and effects of digitization.”

Connectivity is already happening at Children’s National Medical Center, said Marshall Summar, chief of genetics and metabolism at Children’s. Doctors are diagnosing genetic syndromes using smartphone apps and photos taken that analyze symptoms from the images. They’re rehearsing open-heart surgery on 3D printed copies of the child patient’s heart which cuts surgery time down by half.

Prince George’s County-based company Local Motors, which specializes in 3D printing, echoes Ross’ sentiments regarding technology’s impact on new industries. Local Motors currently prints cars, drones, and other vehicles, using far fewer components and smaller factory space. It’s even created a self-driving bus. “With our approach, we can disrupt this system and disrupt anything,” said David Woessner, general manager of Local Motors.

As technology continues to shake up industries nationwide and in the Greater Washington region, and more people and things are connecting through the cloud, Ross cautioned about connectivity’s vulnerability to cyberattacks. Cybersecurity as an industry, he said, will continue to grow, and due to its proximity to the government, the Greater Washington region is poised to be in the center of it.

However, technology’s growth also means changes in tomorrow’s skills and knowledge. “Real leaders of our companies and tomorrow’s workforce will be interdisciplinary leaders,” Ross said. “They are understanding of the technical side, but will marry that understanding with expertise that we normally associate with the humanities, communications skills, and behavioral psychology.”

MIXING BUSINESS AND PLEASURE Top: Metro general manager Paul Wiedefeld talks about Metro’s progress; BWI Airport’s Dale Hillard chats with Darrell Mobley of Prince George’s County Dept. of Public Works and Transportation; Local Motors’ David Woessner shows a 3D-printed self-driving mini-bus.

“Real leaders of our companies and tomorrow’s workforce will be interdisciplinary leaders.”

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHARLIE SHIN PHOTOGRAPHY

by JEAN DIMEO

Critical Upgrade

An innovative solution to the shipping bottleneck caused by the Howard Street Tunnel under Baltimore will significantly increase cargo container traffic through the Port of Baltimore to the tune of $425 million. This figure is a major reduction from the original $1 billion proposal. The solution will make the port more competitive and create thousands of local jobs, according to railroad and Maryland state officials.

MOVING FORWARD

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan expects the federal government will pay for part of the project.

Currently, the more-than-a-century-old Howard Street Tunnel only can accommodate single-stack cargo containers. The 1.7-mile underground tunnel runs from Camden Yards, the Baltimore Orioles’ baseball stadium, north to the Maryland Institute College of Art. There are nine obstructions in the tunnel, and it frequently floods, according to a CSX official.

“The tunnel is 19-feet-high, but it needs to be 21-feethigh to make it double-stack,” Brian Hammock, vice president for state and government affairs at CSX Corp., said during a presentation at the Greater Washington Board of Trade Outlook conference. “Double-stacks really can create a great opportunity for the Port of Baltimore to realize its full potential with container traffic.”

The tunnel reconstruction work will take four to five years. “We need to lower track and raise clearance,” Hammock said. “It sounds simple, but is actually very difficult.”

CSX has embarked on $850 million public-private partnership to upgrade the railroad’s infrastructure, including the Howard Street Tunnel, that Hammock said would create 50,000 jobs and eliminate 20 million tons of carbon dioxide. The initiative includes 61 clearance projects and intermodal projects.

One critical project CSX recently completed is the Virginia Avenue Tunnel in Washington, DC’s Southeast quadrant. The single-track, single-stack tunnel was replaced by a tunnel that can accommodate two trains double-stacked. The Virginia Avenue Tunnel opened up cargo train transport to the Southeast and Chicago.

The only single-stack tunnel that will be left to revamp is the Howard Street Tunnel, Hammock said. Maryland has committed $145 million to the project while CSX, which owns and maintains the tunnel, will contribute $125 million, he added.

Earlier this year, the Maryland Department of Transportation applied for a federal grant for the remaining $155 million, but the US Department of Transportation rejected the application. Nevertheless, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has said that the federal government will help pay for part of the total $425 million project.

“We’re working on a funding solution, but we’re not waiting for funding to come in place,” Hammock said. “We are moving forward on a couple pieces of this project. We don’t want to skip a beat.”

Countless studies have been done that showed rais-

Revamping Baltimore’s Howard Street Tunnel will unlock major port and freight travel potential.

ing the tunnel’s height would cost $1 billion to $3 billion and would close it for five years. However, according to Hammock, a CSX engineer said, “I think we figured out a way to clear the tunnel for one-fourth of the cost without disrupting the public.” A feasibility study conducted in the fall of 2015 showed the engineer was right.

The solution: Replace the wood cross-ties with steel ones to shave off several inches; lower the tunnel floor; and trim the ceilings and rounded archways to accommodate rectangular-shaped shipping containers. The solution also came with a lower price of $425 million.

CSX will use the first $21 million of its contribution to modify the tunnel’s drainage system and to move some city infrastructure, a critical first step in raising the tunnel. The railroad company also will invest another $4 million on advance engineering plans.

Maryland officials estimate that the tunnel-raising project would create 500 construction jobs over a fiveyear period. Following completion of the project, the Port of Baltimore would handle an additional 80,000 containers annually and create about 3,000 jobs as a result of increased business.

In terms of tonnage, the Port of Baltimore is the 13th largest US port and largest on the East Coast, according to Kathy Broadwater, deputy executive director of the Maryland Port Administration. The port supports 13,650 direct jobs and 20,270 induced or indirect jobs.

The Howard Street Tunnel project has taken on even more importance because the Port of Baltimore is one of only three ports on the East Coast that can handle large container ships sailing from the newly expanded Panama Canal, Broadwater said.

“East Coast ports already started getting big ships even before the Panama Canal enlarged. The route is economical for shipping lines and does not have size restrictions,” she said. “We expect the Howard Street Tunnel project will make us more competitive.”

MOVING CARGO The project would increase the Port’s cargo capacity by 80,000 and create 3,000 jobs; below, a map of the Howard Street Tunnel expansion.

“I think we figured out a way to clear the tunnel for one-fourth of the cost without disrupting the public.”

THIS PAGE BY ISTOCK, OPPOSITE PAGE BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

As professionals seek alternatives to the traditional office and looming commutes, collaborative work spaces are springing up.

THE CO -OPERATIVE EFFECT

by JOE GUINTO

The future of work involves cold-brew coffee, a bar lined with subway tiles, a rooftop patio, and an airy lounge with its tobacco-brown leather couches. Or, at least it does inside an old Wonder Bread factory in Washington’s Shaw neighborhood that has been converted into co-working space run by WeWork.

Here, dozens of small companies work in a mishmash of office styles. Some operate out of large, open-plan spaces. Some work in small rooms alongside just a few people. Others drop in every day to open their laptops on

shared desks. And still others use the space as if it’s a coffee shop—working there only occasionally while seated on a barstool or a lounge chair and sipping java. Free java.

Workers and small companies are drawn to WeWork because of all that flexibility, and because of the potential synergy with other companies who occupy the office, or barstool, next to them. Which is why WeWork, a booming Silicon Valley firm with a $16 billion valuation, doesn’t see itself as being in the real estate business even though it leases five million square feet of

80,000 WeWork members worldwide

8 WeWork offices in Greater Washington 60% of commercial property buyers in Washington, DC, came from overseas in 2015 95% of millennials say they would take better work-life balance and workplace mobility over a higher salary

WASHINGTON RANKS #4 as a destination for foreign capital investments in commercial real estate

SPACE-SHARING

The Wonder Bread factory in DC’s Shaw neighborhood is one of WeWork’s eight locations in the Greater Washington region.

COURTESY OF WEWORK

TRAFFIC RELIEF

More people. More cars. Same number of roads.

How do transportation planners working on one of the nation’s most congested traffic corridors move all those people in all those cars more quickly than they do now? The answer in Virginia: Flexible lanes.

“We asked: How can we get more throughput?” said Aubrey Layne, secretary of transportation in Virginia. “One answer was high-occupancy lanes.”

The first were completed in 2014 on I-95 from Garrisonville Rd. in Stafford County to just north of Edsall Rd. on I-395 in Fairfax County. An extension to that section is now getting underway, and another 10 miles of toll lanes are expected to be added on I-95 south of Fredericksburg.

On I-66, for 22 miles outside the Beltway to University Blvd., five lanes of traffic will flow in each direction by 2022. Three will be regular lanes and two will be HOV or HOT. For vehicles with less than three passengers, using a HOT lane will require a toll tag and varying toll rates will apply depending on how much traffic is on the road. The more traffic, the higher the toll.

“When we finish our current work,” Layne said, “there will be about 85 miles of high-occupancy vehicle or high-occupancy toll lanes on those roads—depending on the time of day—that people can use seamlessly.”

space to 50,000 individuals and businesses in 25 cities worldwide. “We’re in the business of making people happy and successful,” says 40-year-old co-founder Miguel McKelvey. “Our spaces are obviously a big part of that, but we think we offer something more, holistically, in terms of what it means to work in the world today.”

A Collaborative Effort

And what does it mean to work in the world today? In one word: Collaboration. Companies large and small are looking for ways to foster better collaboration between workers who sit next to each other as well as those who may work in different departments in different places around the world. That’s partly why 70 percent of office workers now work in “openplan” spaces, according to the International Facility Management Association.

It’s also why, even as the federal Gen-

Top: Kitchen in WeWork’s DCChinatown space.

Bottom: The recentlyopened WeWorkMetropolitan Square above Old Ebbitt’s Grill covers more than 100,000 square feet over two floors.

eral Services Administration reports that government offices in Washington are shrinking, co-working space in the area is growing. “Co-working has taken up about half a billion square feet of space in the DC metro area this year alone,” said Revathi Greenwood, director of research and analysis for CBRE Group Inc., at the Outlook conference. “And this is a totally new sector. In 2015, co-working space was just 150,000 square feet.”

In the District, WeWork has six different co-working spaces—in the booming 14th Street corridor, in the rapidly redeveloping Shaw neighborhood, in Dupont Circle, in Chinatown, on K Street amid the offices of numerous lobbying firms, and directly across the street from the US Treasury Department. The last one sits upstairs from the famed Old Ebbitt Grill, in a sprawling 100,000 square feet of space housing about 2,000 tenants.

Cove, another co-working space, is also growing rapidly in the area. Cove has offices in Dupont Circle, Chinatown, and on Capitol Hill. Cove’s offices are not as

BRING TO THE TABLE

elaborate as many of the WeWork sites, which offer private, permanent spaces with doors and dedicated phone lines. But Cove members do get a desk, access to printers, fax machines, and meeting rooms, as well as free coffee.

Even Regus PLC, a long established office rental company, has shifted into the co-working space. Regus’ clients in Washington and elsewhere can now buy packages that allow them to drop in on a desk as needed or to reserve their own desk for more frequent visits to a specific site.

The Mobile Workforce

All of that is good news for small firms looking for a better place to work than the corner coffee shop while also hoping to connect with other local businesses and spur growth. But there’s a catch to the density offered by co-working spaces like WeWork. With co-working spaces mainly opening in the center of the District, and with rents and home prices rapidly rising there and in other parts of the city, plenty of people who use co-working spaces here—many of them millennials—face long commutes to work. And that commute has become more complicated of late with service disruptions related to Metro’s ongoing SafeTrack rebuilding project and with road projects happening on some of the area’s most congested highways.

“The population in this area continues to grow,” said Aubrey Layne, secretary of transportation in Virginia. “The number of people in cars continues to grow. Even though there are different options today, like biking, bus, and Metro, this area’s roads continue to get more congested.”

But even though the ride to work may not become more pleasant for a while, the work environment can be—at least for companies who are successfully embracing the collaborative ethos of co-working, which is becoming more valued by the millennials who now make up the majority of the workforce.

“Millenials have different expectations of work-life balance and work locations,” said Molly Bauch, technology strategy manager at Accenture in Washington, at the Outlook conference. “They want more rolebased work and project-based work. They expect to be able to work on mobile apps. They expect to have flexible work environments.” Not only that, she said, about 95 percent of millennials want that flexibility and mobility over a higher salary.

Bauch said that presents a challenge for business leaders. “We have a mobile, young workforce in Washington,” she said. “So leaders today have to work in a highly networked, collaborative, and ever-experimenting environment. They need to orchestrate many different skills across many different teams—in very much a project based world—to accomplish their new business goals.”

METRO’S TRACK TO IMPROVEMENT

The bumpy ride for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority isn’t over yet. A series of service disruptions across the Metro system and fires inside of underground stations prompted an unprecedented one-day shutdown of all stations in 2016. A yearlong repair project, called SafeTrack, has followed those incidents, resulting in a rolling series of station closures and line repairs that will continue into 2017.

“The next two years will be difficult,” said Metro general manager Paul J. Wiedefeld at the Outlook conference. “We have a huge budget hole coming into 2018 and we have a lot of work to do before then to get the system reliable.

“But,” he added, “the needle is moving.”

lators—coverings designed to keep fires on the rails at bay—have been replaced with more modern, safer insulators during the months since SafeTrack began.

But as the system slowly gets safer and more reliable, it is paying a price for disruptions caused by the rebuilding project. Ridership has fallen by 10 percent in some months last year over the same month in the prior year. One report suggests that ridership is, at times, hitting 10-year lows.

ON THE RIGHT TRACK Metro has been rolling out the Safetrack program to address repairs and system reliability.

Crossties, fasteners, and insulators are moving, too. All of those important cogs in the Metro machine have been replaced by the thousands during SafeTrack. More than 3,000 old insu-

Wiedefeld said that when SafeTrack is concluded, he wants to win those riders back by offering more reliable, more extensive service—including the expansion to Metro’s Silver Line and the recently approved Purple Line. And building a bigger, better Metro, he said, is critical to the area’s long term economic development. “The Metro system,” Wiedefeld said, “is one of the biggest tools in our toolbox in terms of global competition.”

PHOTOGRAPHS THIS PAGE: ALAMY, OPPOSITE PAGE, FROM TOP: COURTESY OF WEWORK, EVY MAGES, ALAMY

UNION STATION’S BACK

In its first century of operation, Union Station connected Washington, DC, to the nation. Now, as part of a “Second Century Plan,” Union Station’s overseers hope to better connect the station to Washington, DC.

Union Station Redevelopment Corp. is already underway with its $10 billion Second Century Plan. It calls for building a massive deck over the area behind the station where train tracks cut blocks out of the city’s street grid when Union Station opened in 1908.

The deck will reconnect those blocks, offering public spaces and three million square feet of new space for offices, hotels, and residences. In the center of the deck, a glass-topped train shed will be built, descend seven stories from the deck level to make room for new, wider, train tracks, new train concourses, and

a new area where buses and taxis can drop off and pick up passengers.

Beverly Swaim-Staley, CEO of the Union Station Redevelopment Corp., called the ambitious plan, which is still in the fundraising stage, a “mega project.” It may not get fully underway until 2020. In the meantime, big improvements will be made to the existing station, including widening the current Amtrak concourses—where 37 million passengers arrive and depart each year— and creating a larger entryway for the Metro stop at Union Station—the busiest station in Metro’s system. Those projects should be completed by 2019. Another proposal includes an adjoining hotel, in which the lobby will be housed in the former B. Smith’s restaurant, also the site of the ornate original presidential waiting room.

NEW AND IMPROVED

A proposed redesign for Union Station includes widening the Amtrak and commuter train concourse.

Finding the Right Blend

That orchestration can be as challenging as the morning commute. Many companies are struggling to develop the right kind of collaborative environments, ones that foster creative co-working without sacrificing workers’ ability to concentrate on their daily tasks. At WeWork and other co-working sites, the idea is not to force collaboration on any of the member tenants, but to create a range of environments where members can do their work.

“Some people like quiet and separation,” McKelvey says, who has an architecture degree and is chief creative officer for WeWork. “Some people love to be surrounded by activity and people. Hopefully we can find a way to serve all of those people and help make it easier for them to follow their passion.”

WeWork also tries to offer multiple ways for companies to connect even if they have disparate business operations—in Washington, a taco-making company has WeWork space nearby a brand-development and graphic design firm. That’s accomplished through a LinkedIn-style online network where members can pose questions to each other and list job openings. It’s also accomplished through a continual series of optional events at its offices. Those events may have something to do with business, or they may not. A JavaScript tips session after work on one day may give way to an ice cream social in the shared kitchen at midday on another or to “Dr. Ruby’s Easy Vegan Cooking Class” on yet another day.

“We’re trying to authentically connect with our communities,” says chief creative office McKelvey, who has an architecture degree. “At WeWork, you meet people with shared experiences. You even get emotional support, where you can find other people who understand the challenges of running a business. You have the ability to bounce stuff off of them.”

It may feel a little touchy-feely, but, then, that makes sense, given WeWork’s roots. McKelvey spent part of his childhood on a collective headed by five single mothers in Oregon. His Israeli-born co-founder spent part of his childhood on a kibbutz in Israel.

But even some of Washington’s most traditional employers may be able to adopt one of WeWork’s core values—proving meaningful work to their employees. “At a fundamental level, what a lot of us want is to find meaning in our work and feel like our time isn’t being wasted,” McKelvey says. “That can be a pretty ephemeral thing. But I think you really end up feeling the power of it when you’re in our spaces for a while.”

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GREATER WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE 2017 OFFICERS

Chairman

TERRY D. MCCALLISTER

Chairman & CEO, WGL Holdings

Chair-Elect

KIMBERLY K. HORN

Regional President, Mid -Atlantic States, Kaiser Permanente

Secretary

TERRI MCCLEMENTS

Washington Metro Market Managing Partner, PwC

Assistant Secretary

ROSIE ALLEN-HERRING

President & CEO, United Way of the National Capital Area

Treasurer

KENNETH A. SAMET

President & CEO, MedStar Health

Assistant Treasurer

JEFFREY S. DETWILER

President & COO, Long & Foster Companies, Inc.

ANTHONY A. LEWIS

Region Vice President, Mid Atlantic State Government Affairs, Verizon

General Counsel

MAUREEN E. DWYER

Director, Goulston & Storrs

President & CEO

JAMES C. DINEGAR

Greater Washington Board of Trade

2017 Annual Meeting: (Pictured L-R): Tony Lewis, Terry McCallister, Maureen Dwyer, Kim Horn, Rosie Allen-Herring, Dan Waetjen (outgoing 2016 Chair), Ken Samet, Jeff Detwiler, Jim Dinegar (not pictured - Terry McClements)

Four local companies are disrupting traditional business and manufacturing

THE FUTURE IS

I-95’S FRONT PORCH Under Armour envisions Port Covington to be a place of innovation in Baltimore and on the East Coast.

by RIN-RIN YU

HERE

David Woessner held up a skateboard that was once a bucket of pellets, fed into a 3D printer, and manufactured, as if out of thin air. In front and to the side of him sat other examples of his company’s work: a car fender and parts of a mini-self-driving shuttle bus, all created from the touch of a button of a 3D printer. “We exist to shape the future,” said the general manager of Local Motors to the participants at the Greater Washington Board of Trade Outlook conference. “We don’t take that lightly.”

Local Motors isn’t the only one that’s living evidence that the future is here, and here in Greater Washington. Other companies are changing how industries view manufacturing, crowdsourcing, workforce trends, investment in local resources, and sustainability.

Local Motors is one example of such science fiction-turned-reality. It designs cars which are then produced with a 3D printer. These are no skateboards–they’re legitimate, legal driving machines.

Similarly, online education company 2U, headquartered in Landover, Maryland, is changing the way people are learning. It’s bringing students to top universities to earn graduate degrees online without having to set foot on campus.

And popular athletic wear company Under Armour is making huge strides with its sweat-wicking, performance clothing, which is already a far cry from the cotton shirts that founder Kevin Plank used to have to wear under his football jersey in high school and college. His products, ranging from athletic clothing for all sports and activities to shoes and devices, are worn by superstars and amateurs alike. Now, Un-

OPPTY BOX

der Armour is looking to change the face of Baltimore, too, through its real estate venture.

These companies bring with them science-fiction-turned real life, concepts that are hard to grasp even for futurists, but are already on the road, being used at work and at home, by the government and professionals. Not only that, they’ve taken up headquarters here in the Greater Washington region, plunging the area full-force into an accelerating, thrilling, brave new world of opportunities and growth.

Industry Disruptors

Woessner compared the difference between traditional car manufacturing and the simplified approach by Local Motors. “When you think about design, development, engineering, production, supply chain, value chain, marketing, service, financing, you got a pretty complex system,” Woessner said. “With our approach, we can disrupt this system.”

Woessner could have been talking about any number of companies. In his case, Local Motors’ advantage in automotive manufacturing over traditional manufacturing is its ability to simplify the process. A traditional vehicle has about 25,000 components. A car printed by Local Motors, on the other hand, consists of only 50 parts. This advantage gives the company far more flexibility to change the car’s design.

To build a traditional car, parts are sourced worldwide and assembled in a factory overseas before placed on a boat to be shipped out. A car made by Local Motors, however, is created in a smaller factory on US soil. By

scale, it produces far fewer vehicles—about one to three thousand a year compared to 100,000 to 500,000 by a traditional manufacturer—but it can update and upgrade its vehicles to be locally relevant for a fraction of what it costs a traditional manufacturer to retool its factories. Woessner called this “micro-manufacturing.”

And the company’s nimbleness is faster than a traditional company. Local Motors was recruited by President Obama and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to create a reconnaissance vehicle to deliver supplies for fighters. The average defense contractor prototype usually costs several million and takes 2-3 years, Woessner explained. Local Motors delivered one in five months and under $400,000, which was even lower than DARPA’s request for six months at $500,000.

The Strati vehicle, the first 3D printed car, first took 180 hours to print, and three weeks later, Local Motors printed the same car in 44 hours. Similarly, last January, IBM Watson announced it wanted to add its question-answer computing system into a vehicle. Within five months, Local Motors was up and working with IBM, and completed it by June.

Local Motors has invested significant resources in Prince George’s County, including at National Harbor. The idea is to allow smaller businesses opportunities to compete and to enjoy the full breadth of innovative ideas, rather than just that of larger companies. “We really fo-

cus on… creating local supply chains and value chains to create vast manufacturing jobs,” Woessner said.

Local Motors also leans on crowdsourcing to develop its concepts and designs. Each product is announced with a design competition, in which any number of designers and engineers around the world can submit a concept. The network votes and decides the final design.

“Our development is focused on co-creation, where we harness the power of the crowd, because we believe that oftentimes, the smartest people in the world don’t work for Local Motors,” Woessner said. Its online community consists of around 60,000 members across 140 countries, who are industrial designers, engineers, markers, manufacturers, general vehicle enthusiasts, or consumers.

Building Communities Online

Similarly, online education is rapidly changing the way universities teach and the way students learn. Now, even more students worldwide can access the best education without having to leave home, except for an occasional in-person visit or internship. Through 2U’s online education platform and partnerships, students can earn an MBA from American University, a master’s in nursing from Georgetown, a master’s in public health from George Washington University, a master’s in social work from the University of Southern California, or a master’s in information and data science from UC Berkeley, among other graduate programs around the country.

Currently, more than 21,000 students are enrolled in degree programs offered through 2U, across all 50 states and 75 countries. It’s allowed students who, in the past, were hampered by geography, family demands, disability, military, or job constraints, to earn graduate degrees. 2U has also enabled schools that have experienced drops in applications to increase its reach.

By bringing higher education to the students, rather than recruiting students to the campus, 2U also builds a global learning community around the experience. The advantage for universities is it can offer the same degree to online students as in-person students, without being confounded by space and resource limitations.

Students can also enroll across universities with any of the programs offered through 2U, which allows students to “grow their network of professional peers and study with renowned professors,” according to its website.

2U follows the philosophy: “no back row,” meaning it strives to provide every online student an up-front, personal experience in each class. Though headquartered in Landover, it has offices in New York, Denver,

LOCAL AND VIRTUAL 2U brings higher education to students through its online portal.

Los Angeles, Chapel Hill, and Hong Kong, plus remote tech developers around the world. It also draws on aggregated information to decide what degrees and courses are most in demand and would benefit best with an online experience, such as degree conferral and job growth, online search trends, and geographic data.

Focusing on Local

While these companies are reaching high and crowdsourcing globally, they’re focused on tapping the local resources. It’s an effort to reduce global footprint and to contribute to the local community by sourcing nearby, providing jobs, and serving as a source of local pride.

In order to expand Under Armour’s accelerated growth, founder Kevin Plank went looking for more space and started a new venture into real estate. He’s planning to revolutionize the city of Baltimore by building up 235 acres of unused industrial land and space at Port Covington, of which 50 acres will be dedicated to the Under Armour campus. The space will rival Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, and will be one of the first sites people traveling north or south along the I-95 will see.

“We think that the I-95 is really a front porch of Baltimore,” said Mark Weller, president of Sagamore Development, one of Under Armour’s partners established to help develop Port Covington.

“It’s really one of the front porches of the East Coast.”

Already, it’s home to the Foundery, a networking membership which provides industrial tools and skills training, and a rye whiskey distillery in an effort to bring back one of Maryland’s biggest products as a nod to its heritage. It’s also home to City Garage, a manufacturing incubator which houses Under Armour’s Lighthouse lab center, as well as several companies that produce skateboards and watches, for example.

There are three requirements to be a part of City Garage: the company has to make a product, it has to stay in Baltimore, and it has to provide jobs in Baltimore.

And Under Armour’s own innovation sets the stage for others in Baltimore. Under Armour opened Lighthouse in City Garage, which houses a 3D printer. This year, it printed its first pair of sneaker soles for its multi-use shoe, called the Architech. 3D printing only takes 24 hours to produce and deliver soles, compared to a month with traditional manufacturing and shipping. Its soles also adapt to several activities, allowing the wearer to only need one pair of shoes instead of several (running or basketball shoes, for example).

Under Armour hopes its own initiatives will encourage other companies and start-ups to “make Baltimore better, in design and innovation across the board,” Weller said.

NEAR AND FAR Local Motors crowdsources ideas across 140 countries but builds the cars locally at National Harbor.

“Our development is focused on co-creation... we harness the power of the crowd.”

Museum of the Bible slated to open in the fall of 2017

Biblical Proportions

IN A CITY KNOWN FOR scandalous leaks of classified information, the Museum of the Bible—set to open in the fall of 2017—may be one of the best-kept secrets in Washington, DC.

“We did that by intention,” Cary Summers, museum president, said during a presentation at the Greater Washington Board of Trade Outlook conference. “We are taking on the most controversial topic in the world, and that’s called the Bible. There have been more wars about the Bible, more misuse of the book. It’s still the most read book, most debated, most banned, and most destroyed book in the world.”

The purpose of the Museum of the Bible, which will house the world’s largest private collection, is to engage visitors with the history, narrative, and impact of the 1,600-year-old sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity through cutting-edge technology and artifacts that bring the Bible to life.

“We want to put the Bible back in the center of conversation as a book,” Summer told the attendees, adding later: “It’s about the Bible; it’s not about any specific faith.”

The six-year-old nonprofit organization “had the whole world to look at” for a home for the museum, Summers said.

OPPTY BOX

Opening Fall 2017

$1.5 billion COST OF PROJECT

430,000 SQUARE FEET

140x20 ft. digital ceiling screen with 555 LED panels

In the end, it chose Washington, DC, based on surveys of potential attendance. The organization expects the museum to attract two to three million visitors during its first year of operation.

The building is located three blocks from the Capitol building and two blocks from the National Mall, although proximity to those places is not the reason the organization selected the site, Summers said. The museum will be housed inside the former Terminal Refrigerating and Warehousing Company building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. The new museum will be 430,000 square feet—exceeding the size of the new National Museum of African-American History & Culture, which sits at 409,000 square feet—on eight floors with 20-foot-high ceilings.

Once inside, visitors will be greeted by a digital ceiling screen running the entire length of the grand lobby at 140 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 40 feet high. When completed, it will be the largest digital screen in the US, made up of 555 LED panels with five-millimeter pixel pitch. The screen will be a rotating display of art from the museum, landscapes, and more, including the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. “They look like murals, but it’s all electronics,” Summers said.

The total cost for the project will be about $1.5 billion.

“No federal, city, redevelopment or historical preservation funds are being used,” the museum president said. “It is all being done through donations.”

The museum will feature permanent and temporary collections. Some highlights include first editions of the King James Bible, the world’s largest private collection of Torah scrolls, spanning more than 700 years of history, and a handwritten letter by Thomas Jefferson, in which he discusses his concept of religious liberty.

“We are trying to preserve documents so the next generation can see them,” Summers said.

The building also will have research labs, libraries, a 100-seat lecture hall, a 500-seat theater with a high-tech projection system and a 1,000-seat ballroom.

The entrance will sport two 40-foot-tall bronze doors—one 12 tons and one 8 tons—featuring the first edition with the Guttenberg Bible, Genesis Chapter One. The doors also will include the oldest-known piece of Psalms 19 that dates to the third century.

In addition to the collections, the Museum of the Bible will continue to offers school curriculum that’s already been taught to 100,000 children in Israel, the United Kingdom, and private schools in the US.

“The curriculum will be very important to what we do,” Summers said.

JEAN DIMEO

Museum of the Bible MUSEUMOFTHEBIBLE.ORG

PAST MEETS FUTURE

The museum’s digital ceiling features interchangable designs.

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