Positioned among a throng of federal labs, universities and corporations, Howard County is grooming a reputation as a high-tech hub.
“Howard County is fast becoming the informatics corridor,” said RickHarris, chief operating officer of the Tech Council of Maryland.
Informatics is the way information is stored, mined and analyzed.
Labs, such as the National Institutes of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, use a tremendous amount of data, which must be stored and mined.
This situation has prompted a growth in informatics companies in Howard, such as Columbia-based Quality Associates Inc., which was recently named Firm of the Year by the Tech Council for turning paper documents into searchable electronic files.
The informatics corridor stretches through central Maryland and includes Anne Arundel and Montgomery counties, said Richard Story, chief executive officer of the county?s Economic Development Authority.
Story and other area business leaders promoted the informatics potential by forming the Informatics Coalition, part of the Technology Leadership Consortium, a volunteer group of tech leaders in Maryland.
“We have been going around and waving the informatics flag in front of people and getting a tremendous amount of interest,” Story said.
The informatics wave could grow with the addition of thousands of jobs to Fort Meade through the federal base realignment program, Story said. The military installations rely heavily on informatics, which could create opportunities for area companies.
The coalition, lead by Steve Walker, has about 200 members and has plans to bring an event called Coffee and Informatics to Howard to bring companies together, Walker said.
“I like to refer to this as our best-kept secret, not because we are hiding it, but because we haven?t realized it,” he said.
