In this episode of Government Technology’s weekly roundup “In Case You Missed It,” host Dustin Haisler is joined by Adam Henry, Senior Business Development Manager for Arlington County’s Economic Development Organization, and Sarah Kerner, co‑founder and Chief Strategy Officer of the nonprofit CivStart. The conversation introduces Arlington’s Business Investment Group, which focuses on attracting and retaining technology startups, and highlights the region’s shift from a federal‑contracting image to a broader GovTech ecosystem. Kerner explains CivStart’s 2‑year accelerator, its annual cohort selection process, and the upcoming 2022 cohort launch. The core of the discussion centers on the State of GovTech 2022 conference – an in‑person, two‑day event (Oct 5‑6, 2022) in Arlington’s Westin Arlington Gateway. The conference will feature four tracks (GovTech trends, innovation culture, tech ecosystem, policy landscape), panels, keynotes (including Harvard professor Mitch Weiss), workshops, startup demos, and a pitch competition with awards. Arlington County will host a panel on how startups can work with local governments, led by BizLaunch director Tara Pletzios. The guests describe the ideal audience – startups, investors, government agencies, universities, and ecosystem partners – and stress the importance of live networking after a virtual‑only previous year. Listeners are directed to civstart.org/stateofgovtech for pre‑registration, room‑block information, and further updates.
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All right, TGIF everyone, and welcome to In Case You Missed It, Government Technology's weekly news roundup where we take a look at some of the biggest news of the past week and give you our thoughts on what it means for government citizens in the market. I'm Dustin Haisler. Joe Morris will actually be returning next week from paternity leave, so we'll be excited to have him back. But today I'm joined by 2 special guests, and we're going to dive right in here in a moment to talk about their work and share more about an exciting new event happening this fall. You're going to want to make sure that you are at it. I'm joined today by Adam Henry, the Senior Business Development Manager for Arlington County's Economic Development Organization, and Sarah Kerner, the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer for CivStart, a 2-time guest on In Case You Missed It. Adam and Sarah, thanks so much for, for joining me today.
Thanks for having us.
So Adam, I want to start with you because this is your first time on In Case You Missed It, and I'd love for you to share a little bit more about yourself and, and the economic Development, uh, organization for Arlington County?
Yeah, absolutely. Hey Dustin, thank you for having me on the podcast today. Really happy to be here. So Arlington Economic Development is actually a county agency, uh, so we work for the citizens of Arlington County, Virginia, and our goal is to recruit new businesses to the county, to launch new businesses in the county, and to expand the existing businesses that are already here. We have a number of different divisions. We have public art in our department. We have our small business division called BizLaunch. In there, we have tourism underneath us, and then my division is the Business Investment Group. We're solely focused on business attraction and business retention and expansion in the county. I actually work specifically with technology startups in Arlington County. I was hired 2.5 years ago to really work with our tech ecosystem partners and all the startups in Arlington to really continue our momentum from the Amazon HQ2 announcement to bring more startups to Arlington County, Virginia.
Yeah, that's so exciting. And I know economic development remains a really high priority for cities across the country that are now all competing for talent and businesses in this new era that we live in. You know, what is most exciting about what you're working on right now?
I think the biggest thing that's super exciting to me is the momentum that this region has for technology startups as a whole. I think historically this region has been seen as a federal government contracting town, but with the Tech Focus itself and the government tech, it's really expanding our boundaries, not only to our federal government partners, our state and local partners, but also there's a lot of B2B opportunities as well. And it's really expanding and diversifying our local economy to make sure that we have a diverse set of jobs for our residents here. And also with the big thing being talent attraction and economic development, that's the number one thing. Having this diverse set of industry here And especially on the government technology side, it's really attracted more talent to the region. With COVID a lot of people kind of moved out to smaller areas, but we're definitely seeing people coming back to the city center in Arlington to be part of the technology community here.
Fantastic. Well, Sarah, I want to move to you now. Welcome back to In Case You Missed It. For those that didn't catch your previous episode, remind us a little bit about your role and the work that you do through CivStart.
Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me back, Dustin. I'm excited to be partnering with you all in this event. So yeah, like Dustin mentioned, I'm a co-founder of CivStart. We are a nonprofit organization and our mission is really around building an honest and inclusive ecosystem of local government leaders and startup solutions that we think are really meeting the needs of their communities and serving their communities. The 3 main ways we kind of accomplish this practically is through our accelerator program that we have for government technology startups. It is a 2-year program. We also have a bunch of government innovation programs for governments themselves where we come in and take them through a challenge-based pilot program and working with startups. And then also we strive to kind of serve as an innovation hub for the entire GovTech ecosystem. And the event you'll learn about today is kind of a good example of how we do that.
And so I know that you just went through the 2022 selection process for the new cohort. Can you share more about this process and also maybe give us a hint of when you might be dropping the, the new names?
Sure thing. Yeah, it's a busy season for us right now. Um, we— so while our accelerator program is a 2-year program, we do take on a new cohort every year. So we always have 2 cohorts overlapping at a time. We just went through the process of accepting a bunch of applications, having them reviewed by our selection committee, which is made up of government leaders and experts in the field. And then we just did our final round of interviews. So right now we're in the process of accepting about 15 to 20 of the startup applicants for the 2022 cohort. The cohort will launch September 1st, and we'll make our formal announcement publicly of who's in the cohort on September 12th. So stay tuned for that. And also, those startups will most likely be there in person at State of GovTech. So if you're there, you'll get to meet them in person.
That's a great segue into State of GovTech. For so— so for those of you that were able to attend virtually last year, The event is coming back, but it's coming back live and in person in October. There's an all-star list of attendees, and it's a collaborative effort actually between everyone that is on In Case You Missed It today. We're excited through Government Technology to be a partner in this as well. And I'd love to kind of dig into this with you both and share a little bit more about this event for our audience and hear why you're excited to participate. So Sarah, tell me a little bit about State of GovTech 2022 to start.
Sure, yeah. So I think, you know, we're really hoping this is going to be a dynamic in-person conference focused on the people, the technologies, the policies, and cultures that make up the GovTech ecosystem. So, uh, the event will have 4 tracks, uh, one on GovTech trends, one on the culture of innovation, one on the tech ecosystem in general, and then on the policy landscape. Um, we're gonna cover a lot of, a lot of ground at this event and try to bring in all the different perspectives from the different stakeholders that impact the government technology ecosystem in one way or another. And it's going to be— each track is going to be comprised of a mix of panels, keynotes, um, some workshops for governments and startups, and then also a lot of startup demos. This also kind of serves as a demo day for the startups in our program. It's also being sponsored by AWS, and so a lot of the AWS GovTech startups will be there featuring their new solutions as well. So we're excited about that. The event is going to take place October 5th and 6th, so mark your calendars. It's going to be in Arlington, Virginia at the Westin Arlington Gateway.
That's a great segue to Arlington County. And so, Adam, I know Arlington County is our host government for this event, so tell me a little bit about Arlington County's role in all of this.
Yeah, we're really excited to host this event, and we're even more excited that it's located right here in Arlington County, Virginia, actually not that far from our office. So I will be walking over to the event But yeah, I think the biggest thing we're excited about is connecting with all the government tech startups that'll be there. I know personally I love seeing all the new technology that's always coming out and seeing the innovative ways that we're really helping our federal, state, and local governments work at a more efficient pace and help them innovate ways to not only help the staff there, but also help the citizens. So we're really excited to host this event, host the startups, host all the players involved in this event to really help expand our tech ecosystem here in Arlington County. We're really excited about this and look forward to connecting with everyone there.
Absolutely. We're excited to partner with you and CivStart on it. Now, I know that Arlington County will also be facilitating a little bit of the program I mean, that's there. So any preview or hints as to what might be covered?
Yeah, so my colleague, Tara Pletzios, she's the director of this launch. She will be there doing a panel on basically how these startups can work with local government agencies. She's going to be talking with some of the local procurement people here. Really helping them, give them insight on how to work with these local governments, some of the pain points we see on our side, and obviously taking questions from startups to help them learn more about how they can work with local governments like Arlington County, Virginia. So we're definitely excited about that. Definitely, it's a great way for us not only to connect and see what's out there, but also give them the information they need to come in and start working with us as a local government. So we're really excited about that. Again, Tara Palacios with BizLaunch will be hosting that panel, and we're looking forward to that.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to that one as well. So Sarah, what are you most excited about kind of looking to, to the fall in this event?
Yeah, well, on that note, I think I am really excited to hear directly from governments themselves. A lot of the content at the event is gonna consist of government speakers from various regions sharing their experiences, their needs and perspectives, kind of like Adam mentioned their panel around different issue areas. So I look forward to that type of firsthand insight and collaboration that's gonna happen across the governments that are at the event. I think it'll be great for the startups to learn from that perspective and any other technology companies that are in the audience. I'm also excited to hear the startup pitches. So not only are the startups going to be demoing, but they're actually going to be getting up and pitching in front of a panel of some governments and investors in the space. And we are going to have some awards for startups following those pitches. So that'll be really fun. Um, and then I guess another sneak peek thing that I'm excited about is we are gonna have Harvard professor Mitch Weiss as a keynote, and he's gonna be sharing his recent book, We the Possibility. So I think those are maybe 3 things I'm looking forward to in particular right now.
Yeah, it'd be great to see so many people now that we're back live outside of the Zoom box, inside of the actual room. So very excited about that. So Adam, tell me a little bit about the audience or who you'd like to see in the room as you look at expanding that ecosystem you talked about at the beginning.
Yeah, definitely. Obviously, first and foremost, the startups. That's the big key piece there with the ecosystem is having the startups there. I would also love to see our ecosystem partners there. People from our state agencies we work with, the universities themselves because they're bringing in and cultivating the talent in the region. Along with other local and regional organizations that focus on technology and the ecosystem as a whole. I know, I know the local governments in Northern Virginia have been working together more and more to unify our brand in Northern Virginia. And definitely would like to see all of our EDO partners there as well, really showing the Northern Virginia brand as a whole. The big one too is investors. Would love to see investors there. I think when you look at our tech ecosystem in Metro DC, we have a lot of great parts and pieces and assets there. One of the bigger gaps I hear consistently is we need more investment in this area. So I love seeing programs and events that bring investors not only locally but from the outside in. to Arlington is a really great way for us to showcase not only our startups but also our community as a whole.
Yeah, that's fantastic. And we definitely want to see everyone watching this episode there, especially, you know, the larger companies that are working in our market. As you're looking for opportunities, maybe some startups to pick up, this is the event for you. So Sarah, the easiest question of our time today is going to be, where can our audience go to learn more?
Yeah, sure thing. So, uh, CivStart's website, uh, does have a page there. It looks like it's in the bottom of the screen here. So yeah, civstart.org/stateofgovtech, you can pre-register there. And we also have a room block, a very great rate at the Westin where the event's being held. So I'd encourage you to sign up for the room block if you need it, um, and we'll be updating that website as we confirm content and other good things.
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for joining. That's all the time we have for today, and a special thanks to Sarah and Adam for carving some time out to share more about State of GovTech Live, October 5th and 6th this year in Arlington County. Tune in next Friday at 12 Pacific time on LinkedIn, YouTube, or Twitter for a special episode with Steve Ressler, serial GovTech entrepreneur extraordinaire. And also, just a reminder, we're streaming on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, so Give us a subscribe and a good, uh, like, and we'll see you next week. Thanks for joining.
