BALTIMORE — More than 600 business and community leaders gathered Tuesday evening at the Bud Light Talon at M&T Bank Stadium for the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore’s annual meeting. Look at the leadership represented in that room: Shelonda Stokes, the first Black president of the Downtown Partnership; Mayor Brandon Scott; Otis Rolley, the former deputy mayor now leading the Baltimore Development Corporation; and Mark Anthony Thomas, the first Black leader of the Greater Baltimore Committee.
Add a Black governor, attorney general and treasurer, along with a powerful Legislative Black Caucus. We have earned seats in rooms that once excluded us. Now the challenge is turning political representation into economic empowerment. Any other community with that kind of influence would expect tangible results.
This is the New Baltimore I have written about on BMORENews.com for more than a year: a city looking forward, welcoming investment, working to lower its property tax rate and building an ecosystem around artificial intelligence and quantum technology. From Chris Lundy in the city’s minority business office to developer David Bramble of MCB Real Estate, whose work is reshaping the harbor, the opportunity is to get our heavyweights working together. I want Baltimore to succeed. I want us to create brilliant products. I believe in excellence.
On Wednesday, November 11, we brought that vision directly into the community. The BMORE AI Challenge filled the main auditorium of the Thurgood Marshall Amenity Center in West Baltimore with a challenge I designed: use artificial intelligence to make the case for Baltimore hosting the 2036 Olympic Games.
I often say that if you want a great salad, you must start with the best ingredients. The same is true of an AI workshop. The people in that room were the ingredients. They brought experience from business, education, technology and everyday life. We do not have to look far for talent. It is already here.
Thanks to our partners
STEM City USA deserves special thanks. Through Dr. Alvin Hathaway and Dr. Tyrone Taborn, we connected with Beloved Community Services, which made the auditorium available. STEM City USA, which is planning its AI Next Gen Conference for 2027, also sponsored lunch. The healthy meal did more than feed us: it kept participants together, talking and learning.
Who was in the room
Dr. Hattie Washington traveled from Jacksonville, Florida, and provided exactly what the gathering needed: a strong educational foundation. I have known her since 1995, and having her and her daughter, attorney Cheryl Washington, there gave me tremendous confidence.
Nancy Clark, founder of AISezz.com, joined us through her connections with the Central Maryland Chamber. Clark, Fal Al-Hadid, Dr. Washington and Cheryl Washington have all trained with Alicia Lyttle, who calls herself the Queen of AI.
Among the other participants were Alison Assanah-Carroll, Paula Blackwell, Lamont Bell, Dr. Dan Morhaim, Toan Pham, Caroline Yao, Michael Beaudry, Leroy Davis, Jermaine Maitland, Louise Johnson, Kevin Carr and LaWanda Muir.
What they shared
Several participants were already building AI agents, and their explanations opened new territory for many of us. Fal Al-Hadid was one of them. He challenged the room to think beyond using a chatbot for a single question.
Al-Hadid explained his view that different large language models excel at different tasks. He described ChatGPT as useful for building and completing tasks, while Perplexity can help deepen research by drawing on multiple AI systems. His own workflow centers on a Claude subscription linked to Obsidian, his personal knowledge vault. An agent collects material from websites and other tools, then brings it back for analysis. Some tasks, he said, can cost only pennies. Not everyone in the room was convinced, but that skepticism was part of the learning.
Michael Beaudry of Logic Impact AI traveled from East Hartford, Connecticut. For final editing, he said he favors his own custom agents, followed by Google’s Gemini. He also uses NotebookLM to turn research into presentations, PDFs, infographics and flashcards.
Real estate investor Renny Bass, founder of the Kioba Network, said he was struck by how many presenters had AI certifications. He had not realized those credentials existed. Of course, certifications vary in rigor and value. But his reaction captured something important: even experienced professionals are discovering how much there is to learn. Another attendee described the gathering as impactful and directly relevant to his work.
Tilling the ground
Dr. Alvin Hathaway said the event helped make AI feel accessible rather than distant. “It is a tool that we must learn to manage. It’s a tool that we must learn to master,” he said. Mastering it, he argued, can give communities the efficiency and productivity they need to compete.
The center has previously hosted AI programming for students, including a national workshop and conference organized by Career Communications Group. But Hathaway described this as its first community-focused AI event. “That’s the turf and the ground that we need to turn up,” he said. “We need to till the community so that the community understands that this tool is available for them.”
Leroy Davis illustrates that spirit. Hathaway said Davis approaches the center as a place for continuing education, showing up for subjects ranging from medical cannabis to AI. “I think that’s the secret sauce,” Hathaway said. “People who are curious.”
I told Hathaway that I see the surrounding community as our Timbuktu, our university. He agreed. The restaurants, the neighborhood number men and the elders playing checkers on the corner once served as informal classrooms. “That’s what you gotta resurrect,” he said. “The learning is not just necessarily in the schools; it’s also in the community.”
Hathaway called Dr. Hattie Washington’s presentation, informed by a lifetime in education, “absolutely stellar.” He also admitted that he did not learn about the Olympic challenge until the day of the event. But he embraced its grassroots potential. “It should be a groundswell,” he said. “It should not come from the top down. It should come from the bottom up.” His prediction for how the idea might reach decision-makers? “It’s gonna be a thunderbolt.”
A journey, not a destination
What moved me most was the shared commitment to learning. I love school. I love learning. And that was the most beautiful part of the day.
Some people arrived without knowing what an AI agent could do. They left with a better idea and a foundation on which to build. Beaudry reminded us why conversations like these matter: the technology is moving so quickly that everyone must keep learning.
His most profound point was that an AI certification earned today, or a course taught today, may need to be rewritten tomorrow. That is the pace of change.
The Olympic challenge was never just about winning the right to host a sporting event. It was about giving Baltimore residents permission to imagine boldly, use new tools and put forward their own ideas for the city’s future. We have the talent. We have the institutions. Now we must make sure the people of Baltimore help shape what comes next.
And that’s the Glover Report.
