Birmingham Bound President Maria Underwood Shares the Ogranization’s Work to Grow Birmingham’s Tech Ecosystem
Rotarian Drew Honeycutt with Maria Underwood and RCB President Chuck Redden
This week the Rotary Club of Birmingham welcomed Maria Underwood, Birmingham Bound President. Underwood shared the organization’s history, conceived by Rotarian Bill Smith, Founder of Shipt and Landing, and founded by Brittany Summerville in 2018, to help solidify Birmingham as a place where tech startups come, grow and stay.
Underwood explained Birmingham Bound’s efforts to recruit, retain and grow tech companies. The organization actively seeks out entrepreneurs and founders to show them all Birmingham has to offer, including low cost of living, short commutes, and a young and educated workforce. The organization encourages founders to launch companies here and supports them to remain and become integral parts of the local tech ecosystem. She explained the benefits of adding tech jobs to the local economy, as they pay 85% more than the median wage.
“Our main goal is to look at recruiting founders who have an impact that they want to make in the community, who are looking to bring companies and employees here to Birmingham for economic development,” said Underwood. “We also focus really intently on women, minority, veteran and frontier founders.”
Underwood announced a new partnership with TechBirmingham, Innovation Depot and the City of Birmingham to upskill local workers to prepare them for the jobs coming into the city. She also previewed a new initiative called BHM Interchange, sponsored by Landing, to provide free co-working space for anyone to use with emphasis on supporting tech entrepreneurs.
Underwood discussed challenges, including the large percentage of students who leave the state after graduating from Alabama colleges and universities due to the lack of jobs available. She stressed the importance of keeping talent in the state, upskilling the talent that is already here, promoting a startup-friendly business ecosystem, and telling Birmingham’s story outside of the region.
Underwood shared her excitement for the return of Sloss Tech to Birmingham on June 9th and her enthusiasm for spreading the word about tech opportunity in the Magic City at events such as South by Southwest. She challenged business leaders to look to local founders and companies in the area to help solve problems before making purchasing decisions.
“We want to make sure people can come here and see all the good things that Birmingham is well known for. Once you get here, you’re really able to understand who we are as an ecosystem. You feel that welcome from the Magic City. You get to meet the connections of people who are really willing to help…everyone in this city wants to be involved in that recruitment effort.”
About Maria Underwood
Maria Underwood is a Birmingham native with 10+ years of experience in fundraising and social impact strategy, locally and including in major markets across the US. She has consulted and presented internationally on digital fundraising, millennial giving and trends in the nonprofit sector. She moved back to Birmingham after seven years in Washington, DC and started her own company, Fundrage, which is a social impact platform that helps users channel their anger into action when reading the news. She serves on the board of TechBirmingham and Magic City Fashion Week, and was a BBJ Top 40 Under 40 in 2022. She’s currently the President of Birmingham Bound, an organization aimed at recruiting, retaining, and growing tech companies to the Magic City.