Steve R. Chamberlain, chairman of Integral Systems Inc. in Lanham, had a message for a roomful of investors yesterday that they certainly didn't expect to hear.

"We don't need your money. We've got plenty of money," he said.

The 70 other technology companies attending an investor conference at the Lansdowne resort in Loudoun County this week "will do a much better job of begging than we ever could," said Chamberlain, whose company manufactures computer and satellite hardware and software.

Chamberlain, however, was the exception. The other technology companies attending the conference were selling their wares to about 180 investment analysts, securities executives and money managers hoping to attract interest in their firms' stocks and to put the Washington region more visibly on the map as a technology center.

"These guys are here to get their stock price up," said Howard M. Arnold of Churchill Investment Corp. in Bethesda, which runs an investment portfolio.

The conference is the first opportunity for the stars of the region's technology industries to strut their stuff as a group for big-time investors -- although individually many have appeared at similar conferences in New York, Philadelphia and other cities.

The goal, agreed Edward Bersoff, chief executive of BTG Inc., a Fairfax information technology company, is "getting the story out and attracting the interest of potential investors. It's very important."

Perhaps 80 percent of the investors attending the conference were from the Baltimore-Washington-Richmond region.

Shelley Harrison, chairman of Spacehab of Vienna, which builds research and supply models for the space shuttle, said a higher stock price was his objective. "I think we are totally undervalued" by the market, which doesn't understand the commercial potential of space missions, he said.

The value for investors is more subtle, Arnold said. "You gain insights when you listen to the stories. You get a sense of the chief executive's ideas and convictions, and how well-prepared they are."

Sponsors of the conference, which include prominent Washington area corporations, banks, law firms and local government agencies, hope that the conference and those that follow will attract more interest in the region's technology companies from outside the area. But that may take time, said Chris M. Royston, managing director of Bengur Bryan & Co., a Baltimore investment banking firm.

"It's difficult to say" how far the region's message is being spread this week, Royston said. It will take several years more to get the word out, he predicted.

Organizers of the two-day event had no trouble finding technology success stories to entice investors.

Among the stars were Ciena Corp., a year-old company whose technology enables fiber-optic networks to carry 16 times more data than conventional networks; Nextel Communications Inc., which is building an advanced personal phone system that competes with "old-fashioned cellular" systems; and other companies with pioneering technologies in outer space and cyberspace.

One potential star performer, Telco Communications Group Inc., a discount long-distance company in Chantilly, last week canceled its presentation because the company had agreed to merge with Excel Communications Inc. of Dallas.

Giants such as Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda drew less attention from investors than smaller start-up companies such as CyberCash Inc. of Dulles, which has annual revenue of less than $1 million but remains the leading company in its industry.

CyberCash follows a pattern of many of the firms, which have invested millions of dollars in research before selling their first product. CyberCash, for example, has developed "CyberCash registers" for companies doing business on the Internet that can ring up sales with credit cards, bank transfers or forms of electronic money still being invented.

CyberCash plans to make money by charging a few cents to process each transaction and, like Netscape Communications Corp., gives away its software to build business. CyberCash's chief financial officer, James Condon, said company Chairman William Melton "likes to say that the second cash register you give away is free, but the first one costs you $60 million to build."

Entrepreneurs are willing to take the risk of investing so much money in new technology because of the enormous returns that are possible.

Jeong Kim of Yurie Systems said his firm spent two years researching technology before trying to build its first product for linking telephone data and video networks. He said his company has little competition because no one else can give customers the same results.

"If you are a substantial technology innovator, you can essentially quote a price" and customers will pay whatever you ask for your product, he said.

But Kim stressed that technology alone will not produce long-term success.

"Technology gets you into the game but I don't think it will make you a big name," he said.