Through the SET planning process, the desire to create a collaborative regional strategy for small business development was outlined. In 2012, a pilot program was started with United Virginia, a nonprofit with a goal to connect aspiring entrepreneurs with the training, connections, and resources they need to grow successful businesses in Central and Southern Virginia. This initiative has evolved into leveraging of resources to continue a training program for implementation across the region. Through a partnership with VGA, the training coordinator, Cassandra Smith, has transitioned to the Longwood Small Business Development Center.
United Virginia uses Technology to Tap Local (and Not-so-Local) Capital
United Virginia was selected by Capital One Financial Corporation to be a trustee in working together to connect Kiva lenders to entrepreneurs that they know and trust in their communities. With the impending changes in securities trading allowed by the Jobs Act, the rise of crowdsourcing, and an increased emphasis on building local economies, it's no surprise that Virginia's micro-enterprise development organizations are exploring the power of the world wide web to go local.
KivaZip allows for person to person lending. While you can't currently own part of a company, you can as an individual, can go online and provide capital to entrepreneurs who you think are playing an important role in a community.
In South Hill, mortgage broker Bruce used a KivaZip loan to grow his business. Bruce tapped KivaZip after enrolling in United Virginia's entrepreneurship course. United Virginia endorsed his loan application for investment in Southside Mortgage Corporation. In addition to the partnership through a micro-enterprise development organization, an important element of KivaZip is the entrepreneur's story. This is what connects people to the aspirations of the business owner and the community benefits of the business. Here is an excerpt of Bruce's story.
New high-bandwidth sites now established in Washington, DC and Richmond, VA
Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corporation (MBC), a successful wholesale open-access network transport provider, announced today its network expansion in the mid-Atlantic region with connections in Washington and Richmond, Virginia.
MBC has expanded the reach of its advanced open-access transport network with new Points of Presence (POP) locations at the CoreSite data center at 1275 K Street in Washington, DC and the QTS data center at 6000 Technology Boulevard, Richmond, Virginia. These expanded POP locations will enable MBC to provide wholesale transport services to its carrier customers as well as enable additional connectivity options.
MBC has extended their robust Infinera DTN network into these new interconnection facilities. MBC's Infinera network enables rapid provisioning for high bandwidth transport services, and provides low latency transport connections to southern Virginia and MBC interconnection facilities in the Carolina's and Georgia.
RICHMOND - The battle lines were clearly drawn on plans to build the Dominion Virginia Power Brunswick County Power Plant. The State Corporation Commission began hearings on Dominion Virginia Power's application for the project on Wednesday, April 24 and supporters of the project and groups that oppose the project packed the courtroom. The courtroom could not accommodate the crowd so an auxiliary room was used and proceedings were transmitted via video. The SCC is not expected to make a decision on the application until the fall. Supporters of the påroject say that it will create jobs, increase the counties tax revenue, produce new economic development opportunities and provide clean reliable electricity to customers in the state. Opposition to the project centers around the process to remove the natural gas from the earth called fracking and support for more solar and wind facilities.
Earlier County Administrator Charlette Woolridge said if approved by the SCC, Dominion's proposed $1.1 billion Brunswick County Power Station would be built on a 200 acre tract off of U. S. Route 58 about seven miles east of Lawrenceville. At the peak of construction, more than 600 workers will be on site. When completed in 2016 the station would have more than 30 employees. The station would be fueled by natural gas and provide enough electricity for about 325,000 homes. Annual tax payments for the station to the county would be up to $4 million a year.
The Virginia Tourism Corporation has chosen the City of Emporia as one of 16 sites across the state to build and promote a giant LOVEwork. The LOVEwork structures are the focal point of a social media campaign to share the message that love is at the heart of every Virginia vacation. City of Emporia will join 20 other existing LOVEwork sculptures found across the state featured on www.virginia.org/LOVE as part of the Virginia is for Lovers tourism marketing campaign.
Visitors to Emporia will be encouraged to take a picture with the LOVEwork and share on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Photos taken by people from throughout the world can be seen on www.Facebook.com/VirginiaisforLovers and on Twitter by searching #LOVEVA.
"Virginia is for Lovers is about love- pure and simple, and has been for more than 40 years," said Rita McClenny, president and CEO of the Virginia Tourism Corporation. "This program uses the power of social media to promote Virginia as an ideal destination for families looking to completely connect on a Virginia vacation."
Collaborative Effort Attracts Investment and Participation
Representatives of businesses, governments, agencies and local organizations from the six counties and one city of Virginia's Growth Alliance (formerly TransTech) convened to launch a comprehensive regional community development initiative.
Some members of the crowd, which totaled about 100, have been involved with aspects of the effort for more than a year. Others were in for a surprise. In its first year, the newly-formed regional economic development organization has rallied the resources and investment of nearly a dozen agencies and investors, and they have laid out a plan for a systematic economic assessment and the development of regional strategies.
Regional efforts attract coordinated agency support
Beginning in October, a broad-based group will work with economic and community development specialists in a data-rich analysis of the region's assets, industrial mix and strategic opportunities. The Stronger Economies Together (SET) process is new to Virginia, who joins 26 other states in working with select regions in the national program. The Northern Neck also was chosen in the competitive process to undertake the effort. In Virginia, SET is coordinated by USDA Rural Development, in conjunction with the Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE), Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (VDHCD), Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC), Virginia Tech Office of Economic Development, the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) and the Virginia Association of Counties (VACo).
Microsoft has drawn up plans for investing $348 million in expanding its data center footprint. The investment will go into Mecklenburg County, Virginia. Some of the key aspects of this expansion will be the inclusion of all the latest innovations in green IT, expansion of its Azure cloud computing platform, using modular data center designs and better data center energy efficiency too. As far as the local economy is concerned this investment means more jobs. The data center expansion project is coming up because the company has to keep up with growing demands from its customers.
The project will also be a great showcase for the company's policy of bringing together state of the art designs as far as reducing carbon footprint is concerned with increases in server utilization and cloud computing capabilities. Using a modular principle also gives the company the advantage of lowering costs and shortening deployment times.
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