COVITS 2007 Registration

Registration is now open for the 9th annual Commonwealth of Virginia Innovative Technology Symposium (COVITS).

Featured sessions include:
The Strategic Plan for IT in action
Breakout sessions on intergovernmental cooperation – federal/state/local
Breakout sessions on the intersection of R&D and IT in Virginia
A special breakfast policy briefing on opportunities for SWaM vendors
Showcase of innovations resulting from the Productivity Investment Fund
Monday evening reception hosted by the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC)

Some speakers have changed, so an updated program is available. Vivek Kundra, now CTO for the District of Columbia, will return to talk about Homeland Security and Interoperability, and to join Mark Warner in a "town hall" style meeting introducing the Broadband Roundtable, which includes Dr. Ted Rappaport, founder of Virginia Tech's Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group (MPRG), one of the world’s first university research and teaching centers dedicated to the wireless communications.

Virginia is for Broadband

The Richmond TimesDispatch recently published two terrific stories on Virginia's Broadband initiatives by Jeffrey Kelley (July 9 and June 14). Om Malik picked this up in his new piece on Virginia's effort to ensure broadband access for all business by 2010.

VA Business CFO of 2007

Virginia Business Magazine recently announced the five category winners of the 2007 CFO of the year. Three central Virginia companies were among the winners, including the Large Private Company category winner, Ted Hanson of Apex Systems, Inc. of Glen Allen. Among the Small Nonprofits, Roy Peters of the Central Virginia Food Bank, is the winner. Douglas E. Blum, of the Capital Region Airport Commission won in the Large Nonprofit category.

In the Small Private Company category, the winner is an architect, Nicholas Vlattas of Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas & Co, an architectural firm based in Norfolk. In the Public Company category, the winner was Victor Sellier of Argon ST of Fairfax.

Purposeful Fellows of Virginia

59 Americans over 60 have been named Purpose PrizeTM Fellows, leaders in a new age of social innovation. All are inventing new ways to solve society's toughest challenges.

Two Virginians are on the list, Dennis Bakke of Imagine Schools in Arlington, and Adele Douglass of Certified Humane in Herndon. Douglass is also a finalist for the $100,000 Prize for 2007.

Last year, three Virginians were similarly honored: Martha Rollins of Boaz and Ruth, Marguerite Kondracke of America's Promise, and Dene Peterson of Elder Spirit.

VA Small Business of 2007

Nominations are open for the 2007 Virginia Small Business of the Year, sponsored by Virginia Business Magazine. Nominations are due by August 31.

Enterprise South Launched

The Southern Growth Policy Board just launched Enterprise South, a new web site designed to encourage, support and document the efforts of the Southern states in building an enterprise economy and workforce. The site currently has some Virginia labor force educational attainment data, and descriptions of a few of the Virginia organizations involved in workforce development.

Biomedical Engineering in Virginia

Virginia Business magazine just published an overview of biomedical engineering programs in Virginia:

Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) started its undergraduate and graduate biomedical engineering programs in 1984. The University of Virginia, which has had a graduate bioengineering program in place since 1967, began an undergraduate program in 2003. Virginia Tech recently teamed up with the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., to establish the School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences (SBES). And George Mason University is in the early stages of planning its undergraduate biomedical engineering program.