Innovation Campus Town Hall set for April 4

The Innovation Campus delivery team, in partnership with the Student Government Association, will host a Town Hall meeting at 4 p.m. on April 4 in Haymarket Theatre inside Squires Student Center. 

The event will give Virginia Tech students and employees a forum to ask questions, offer ideas, and hear updates about plans for the Innovation Campus in Alexandria and about how the state’s recently approved higher education package will drive growth and investment here in Blacksburg.

The panelists will include these Innovation Campus executive team members:

• Tim Sands, President  
• Cyril Clarke, Executive Vice President and Provost
• Dwayne Pinkney, Senior Vice President for Operations and Administration
• Brandy Salmon, Founding Managing Director, Virginia Tech Innovation Campus

College of Science Dean Sally Morton will moderate the event, which will be livestreamed on the Innovation Campus website and the Virginia Tech homepage.

Plans for the Innovation Campus were announced in November when Virginia emerged as a winner in the nationwide competition to house a second headquarters for Amazon. The commonwealth stepped up with a higher education package that includes support for the new Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria, which will be located a few miles from Amazon’s new location in Arlington.

The $1.1 billion higher education package approved was designed to build a talent pipeline for Virginia to help attract Amazon and solve a critical shortage for the state. This pipeline - specifically for high-tech disciplines – will draw from a deep reservoir in Blacksburg.

Virginia Tech expects to add at least 2,000 more undergraduate students studying computer science, computer engineering, and related disciplines over the next five years. To support these new students and propel research, Virginia Tech will hire up to 140 new faculty members in Blacksburg.

The Innovation Campus will offer leading programs in computer science and software engineering. It is expected to be a global center of technology excellence and talent production, supporting graduate education, attracting top-tier faculty, sparking research and partnerships, and igniting the region’s innovation economy.

Since the November announcement, an executive team has been driving the vision and strategy of the Innovation Campus, and a senior-level delivery team has focused on meeting key milestones while integrating input from across the university and external partners.