Getting Rural Virginia Connected - a TOP grant funded project

This project, funded by a Technology Opportunities Program (TOP) grant provided by the U.S. Department of Commerce, leverages the use of information technology to improve local economic conditions in several under served communities in Virginia by providing tools and training to their residents and improving their ability to participate in the decision making process within their communities. It was undertaken as a partnership between between community citizens teams, Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) and the Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV).

Participating counties received assistance from project staff in the following areas:

• Recruitment and training of citizen technology leadership teams (TLT)
• Take Charge program (or equivalent consensus building process) to provide issues identification and clarification for county residents
• Development and deployment of community network services that include:
  • Web site for highlighting issues faced by the county
  • Individual, Business, and Community Organization directories
  • On-line community calendar
  • On-line discussion forum
  • Free Web hosting packages for community organizations
  • Free Virtual Business Incubator program for home based and micro businesses
• Planning and facilitation of community workshops
• Technology assessment
• Development of a technology master plan for the county

My role in the TOP project

As the coordinator of this project, my duties included:

• Coordinating efforts with personnel in seven counties to ensure regular meetings of citizen teams
• Ensuring the completion of all required grant activities in each county
• Development and delivery of training to Extension agents and citizen teams on various aspects of community networks and the use of the BEV in a Box Directory System
• Development and design of the BEV in a Box Directory System
• Design and development of community network sites for counties
• Writing of a reference guide for the maintenance and administration of the community network site for each county
• Collecting of all materials produced by each county in the course of this grant period
• Assisting with the writing of final grant reporting documentation

For more information on the TOP project, please refer to the project web site at http://top.bev.net.