Roanoke-Blacksburg Innovation Network’s crowd-funding campaign to
promote the region’s technology scene hit its goal on Friday morning,
three days before the final deadline.
The $100,000 it raised from 52 contributors will be used to fund a new chapter in RBIN’s efforts to create an innovation ecosystem. It will be coupled with money raised through more traditional efforts to begin hosting more events and hire an executive director sometime next month.
Had the campaign not hit its goal, all the donations up to that point would have been refunded. It has passed that threshold, but can still keep going. As of Friday afternoon, it had raised $100,140.
The idea behind RBIN was born on a dinner napkin at a Blacksburg restaurant in 2010. With a world-class research institution, dense population of college students, an engaged business community and new startup ideas sprouting every day, the region had all the ingredients for an innovation-driven economy. But local business leaders didn’t understand why it wasn’t doing more with what it had.
Since then, the private sector and government officials have come together to form a structured road map for how to direct the Roanoke-Blacksburg region to the main stage of the technology scene.
So far most of the work has been on building the “infrastructure” for the ecosystem. The group worked on building community support and created an “Innovation Blueprint” in 2012.
Now, leaders behind the effort say they’re ready to begin the next chapter. Planning is over; they’re ready to deliver with the money they have raised from the community.
“We do have world-class assets,” Eddie Amos, chief technology officer for the Roanoke-based tech company Meridium, has said. “When I graduated from VPI a long time ago, [the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center] was 1,000 acres, a lot of cows and a fraternity house. Now it’s 20-something buildings, 250 companies. It’s a world-renowned research center. That’s the type of thing that is going on right now.
“‘Wow.’ That’s all you can say when you step back and think about what it is today and all the possibilities looks like tomorrow.”
The $100,000 it raised from 52 contributors will be used to fund a new chapter in RBIN’s efforts to create an innovation ecosystem. It will be coupled with money raised through more traditional efforts to begin hosting more events and hire an executive director sometime next month.
Had the campaign not hit its goal, all the donations up to that point would have been refunded. It has passed that threshold, but can still keep going. As of Friday afternoon, it had raised $100,140.
The idea behind RBIN was born on a dinner napkin at a Blacksburg restaurant in 2010. With a world-class research institution, dense population of college students, an engaged business community and new startup ideas sprouting every day, the region had all the ingredients for an innovation-driven economy. But local business leaders didn’t understand why it wasn’t doing more with what it had.
Since then, the private sector and government officials have come together to form a structured road map for how to direct the Roanoke-Blacksburg region to the main stage of the technology scene.
So far most of the work has been on building the “infrastructure” for the ecosystem. The group worked on building community support and created an “Innovation Blueprint” in 2012.
Now, leaders behind the effort say they’re ready to begin the next chapter. Planning is over; they’re ready to deliver with the money they have raised from the community.
“We do have world-class assets,” Eddie Amos, chief technology officer for the Roanoke-based tech company Meridium, has said. “When I graduated from VPI a long time ago, [the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center] was 1,000 acres, a lot of cows and a fraternity house. Now it’s 20-something buildings, 250 companies. It’s a world-renowned research center. That’s the type of thing that is going on right now.
“‘Wow.’ That’s all you can say when you step back and think about what it is today and all the possibilities looks like tomorrow.”
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