Lisa Sedlak Portfolio

Imagine leaving the chaos of the office by heading downtown to work remotely on Henderson Lawn, or holding an important online meeting with a client while sitting on a bench at Market Square Park. This will soon be possible due to a partnership between the Town of Blacksburg, local technology firm TechPad, and a number of generous donors.

Bob Summers, Founder and Director of TechPad launched a campaign in the spring to raise money for a One Gigabyte project which would bring internet speeds 100 times faster than anything available in this region and free public wifi to downtown Blacksburg. The initial coverage area would be Main Street from Henderson Lawn to Clay Street and two blocks to the east and west.

$85,000 was needed for startup costs and one year of service. In just one month, $92,400 was donated from all over the country, but most came from the Blacksburg community. Working with partners the Town of Blacksburg, Modea, VPT, G3 Systems, Montgomery County, The Hill Companies, Cisco Systems and NewCity Media, the project will be funded for the next few years. The network will be supported long term by new funding sources which include corporate users of the network. “Right now it’s a pilot network and as it matures transformational pricing for downtown businesses will be established,” said Summers. 

Summers has also received funding from US Ignite, a White House initiative which aims to realize the potential of fast, open, next-generation networks by facilitating a national high-speed broadband test bed for development and deployment of ultra-fast broadband applications. Blacksburg’s participation in the US Ignite initiative is being led by Blacksburg Town Manager Marc Vernie! and Scott Midkiff, Vice President of Information Technology at Virginia Tech, with support and interest from Blacksburg’s community of IT entrepreneurs and start-ups.

“‘This project will help fuel the economy in Blacksburg.” said Summers. The availability of super high speeds will improve workflow for downtown employees by allowing faster uploads, downloads, credit card transactions and more. ‘This means employees are more productive since they are spending more time working and less time waiting.

Festival vendors at events like Steppin’ Out will even have the ability to do credit card transactions more efficiently. At this past Steppin’ Out, the wifi network was beta tested. and over 400 people connected seamlessly.

Free downtown wireless will be available to the public by the end of October.

For more information on the One Gig project, visit TechPad at http://www.techpad.org.