The Innovators

CodeVA

History

When CodeVA began in 2013, access to computers and computer education for teachers and students was virtually nonexistent through public education across the commonwealth. CodeVA Executive Director Chris Dovi and his fellow co-founders sought to change that.

A year earlier, Dovi had learned about the lack of computer science education in Richmond Public Schools when writing an article about the Thomas Jefferson High School robotics team for this magazine.

“I was inspired by one student [11th grader James Kearney II], who taught himself to code and was the only one on the team who could code,” Dovi recalls. There were no other known computer programming students in RPS.

The team’s members were among the relatively few African American students across the state with the skills to participate in a robotics competition. Dovi’s wife, Rebecca, was a computer science teacher in Hanover County, and until writing the article, Dovi had believed that all students received computer science education. Dovi joined forces with Rebecca, who is now CodeVA’s director of programs, and Maggie Smith, CodeVA’s director of children’s programs, to help address this disparity.

Today, the nonprofit CodeVA is a pioneer and industry leader in computer education. Demand for qualified professionals in the field was and continues to be high, with minorities and women still representing only a small percentage of workers at all levels. “The pathway we’ve taken is serving as a model for other states,” Dovi says. The Maryland Center for Computing Education built a similar program that is administered through a state agency.

What They Do

As advocates, Dovi and his team work with policymakers to help them understand why computer science education is important, and they help draft legislation to increase accessibility. CodeVA also develops initiatives to make computer science fun and relate it to other subjects to help students gain skills as they learn their core subjects. They develop training programs for teachers and support administrators of public school systems — partially state-funded, the training is free and offered to all school systems across Virginia, with 97% participating. Recently, CodeVA has started researching all aspects of computer science education.  

Projects

In 2016, Virginia became the first state in the country to have mandatory computer science standards of learning for grades K-8, and those standards are integrated into the curriculum through core subjects.

In addition to this achievement, Dovi points to the growth of computer science education in the last seven years as the most significant impact of CodeVA so far: “We have grown to 50 faculty members across the state who are 100% committed to providing training to other classroom teachers, we have dozens of camp counselors, and the programs we offer are really innovative.”

On the Horizon

This year, CodeVA received two National Science Foundation grants. DRK12 is a four-year, $2.99 million grant to support educating students in computer science through the subjects of history and civics. CS4All, a four-year, $1 million grant, will provide training and ongoing support for high school teachers, instructional materials for teachers of kindergarten through 8th grade, and resources for schools and districts.   

A three-year, $3.9 million grant last year from the Amazon Future Engineer program is providing basic funding for CodeVA to expand its capacity to offer programs to economically disadvantaged school divisions such as RPS.

—Holly Rodriguez

VCU da Vinci Center for Innovation

History

The da Vinci Center for Innovation at VCU pulls together students from unlikely disciplines to innovate new products, an idea that was novel at its inception.

“Sometime around 2007, arts, engineering and business decided that they would collaborate in offering a new undergraduate program in product innovation,”  says Garret Westlake, now in his fifth year as executive director of the da Vinci Center, located at 807 S. Cathedral Place on the VCU campus.

It was a hands-on, real-life, cross-disciplinary enterprise that preceded what has become VCU’s omnipresent tagline, “Make It Real.”

Since then, students from the College of Humanities and Sciences have been brought into the mix, and the center has added a master’s program in product innovation, the first of its kind in the country when it opened in 2012.

The da Vinci Center currently enrolls more than 300 students, a tiny sliver of VCU’s overall enrollment of about 30,000.

What They Do

The da Vinci Center is, of course, named for Leonardo da Vinci, a Renaissance-era polymath who excelled in painting and inventing — he envisioned a flying machine, a way to concentrate solar power and more — and he was unrivaled at the time in his understanding of anatomy. He made himself a conduit for advancing humanity, an idea that has taken seed in many of the projects that have moved from the da Vinci Center’s research labs and workbenches into the mainstream.

Projects

One of the breakthrough projects at the da Vinci Center came in 2009, when a student team developed a prototype of a $500 operating table for developing countries that took top honors in the category of “Greatest Potential for Patient Benefit” at the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology Congress in Boston.

“We did recent projects with Capital One, Hamilton Beach and Pfizer, but I can’t talk about them,” Westlake says, citing nondisclosure agreements da Vinci signs with its industry partners. He adds that the da Vinci Center has done 15 projects alone for the consumer products division of Pfizer, one of the world’s premier biopharmaceutical companies.

“Some of the students’ projects have made their way to the shelves. So if you’ve walked into CVS, you actually bought something that was designed by a da Vinci student. I just can’t tell you what it is,” Westlake says with a smile.

One group of engineering students created a research and development medical device startup company — Kilo Medical Solutions — that grew out of a capstone project in the School of Engineering and then moved to the da Vinci Center. Their project led to a system that enables medical personnel to control light stimuli to improve the health outcomes of premature infants.

On the Horizon

While the da Vinci Center may never be able to divulge all of the products its students create, Richmond-area residents and tourists will soon have a chance to see — and purchase — some of them with the opening of what is now being referred to as the VCU Student Storefront at Ryland and Broad streets.       

Westlake says the Storefront, which could open as early as the fall of 2021, “will give students the ability to sell their products directly to the public, and this will be the first of its kind in the country. This is going to be a transformational facility.”

—Gary Robertson

The Commonwealth Times

History

For the past 51 years, the Commonwealth Times has been distributed across Virginia Commonwealth University’s campus every Wednesday. The student-run paper prints 2,500 copies a week, posts regular Twitter updates and is also available online at commonwealthtimes.org. After racking up a number of past awards from the Virginia Press Association (VPA), the paper won its first VPA sweepstakes award for its work in 2019,  beating out professional publications of a similar size.

“The paper is a huge positive for VCU journalism students,” says Andrew Ringle, executive editor and a VCU senior majoring in mass communications. “If you’re studying journalism and want to get into the field, it’s hard to get those jobs just by taking classes. But if you’re working for a paper that’s winning VPA Awards, that’s really valuable.”

What They Do

It’s rare that a student newspaper can compete with local professionals when it comes to covering big stories, but the Commonwealth Times has had boots on the ground ever since racial justice protests began in Richmond on May 29.

“Like everybody, we were caught off guard the first night, but we had a reporter downtown anyway,” Ringle recounts. “That was the night the Pulse bus caught fire, and windows were smashed everywhere. The next day, I went out and took pictures of the aftermath. I was shocked by what I saw. I knew from that moment that we had to be out there.”

Ringle and the 10 other members of the newspaper’s staff committed to appearing at every protest throughout the summer, arriving beforehand and leaving as late as 4 a.m. While on the scene, team members would make regular posts on Twitter, providing a real-time look at what was going on. “It was very intense, and we learned a lot,” he says. “We were out there right in front of the police, in the midst of moving marches.

“I’ve been pepper-sprayed, I’ve been put into handcuffs. All of us have been exposed to chemical agents while reporting. That can make it difficult to keep going out there, but we want to show exactly what the police are doing, and how the protesters are acting beforehand.”

On the Horizon

Like most public universities across the United States, VCU has made many adjustments to open its doors during the pandemic. “Recently, the biggest chunk of our print production has been dedicated to how VCU students are interacting in a COVID-19 world,” says Hannah Eason, managing editor and a VCU senior with a major in broadcast journalism. “And of course, there are still protests going on. We were out until 4 a.m. on Wednesday just this week.” That protest, held Sept. 23, followed the decision of a Louisville, Kentucky, grand jury not to pursue homicide charges against police officers responsible for the killing of Breonna Taylor.

The next big story? The 2020 election. “We do a big election night issue every year, and that’s something that’s going to be a lot of work,” Eason says, “but I can’t wait to nerd out and stay up late working on it this year.”

—D. Hunter Reardon

UR’s Digital Scholarship Lab

History

The University of Richmond Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL) came into existence in 2007, when Edward L. Ayers became president of the University of Richmond. A Civil War scholar with a long-standing interest in digital scholarship and research accessibility, Ayers envisioned a center that would use mapping and computation to investigate and illuminate history, says DSL Director Robert Nelson, who began working for the center as an associate director in 2008 and became director in 2009.

What They Do

“We have tried to experiment with the computer as a tool, [applying it to] a lot of data, asking, what can you do, what can you discover?” Nelson says. “We are looking for obscure information, patterns that are hard to find without computational tools. We want to explore how we can use computation for humanistic and historical ends, [then] release projects that are engaging and accessible to as many people as we can manage.”

Using maps, web development and — occasionally — trigonometry, three DSL staff members, student workers and collaborating academics from other institutions tackle historical topics and present their findings visually and interactively online at dsl.richmond.edu, not on paper.

“We don’t want to be contributing to attenuating attention spans, but we have to recognize the way people are looking for information and understanding information is changing,” Nelson says. “There are new ways of conveying information.”

Projects

With a three-year, $750,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the DSL undertook the creation of “American Panorama: An Atlas of United States History.” The individual “chapters” of “American Panorama” are as varied as the nation’s past: “Canals: 1820-1890” focuses on the development of shipping canals that linked the Atlantic shipping centers to markets west of the Appalachian Mountains; “Renewing Inequality” shows the effects of “urban renewal” projects of the 1950s and ’60s; and “Electing the House” shows the shape, size and winner of each district in the U.S. House of Representatives, from before the Civil War until today. One chapter in particular has received nationwide attention: “Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America.”

Using maps and surveys created in the 1930s by the federal government’s Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, “Mapping Inequality” lets people explore how neighborhoods across the country were assigned grades from “A” to “D,” ranging from “desirable” to “hazardous.” D neighborhoods — colored red on the maps, leading to the term “redlined” — often were so classified because of the “infiltration of inharmonious racial groups,” particularly Black Americans but also Jews and immigrants. Redlining blocked many people of color from mortgage financing and prevented them from becoming homeowners.

“The redlining map is our most accessed and most visible project,” Nelson says, “but this was no act of creative genius. These maps invite you to do what we did with them.”

On the Horizon

Nelson says there is “no end in sight” for “American Panorama.” The first “American Panorama” chapter, “Voting America,” which shows how states voted in U.S. presidential elections from 1840 to 2008, is being updated to include recent elections. A map of homesteads from 1862 to the early 1900s will show how westward movement displaced Native Americans. And “Mapping Inequality,” Nelson says, is “a never-ending juggernaut.”

“We made that project, and I was really proud of it,” he says. “And we gave away the data, and it’s been so gratifying to see people in other fields use our work.”

—Paula Peters Chambers

Hatch RVA

History

Hatch RVA has demanded the attention of the local food and beverage industry since opening in January 2019. Along with Lynx Ventures, founders Austin Green, former co-owner of Texas Beach Bloody Mary Mix, and Brad Cummings, co-founder of Startup Virginia, reflected on their own experiences with budding businesses to craft an incubator and 9,000-square-foot commissary kitchen at 2601 Maury St. Their mantra: Help businesses grow faster and smarter.

What They Do

Hatch RVA provides a network of resources and a one-stop shop for a growing community of the region’s most ambitious culinary entrepreneurs. Located at Clopton Siteworks, Hatch currently has more than 50 members. Its massive commissary kitchen hosts businesses from Joyebells Sweet Potato Pies to flagship member Nightingale Ice Cream Sandwiches, which since joining has started to distribute its products nationally. Other members include food trucks, bakers, candy makers, health food businesses, online meal services, meat purveyors and more. Part of Hatch’s appeal is 24/7 access to kitchen equipment.

“There’s just a lot of demand, a lot of talent and an appetite for these kinds of products here in Richmond and the region, and we’re just filling that niche that hasn’t been there before,” Green says of Hatch’s growth.

Projects

A couple of months ago, Hatch introduced a namesake cafe inside its main building that highlights members such as Cobra Burger, which now has a twice weekly standing engagement at the eatery.

When the pandemic started, Hatch Kitchen launched “Hatch Helps,” an initiative to distribute healthy meals to neighbors in need. At the cafe, diners can find “$10 soup,” a large portion of house-made soup, with each sale providing two meals for those in need.

From the beginning, packaging and e-commerce were on the agenda, and in September, Hatch Packaging made its debut. Featuring a 150-gallon kettle, it allows for the bottling, capping, dating and labeling of products such as bloody mary mix or hot sauces on site in a streamlined process.

Another recent addition is an almost 2,500-square-foot butchery led by Warren Haskell, director of operations for packaging and butchery and a 20-plus-year veteran of the food industry. Inside, a full prep line, convection oven, steamer and USDA-approved smoker present a playground of untapped potential. Meat products can be USDA approved on site and distributed for wholesale. Haskell says he sees the potential for restaurants to use the facility to make their own custom sausage, or for farmers to process animals for sale to stores. “We find a gap in the industry where it’s hard for someone to go from being really small to midsize or larger and filling in those holes,” he says.

On the Horizon

Stay tuned for Hatch Logistics, a facility dedicated to storing finished food and beverage products pre-delivery. Green says it’s about listening to what people need and building upon that.

“Hatch Logistics has literally grown out of a need that has been created by other Hatch entities,” he says, noting that it will accommodate the needs of companies they’re already working with and also serve as a resource for others in the region. Peering into the Hatch Kitchen crystal ball, Green says, “I am relatively confident that we are working on a concept that would tie in regional agriculture and processing.”

—Eileen Mellon

Studio Two Three 

History

Founded in 2009 by four VCU printmaking graduates, the nonprofit Studio Two Three is all about sharing: rent, workspace, equipment, techniques and ideas. Executive Director Ashley Hawkins is the only co-founder still directly involved, but she remains friends with the other initiators.

“We realized we were out of school and we didn’t have anywhere to work,” she says. “We toured print shops around the country and dreamed up this little scrappy, DIY, punk rock ethos, tiny place as a way to be able to keep working in printmaking.”

What They Do

More than 100 artists are paying members who are given a key and 24/7 access to the studio’s presses, darkroom, digital lab, communal tools and materials, and workspace.

“It just made sense that people might need to come in very early in the morning or late after a [restaurant] shift,” Hawkins says. “Now it’s essential to the nature of the space. We have a huge culture of trust. Folks really feel proud of being a part of the community and want to preserve it.”

Additional revenue is generated (though not during the pandemic) by renting the space for weddings, corporate meetings and special events.

Projects

Founded with a belief in the power of the press as a tool for civic engagement, artists’ work includes both the personal and the public, says Development Director Kate Fowler.

“We see the very act of making art as being political,” she says, pointing to a partnership with Performing Statistics, a summer program in which incarcerated youth create media campaigns advocating for changes to the juvenile justice system. Other collaborations include Richmond Public Schools and Milk River Arts, a studio program for neurodiverse artists.

Studio Two Three first offered artist residencies in 2018 to reach creatives who weren’t traditionally printmakers. This summer, “micro” residencies resulted in an exhibition at VCU’s Institute for Contemporary Art, “For as Long as Such Images Are Needed.”

“We saw artists making work that was responsive to this moment, and that people really were looking to art to both get information and see imagery that was uplifting and inspiring at a time that was deeply scary,” Fowler says.

Also this summer, studio artists, interns and volunteers made 10,000 face masks over 13 weeks. “It felt incredibly meaningful to be able to give people a space to come and do something that gave back and that literally gave them something to do at such a scary time,” Hawkins says. “It really paved the way for us to be able to open back up to our members and be able to offer safely distant classes.”

On the Horizon

The studio’s mobile print truck, acquired via a grant in 2017, isn’t making its regular stops at schools and festivals, but it is being used for Community Print Days, usually announced via Instagram “according to the whims of nature” and staff availability, Fowler says. “This is a way for us to hop to different parts of the city and make our presence known,” she says.

With a group of artists and historians calling themselves History Is Illuminating, the studio helped to create signs dedicated to Richmond’s Black history. Initially installed along Monument Avenue, the signs were removed, but they are now being considered by the city for permanent placement.

Hawkins and Fowler are also looking forward to this year’s annual holiday market. “Our artists are creating work not only to tell their stories but to build their livelihoods,” Fowler says.

—Paula Peters Chambers

Lighthouse Labs

History

Todd Nuckols wishes Lighthouse Labs, a nonprofit seed-stage accelerator for small businesses, had existed when he was creating his own business, ZuaScene.

“Trying to start my own high-growth company in ’06, ’07 was challenging, and I thought it could have been better,” he says. Taking matters into his own hands, he started Lighthouse Labs in 2012 to help other businesses get off the ground.

Even though he has stepped down as the organization’s director, he is still on the board and continues to serve as a mentor to founders who are in or who have passed through the program.

What They Do

Lighthouse Labs offers a 13-week program twice a year to six to 10 companies at a time. These businesses receive mentoring and extensive programming and education in all things startup, from keynote speakers and hands-on workshops to financial modeling, valuation model creation and reviews of core legal documents. They also work with students at the VCU Brand Center to produce marketing materials.

Each startup receives $20,000 in funding that they do not have to pay back. “We are an equity-free accelerator,” says Ali Greenberg, Lighthouse Labs outreach manager. “So we give them money, no strings attached.” The money comes from government grants and corporate sponsors. “We are focused on creating a community of founders and not a portfolio of companies,” Greenberg says. “We aren’t worried about the investment return. We are just worried about really serving their needs.”

Founders meet weekly to share what they have learned and meet one on one with Lighthouse Labs Executive Director Erin Powell, who came on board in April. “Entrepreneurship can be really daunting,” Powell says. “There’s risk and a lot of uncertainty.”     

Projects

BookClubz founder Nancy Brown is a member of the fall 2020 cohort, and says she has absorbed many useful lessons for building her business and increasing revenue for the book club management app.

Previous projects Lighthouse Labs has funded include: Tenant Turner, a web-based software company for property managers; KYNDI, which provides mapping technology to government agencies and commercial companies; Brandefy, which helps beauty enthusiasts find the best beauty products; EdConnective, which connects teachers with coaching from master educators; Kamana, a health-care credential and staffing workflow management system; Terravive, which creates single-use compostable products; and Goodfynd, which helps pop-up retail and mobile vendors connect with existing and new customers virtually.

To date, Lighthouse Labs has accelerated 63 startups, offering more than 3,000 hours of mentorship and investing over $1 million in equity-free funding. More than 50% of the startups it has helped have founders from underrepresented communities.  

On the Horizon

Applications for the next Lighthouse Labs cohort are open until the first week of January 2021. All startup founders with validated high-growth-potential ideas (i.e., not just ideas written on the back of a napkin) are welcome to apply. Founders can be located anywhere in the U.S. The application process consists of a written application of about 20 questions followed by finalist interviews.

Executive Director Powell brings varied experiences, from college recruitment company Royall & Co. to Snagajob and Ginger Juice (which she founded), and she revels in her role as a connector who helps founders build their dreams. “It’s a whole safety net of people who have been in founders’ shoes,” she says.

—Dina Weinstein

Center for Innovative Technology

History

In the mid-1980s, Virginia Gov. Chuck Robb helped secure initial funding to create the Center for Innovative Technology (CIT). The vision for this commonwealth-sponsored nonprofit was that it would provide startup capital and support programs for entrepreneurs in high-growth technology companies to launch and create high-paying jobs for Virginians in the future.

In 2019, CIT moved its headquarters from Herndon to Richmond to provide a central location that would serve rapidly growing entrepreneurial ecosystems throughout the state.

What They Do

“CIT is focused on the growth of innovation and entrepreneurship in all sectors of Virginia, or all regions,” says Bob Stolle, president and CEO of CIT. “We have a variety of programs that provide direct investment into early-stage companies and seed-stage investment for equity positions in early-stage startups.”

Two such programs include the Growth Accelerator Program (GAP) and the Virginia Founders Fund.

The GAP Fund investment team vets companies to determine their viability. Stolle says the team sees approximately 400 companies each year and currently invests $100,000 to $200,0000 each in 30 to 35 of those high-tech, high-growth companies. Over 15 years, CIT has invested nearly $35 million and over a billion dollars in follow-up money, leading to the creation of 6,000 high-tech jobs.

The Virginia Founders Fund is an equity-based fund targeting minority, women, veteran and rural founders, with the aim of increasing early-stage venture capital in Virginia that is invested in companies meeting any one of these criteria.

Since CIT was developed by the commonwealth of Virginia, much of its funding comes from the state. Other funding is provided by federal grants, foundations and the new Innovative Partnership Authority, which guides state investment in research of innovative technologies. “We also have proceeds associated with the investments we make in those companies,” Stolle says.

Projects

Recent beneficiaries of GAP funding include EdConnective, a Richmond-based virtual coaching platform that aims to ensure student success through transformative, AI-driven teacher training, and Divvy Cloud, an Arlington-based cybersecurity firm for hybrid cloud environments.

While CIT is focused on developing the high-tech sector, other areas receiving support include life sciences, biotech and medical products, pharmaceuticals, clean energy, and data analytics. “Virginia is one of the leaders in the nation for data analytics, so we want to encourage the growth of data analytic companies and new startups,” Stolle says.

On the Horizon

One sector that’s driving the future for CIT is smart communities, which bridge connectivity and lifestyle.

“It’s all about 5G; it’s all about internet and how communities need to be built to meet the demands and expectations that people have these days,” Stolle says. “We’ve got a pilot project going on with Stafford. They’re going to have one of the first 5G-activated areas in the country.”

Another lifestyle-driven technology is unmanned systems. Currently, CIT is working with Wing, a Google spinoff that will use drones to deliver packages.

“This is the first in the country — the first anywhere,” Stolle explains. “People down in Christiansburg can order something from Walgreens … and unmanned system drones go to Walgreens, pick up the product and deliver it to the homes.”

In September, Gov. Ralph Northam broke ground with Huntington Ingalls to build a manufacturing facility for undersea drones in Hampton. Stolle cites Northam and Secretary of Commerce and Trade Brian Ball as strong partners: “They have been such great advocates for innovation in Virginia and for CIT.”  

—Chris Jones