Virginia Tech taps an advisory board to lead its Innovation Campus 

The Virginia Tech Innovation Campus announced an advisory board set to lead its strategic direction and counsel.

The Innovation Campus in development is located in Alexandria and will be part of a 65-acre, mixed-use district planned and developed by Lionstone and real estate investment firm JBG SMITH. The 1 million-square-foot graduate campus is being built over the next 10 years, and while students were slated to take courses at an existing space adjacent to the site, classes are online this semester because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The board includes 10 global business and tech industry leaders from Qualcomm, Northrop Grumman, The Carlyle Group and more.

“This distinguished and diverse group is united by a commitment to help us ​grow the ideas and talent required for economic growth and global leadership,” said Virginia Tech President Tim Sands in a statement. “We are grateful for their service and we expect them to challenge us to set ambitious goals and push us to achieve them.”

Virginia Tech Innovation Campus’ advisor board members are:

• Sanju Bansal, founder and CEO of Hunch Analytics
• Dave Calhoun, president and CEO of Boeing
• Ted Colbert, EVP of Boeing
• Joe DeSimone, professor at Stanford University and executive chairman and cofounder of Carbon
• Lynne Doughtie, former chairman and CEO of KPMG
• Regina Dugan, CEO of Wellcome Leap
• Steve Mollenkopf, CEO of Qualcomm
• Russ Ramsey, board chair of the Greater Washington Partnership
• Kathy Warden, CEO of Northrop Grumman Corporation
• Glenn Youngkin, co-CEO of The Carlyle Group

Bansal will serve as the chair of the advisory board, which has already started work providing their expertise to create better programs and tangible research for the innovation campus. The board will be most focused on providing guidance to make sure the campus operates as an “economic catalyst for the region,” a press release states.

“A central value of the Innovation Campus is developing human-centered research, said Mollenkopf in a statement. “This is a serious need as we begin to contemplate the challenges associated with advanced technologies and their impacts on society and policy.”

Construction of the first academic building at the Innovation Campus will start next year and be open by August 2024. The university is hoping to have up to 750 master’s degree students and hundreds of doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows enrolled at its satellite campus by the time the campus is completely up and running.

This as a 100% rockstar lineup. Can't wait to collaborate with, and be pushed by, this amazing group. @virginia_tech @VTEngineering @VT_CS https://t.co/RmqbEi8O7I

— Cal Ribbens (@CalRibbens_VTCS) September 21, 2020