By J. Pamela Stills
Special to the AFRO
“The Center of Next–” that was the slogan printed on the back of t-shirts that were worn during the first day of classes for Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria, Va. The campus opened the doors to what is being called “Academic Building One” on Jan. 21, 2025.
The Innovation Campus provides graduate programs in computer science and computer engineering with research areas in artificial intelligence and machine learning, wireless and next gen technology, intelligent interfaces and quantum architecture and software development.
The first cohort of students were welcomed into a state-of-the-art Academic Building One, an 11-story, 300,000 square-foot structure sitting on a 3.5-acre campus in the Potomac Yard neighborhood. Highlights of the campus include 14 classrooms, three instructional studios to support virtual learning, 32 huddle rooms, a 1,340 square-foot cyber physical lab and a 465 square-foot two-story drone testing cage. The official ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for Feb. 28, 2025.
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Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria, Virginia welcomes its first students into a new state-of-the-art educational facility on Tuesday, January 21, 2025. (AFRO Photo/ J. Pamela Stills)
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Faculty and students pose for a group photo in specifically designed t-shirts to celebrate the first day of classes at Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria, Virginia on Tuesday, January 21, 2025. The innovation center is a new state-of-the-art educational facility encompassing 11-stories within 300,000 sq.ft. of space. -
Sydney Johns, is part of the first cohort of students Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria, Virginia welcomed on the first day of classes on Tuesday, January 21, 2025. Sydney, from Baltimore, Maryland, is studying computer science and her research focus is cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence. (AFRO Photo/ J. Pamela Stills)
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Students and faculty gather in the Boeing Auditorium to enjoy pizza provided by the staff during Virginia Tech Innovation Campus’ first day of classes celebration. The auditorium can hold 200 people in a classroom setting and 300 people in an auditorium setting. (AFRO Photo/ J. Pamela Stills)
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Kene Nwodo is part of the first cohort of students Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria, Virginia welcomed on the first day of classes on Tuesday, January 21, 2025. Kene, originally from Lagos Nigeria, is a Ph.D. student in computer engineering. (AFRO Photo/ J. Pamela Stills)
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Virginia Tech Innovation Campus T-Shirts avialable to staff and students to celebrate the first day of classes in the new state-of-the-art educational facility. (AFRO Photo/ J. Pamela Stills)
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(l to r) Justin Dildy, Master of Engineering Student: Kirk Cameron, Professor of Computer Science and Faculty Lead; and Lance Collins, Vice President and Executive Director pose for photo after Collins takes questions from the media. Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria, Virginia welcomes its first student cohort into a new state-of-the-art educational facility on Tuesday, January 21, 2025. (AFRO Photo/ J. Pamela Stills)
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Lance Collins gives a tour of one of the ‘huddle rooms’ available to students at the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria, Virginia. (AFRO Photo/ J. Pamela Stills)
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Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria, Virginia welcomes its first students into a new state-of-the-art educational facility on Tuesday, January 21, 2025. The facility, referred to as Academic Building One, is an 11-story, 300,000 sq.ft. structure sitting on a 3.5-acre campus in the Potomac Yard neighborhood. (AFRO Photo/ J. Pamela Stills)
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Professor Reza Jafari instructs students during a second-level course on Artificial Intelligence on the first day of class at the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria, Virginia on Tuesday, January 21, 2025. (AFRO Photo/ J. Pamela Stills)
Lance Collins is the inaugural vice president and executive director. He holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from Princeton University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
Collins’ accomplishments that landed him the role include similar work done at Cornell University where he significantly grew the number of students and faculty of women and underrepresented minorities and the work done building an elite core of graduate students of engineering and applied sciences who would partner with industry while serving as Dean of Engineering at Cornell Tech.
During the press tour of the facility, Collins spoke about the vision of having a strong tech district by relying on the base of tech companies, such as Amazon HQ, and major defense contractors that are already in the area as well as having conversations with companies such as Microsoft and Amazon HQ2 that are moving into the area.
Collins’ vision of the approach that, as he put it, “bootstraps the area’s ecosystem” is by having students “…working on projects that are sourced from companies locally. So, in some ways, they’re already building relationships with the broader tech ecosystem in the area with the hope that will encourage them to then want to stay to potentially work for the company that sponsored their project or some other company that’s in the area.”
Lance Collins was recognized as one of the top 10 most influential people of 2024 in Northern Virginia by Northern Virginia Magazine. When asked to share his thoughts about being chosen as the first executive director to lead the Innovation Campus, Collins said the task is both “incredibly exhilarating and daunting.”
One of the first things he wanted to address was the culture of the Innovation Campus. His vision was to have a culture of diverse people and thought, who are highly integrated and collaborative.
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