Virginia Economic Review

Peter Beard is vice president of policy and programs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, where he leads workforce development projects and initiatives.

When Lydia Ruffin began work as a restaurant server, her goal was to support herself through school. She could not have anticipated how profoundly that entry-level job would shape her career.

Key investments at Virginia Tech, George Mason, University of Virginia help the Commonwealth position itself as a home for AI Innovation

Home to one of the largest concentrations of active duty and veteran talent in the country, Virginia has engineered an ecosystem that helps those who served translate military experience into high-value private sector careers.

New or expanding companies want to know that they will be able to hire workers with the skills they need. While outside training providers offer established but generic faculty, facilities, and programs, in-house solutions allow for customization but require significant investment.

As more tenured employees must upskill and reskill to adjust to an economy that is increasingly reliant on technology and, specifically, artificial intelligence (AI), Generation Z workers are entering the labor market as the first generation of digital natives.

L. Scott Bradshaw enrolled at Mountain Empire Community College (MECC) in Wise County as a student who needed a second chance after spending 57 months in prison. He had a job in a tire shop, but he wasn’t earning enough to pay off his fines and take care of his daily needs.

Alison Lands is vice president of employer and workforce solutions at Jobs for the Future (JFF), a national nonprofit that works to align the education and workforce systems to improve access to quality jobs for over 75 million American workers.

Tamara Fields is the national U.S. public service industry lead at Accenture, and managing director of the company’s Austin, Texas office.

Virginia’s long-held reputation as a top state for business is based on its strong economy, robust infrastructure, innovative incentives and programming, and, increasingly, its highly skilled workforce.

When Julia Boas and her husband, Patrick, have an errand to run or a friend to visit in their hometown of Roanoke, they rarely go by car. Instead, they hop on their e-bikes.

When executives at Traditional Medicinals decided to build an East Coast manufacturing and processing operation, they cast a wide net.

The field of cybersecurity is as old as the computer, but it’s only in the past decade that it went from being a periphery issue to a cornerstone of government budgets and one of the fastest-growing career fields.

The Innovative Virginia Cyber Range is Giving Students in Virginia — and Beyond — a Chance to Hone Their Cybersecurity Skills Between 2010 and 2014, the U.S.

Virginia is a national leader in the cybersecurity and technology industries, offering tech firms access to the highest concentration of tech talent and the third-largest tech industry workforce in the country.

Steve Morgan is the founder of Cybersecurity Ventures, a leading cybersecurity research company that provides data and insights on global cybercrime to C-suite executives, and editor-in-chief of Cybercrime Magazine. Before starting the company, he worked for antivirus giant McAfee Corp.

Virginia Universities' Transdisciplinary Research is Driving Digital Security Advancements The world’s increasing connectivity offers more opportunity for cybercriminals. The FBI’s 2020 Internet Crime Report cited a 69% increase in complaints of suspected cybercrimes.

Luiz DaSilva is executive director of the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) and Bradley Professor in Cybersecurity at Virginia Tech. Before coming to Virginia, he served as the director of CONNECT, a telecommunications research center at Trinity College Dublin.