The Top Grant -- Counties

Counties

Each county provides the following resources to support this project:

Technology Leadership Teams

In each county, Extension agents worked with local leaders to identify, recruit and train candidates for a Technology Leadership Team. Each team has ten or more citizens who have a strong interest and commitment to the effort and willingness to contribute time and energy to provide leadership and direction. They were selected based on three criteria:

they had a personal commitment to using technology to improve the community;
they were willing to participate actively in both training and ongoing citizen team activities;
they represented a cross section of communities within the county.

Significant attempts were made to include representatives from local governments, business and agribusiness, industry, public education, the faith community, civic organizations, seniors and youth.

The Technology Leadership Teams meet monthly during the duration of this project. The role of the Technology Leadership Team is to advise and coordinate local program planning and to communicate and advocate the process to all segments of the community. The teams work with project staff and Virginia Tech faculty to perform an assessment of current technology in the community. Additionally, when appropriate, team members serve as facilitators in community workshops and forums to enhance the understanding of the general public on the potential of technology. The Technology Leadership Team also works with project staff to identify and secure the resources necessary to fulfill and sustain the strategies of the local plan. The Technology Leadership teams will remain in place after the end of TOP funding and will be committed to continuing to provide technology leadership in the county.

Extension Leadership Councils

The Extension program in each of the targeted counties has an existing citizen stakeholder group known as the Extension Leadership Council (ELC). The ELCs are composed of as many as 20 members, who are responsible for coordinating and marketing all local Extension programs. The Extension Leadership Council will assist the Technology Leadership Team in its program planning and will also serve in an advocacy role for the project.

County progress

Tasks should be completed in this relative order.

Click on a county to see reports of their progress.

Preparation

	Accomack	Craig	Cumberland	Dickenson	King & Queen	Louisa	Northampton
Extension Agent training	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Obtain support from county leaders	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Technology Team Recruiting	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Technology Teams formed	X	X	X	X	X	X	X

Assessment

	Accomack	Craig	Cumberland	Dickenson	King & Queen	Louisa	Northampton
Technology Team training	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Take Charge Meeting 1	X	X*	X	X*	X	X*	X
Take Charge Meeting 2	X	X*	X	X*	X	X*	X
Take Charge Meeting 3	X	X*	X	X*	X	X*	X
Community Readiness Workshops	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Technology Assessments	X	X	X	X	X	X	X

Implementation

	Accomack	Craig	Cumberland	Dickenson	King & Queen	Louisa	Northampton
Initial web site development meeting	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Transition training	N/A ***	X	X	X	X	X	N/A ***
BEV in a box deployment	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Technology Master Plans

* A county comprehensive plan was used here in place of the Take Charge process.

** Take Charge was completed prior to the beginning of the TOP program.

*** Since Accomack and Northampton County Technology Leadership Teams have adopted the Eastern Shore Virginia Portal as their community network, there wasn't a need for this training in these two counties.