WOODBRIDGE -- A $36 million renovation of Northern Virginia Community College's Woodbridge campus is expected to start in fall 2020. The Seefeldt Building will be updated to include centralized student services, new classroom spaces, and updated infrastructure.

The renovation, which will take approximately 18-24 months, will provide badly-needed updates and changes to the nearly 50-year-old building.

This article is FREE to read. Please Sign In or Create a FREE Account. Thank you.

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY — With Silicon Valley thousands of miles away, where can a tech startup go for advice and investment?

One local app developer says it’s a great idea to stay right here and take advantage of the area’s surprisingly supportive tech community.

Natalia Micheletti, the co-founder of the workplace app Engaged, has spent the last year getting her app up and running with fellow co-founder, Tim Hylton. Natalia told Potomac Local that experts in the Greater Prince William region have given them invaluable support and networking opportunities that came as a surprise to her and Tim.

“One of our biggest mistakes was feeling like we had to get out of our Manassas ‘bubble,’” said Micheletti. “We thought we had to go to D.C., Silicon Valley, and New York City to be successful.”

But these big cities, while renowned for their tech support, are inundated with competition, which quickly leads to disinterested investors. “At one meeting in D.C., we stood in line for an hour just to shake hands with a potential investor,” Micheletti recounted. “By the time we got to him, he’d heard hundreds of pitches.”

By contrast, places like CenterFuse, a co-working space in Downtown Manassas, offer a lot of direct attention and resources for tech entrepreneurs. “I can walk up to any of the businesspeople in CenterFuse and introduce myself, and they’ll remember me,” said Micheletti.

“We’ve experienced a much greater sense of community here than in the metropolitan areas,” she continued. “We’ve attended networking events, met mentors, found coworking spaces, and so much more.”

The Gainesville couple’s app, Engaged, is not yet available on the Apple App Store, but is scheduled to roll out in the next three to six months. Its purpose is to “help business owners enhance their productivity and increase sales by limiting and preventing unwanted cellphone use at work,” said Micheletti.

“Our main goal is to put control back into the business owner’s hands,” she added.

Neither Natalia nor Tim had formal tech experience before launching Engaged. They previously owned and managed six locations of Great American Cookies.

“We loved it, but as we continued to grow, we couldn’t be in all of our locations at the same time,” said Micheletti. “One of our biggest problems was employees using their cellphones when they weren’t supposed to be.”

Although they had rules, regulations, and cameras in place, cellphone use still happened on a frequent basis — often enough that Natalia noticed they were losing sales and cookies weren’t being made right.

“We thought we couldn’t be the only ones with this problem,” said Natalia. “There’s got to be a way to fix this. That’s how we created the concept of Engaged.”

If a business owner integrates Engaged in their business, employees would open the app when they start the day, punch into a virtual time clock, and have it going throughout the day. A rewards system is also built into the app — the more that employees use the app, the more rewards they get.

The app was beta-tested at five of Micheletti and Hylton’s bakery locations and sales increased by 22 percent and productivity by 60 percent within the three months they were using it.

Next, they are looking to test the app at businesses in the region.

“We’ve spoken to a lot of business owners here, and this is something many of them are looking to integrate so they can build a better work environment for employees and customers,” Micheletti said.

George Mason University’s Science and Technology Campus at Prince William County’s Innovation Park can do a lot for local tech innovators as well. The University’s Virginia Serious Game Institute (VSGI) is the only institute of its kind on the East Coast and one of only four global affiliated facilities established to support early-entry entrepreneurship into the simulation and game design industry.

Late last year VSGI partnered with CenterFuse to “advance and strengthen business resources… for high-tech startups, game-startups, and small business startups.” In October, they hosted a “Get Serious, Get Startup” open house.

The Institute is also hosting its fourth annual mobile game competition, where students and recent alumni of all Mason schools and colleges can enter to pitch their game apps and receive development help.

Winners of the competition receive $15,000 of paid development time, split among the first place winner ($10,000) and runner-up ($5,000).

In 2018 the winner was Leo’s Lighthouse for an interactive storybook platform for kids aged two to six. Runner-up was The Wizard of Murandabo, a classic point-and-click adventure game for kids aged 10 to 14 years.

The deadline to enter a pitch is April 1.

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY — As Prince William County Public Schools experiences its smallest enrollment increase in recent history, plans for a fifteenth high school and two new middle schools have been nixed from the school division’s Capital Improvements Program.

The Capital Improvements Program (CIP) covers 2019 to 2028, and budgets projects to meet demands driven by enrollment growth and student population shifts.

The fifteenth high school was originally planned for 2027, with a capacity for 2,557 and a projected cost of $165.3 million. The two additional middle schools were planned for 2024 in the West-Linton Hall area and 2026 in an undisclosed area. These will be revisited in a future CIP.

The schools’ removal from the 2019-28 CIP is partly “due to planned additions to existing middle schools,” said Prince William County Public Schools spokeswoman Diana Gulotta. Under the current CIP, 13 classrooms will be added to current elementary schools while 57 classrooms will be added to current middle schools, including Lake Ridge and Stonewall middle schools.

That additional space might be enough to put a dent in the school division’s crowding issue. Over-capacity of students has led to widespread usage of portable classrooms — or trailer classrooms — which has been a source of concern for residents and officials over the years.

Gulotta said that the school division has a “portable classroom reduction plan” in place as well, which is anticipated to reduce the number of trailer classrooms in the future.

These plans dovetail with a dip in student enrollment — the smallest numerical increase in recent recorded history, Gulotta said, dating back to 1990. Between 2017-18 and 2018-19, PWCPS experienced a growth of 0.4 percent or 342 students.

Gulotta noted that these numbers are in keeping with overall residential development for the County, which has slowed down as well.

CIP plans also include two new elementary schools and two auxiliary gyms in Woodbridge Senior and Gar-Field Senior high schools.

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY — A Prince William County firm is leading the way on the cybersecurity battlefield. It’s ammunition — a mastery in sensory artificial intelligence.

Manny Rivera founded RiVidium in 2008 and the company is at the forefront not only cybersecurity but also sensor security, developing secured communications with a deployed series of small sensors.

“If you’re on a battlefield, you will often need to deploy a sensor to detect movement and terrain. Cyber sensors are similar,” Rivera explained. “Once the sensor is away from you, they have to self-actualize and communicate with a network. When you deploy a sensor without knowledge, anyone else could tamper with it and input malicious information, and that’s where we come in. I developed a mechanism that resists that.

Without these protections, closely-guarded military data may become vulnerable to enemy interception.

“The continued exploitation of information networks and the compromise of sensitive data, especially by foreign nations, leave the United States vulnerable to the loss of economic competitiveness and the loss of the military’s technological advantages,” said Rivera.

Threats to cyberspace pose one of the most serious economic and national security challenges of the 21st century for the U.S. and its allies. Rivera’s research while studying for a Masters degree in security and information insurance from George Washington University led him to develop a patent specifically for cybersecurity which protects infrastructure using three specific protocol channels.

With RiVidium’s security, once a sensor is deployed, it can quickly analyze and develop protection for itself. A process called response acknowledgment is also utilized, which provides clarity that the person receiving information is who they say they are, and that the sensor has not been compromised. “Securing communication between the two parties — the sensor and the receiver — is critical,” said Rivera. “The longer you take to do that, the more likely it is that an outside party could have penetrated.”

AI decentralizes, disrupts the workplace

RiVidium also specializes in cloud computing, biometrics, data center consolidation, and service-oriented architecture.

The company values being an “agile enterprise,” which involves the decentralization of processes.

“Not every action has to come to the CEO in a company,” Rivera said. “If you allow decisions to be made locally, instead of passing everything up to higher offices, you avoid ‘bottlenecking.’” Bottlenecking occurs when a series of actions is slowed down by a single component — in this case, a CEO’s approval. Rivera explained that ideally, only critical decisions come to him, and the staff is given the trust and ability to be in control of their particular sectors.

“You have to be able to allow your staff to make mistakes and learn from them. We operate a lot more efficiently because decisions are being made at the right locations,” he said.

This decentralizing method can revolutionize how many companies work and accomplishes tasks quicker and frees up resources faster.

“Artificial intelligence is the next evolution,” Rivera said. “It is going to powerfully disrupt the workplace, and replace a lot of the processes we do now.” He noted that AI will not only change the office place permanently — it is already present and changing everyone’s lives without the majority realizing it.

“AI is already here,” he said. “90 percent of what Google does, and a big percentage of what social media websites like Facebook and Twitter do, involve AI.”

Learning as it goes

In popular culture, AI is usually stereotyped as self-aware robots — often with an ax to grind against their human makers — but Rivera explained that AI is present today in advanced algorithms that are able to learn as they go. They identify patterns and replicate those patterns until they are able to operate without human oversight.

For example, a search engine like Google is able to gather immense data and learn from it, gaining insight into what the masses are currently interested in, how to analyze information, and even drive media and communication. “Any time you get a recommendation due to past searches or your browsing patterns — these are all forms of AI,” said Rivera.

Self-driving cars are another form of AI that is on the horizon, Rivera said. “That involves learning the patterns of streets, even bumps on the road could be collected and used to avoid next time.”

Another crucial tech advancement is social network crowdsourcing, Rivera added. A good example of that is the popular map app, Waze, which gives users up-to-date information on road conditions and even tips like a police officer stationed five miles away.

The ridesharing app Uber also utilizes crowdsourcing techniques to connect the closest drivers to interested customers. These techniques will likely be featured in the more advanced forms of AI coming down the pike.

“Crowdsourcing allows information to be shared instantaneously among huge amounts of people,” he said. “Everyone becomes more aware with that shared knowledge, and that is powerful.”

The company’s offices are located at Linden Lake Plaza near Manassas.

MANASSAS -- A potential solar farm project at Manassas Regional Airport is being put on hold, as staff continues to research options to keep it cost-effective.

The farm would be placed on a portion of property identified as a flood plain, which makes traditional development on it challenging.

This article is FREE to read. Please Sign In or Create a FREE Account. Thank you.

STAFFORD COUNTY — Another winter storm is potentially on its way to cover the region in snow and ice mid-week, and schools in the area are looking to recoup lost days by using holidays and exam days.

“This year has set a precedent,” Thomas Nichols, chief secondary officer for Stafford County Public Schools (SCPS), told Potomac Local. “We usually don’t miss this many days before the end of the semester.”

For the 2018-19 school year, SCPS has already used up eight days for inclement weather closings — six full days and six two-hour delays. They only have ten snow days built into the calendar, which they calculate by breaking the days into hours.

“Historically, we use the majority of our snow days in January, February and March,” said Nichols. As a result, SCPS superintendent Dr. Scott Kizner is “trying to be proactive.”

Nichols said that Kizner made the call to turn three early dismissal exam days in January into full instructional days. Additionally, although this past President’s Day was supposed to be a day off, it was used as a full instructional day.

Through these measures, SCPS has recouped one and a quarter days, leaving them with three and a quarter remaining days before they fall under state requirements.

But as the potential for more lost days due to inclement weather looms, SCPS is looking into the option of turning Memorial Day into an instructional day, as well as using early dismissal exam days in June as full days.

Another option Kizner is considering is adding time to current school days. “We might add five minutes to a typical day to make up for the losses,” Nichols explained.

If all else fails and a school has followed every measure to make up for weather losses, Nichols said the state has a waiver that schools can fill out that will turn two lost days into one, so the pressure to recoup days is lessened.

The Commonwealth of Virginia requires schools to have a minimum of 990 instructional hours, spread out over a minimum of 180 school days each year. Additional hours are typically built in to the calendar to make up for weather closings.

Manassas City Public Schools (MCPS) has lost six days of instruction, but “does not anticipate a need to add days to the school calendar,” Dave Lyon, director of assessment and accountability for MCPS, said. “Typically, there are enough total instructional hours in the school year to meet the state’s requirement of 990 hours without having to add school days to the calendar.”

“Manassas Park City Schools has closed only three days this school year as the result of inclement weather,” Deanne Perez, executive administrative assistant to the superintendent, told Potomac Local. Perez added that sufficient hours are included to allow for weather closures, and they do not foresee the need to discuss extending the school year at this point.

As of February 12, Prince William County Schools (PWCS) has had seven closings, six two-hour delayed openings, and one two-hour early release. They are left with just under ten days’ worth of hours remaining (9.75 days) before they would fall under the state minimum requirement. PWCS has “built in the equivalent of approximately 19 days’ worth of hours above the 990-hour requirement,” according to its website.

Potomac Local has issued a correction: The Stafford County School division will not consider Memorial Day as an instructional snow make-up day. Stafford County Schools spokeswoman Sherrie Johnson contacted Potomac Local on Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2019, to dispute our reporting.

Photo: Stafford County Public Schools Facebook page 

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY — The soon to be former home of the Potomac Nationals could be transformed into a multifunctional community center with shopping outlets, recreational facilities, and housing developments in the near future.

A team of four companies, led by DCS Design, suggested the community development idea in their response to a Request for Information (RFI) from the Prince William County Board of County Supervisors.

The board’s RFI was “intended to gauge potential interest in the redevelopment of the [Pfitzner Stadium] sports complex,” Brent Heavner, communications chief for the county parks and recreation department told Potomac Local.

“The integration of civic functions, recreational uses, upscale retail and workforce, age-restricted and luxury, market-rate housing creates an opportunity to craft a place that is unique in the Washington area,” DCS Design’s response read.

DCS Designs would partner with several development companies on the project, including Toll Brothers for luxury, age-restricted housing; Good Works for affordable workforce housing; and Peterson Companies for retail and commercial development.

“This is an opportunity for Prince William County to create a symbolic center for the County,” DCS Designs concluded in their response.

Other suggestions were offered to the board as well. Safe at Home submitted a multifunctional ballpark concept that could be an activity center and event host. Victus Advisors suggested a multi-use indoor sports complex.

Another organization, Complete Game, envisions “a baseball program that develops local talent into refined athletes” with youth baseball, adult softball leagues and college summer teams by designing an indoor baseball/softball facility at Pfitzner Stadium.

Interested parties were asked to maintain “a balance of local resident use/access, economic impact, market competition, environmental sensitivity, and tourism” in their ideas.

County supervisors noted in the RFI that they are “interested in maintaining a semi-professional baseball club” but are also “equally interested in alternative uses that will have the greatest community impact.”

Soon to be the former home of the Potomac Nationals Minor League Baseball team, County Government Center Park has 65 acres of land. Seven of those acres are taken by Pfitzner Stadium, and another 15 are occupied by three public softball fields and a BMX track.

Last year, the Nationals announced they would be leaving Prince William County and moving to Fredericksburg in 2020.

Sports tourism is a growing part of the county’s market. Athletic events and tournaments have been touted as enhancing the county’s appeal, and officials could continue to tap that interest.

“Staff are considering the responses as they work to develop scenarios for future development and use plans for the complex,” Heavner said. “Ultimately, we will look to the Board of County Supervisors to set the direction for the future of the facility.”

MANASSAS — The city council and school board have reached a temporary funding agreement for the fiscal year of 2020 that includes a 3 percent increase to Manassas City Public Schools.

The budget was decided at an annual city council retreat.

“Three percent may not seem like much, but it is 50 percent more than the increase expected for all of our other government functions,” wrote City Councilman Wolfe in a Facebook post. “The three percent also represents a 14 percent increase in the rate of growth from this year.”’

It was not a unanimous agreement.

The vote was reportedly 4-2, with Ken Elston, Michelle Davis-Younger, and Pamela Sebesky in support with Wolfe. Ian Lovejoy and Theresa Coates-Ellis voted against.

“School board members asked for more money and city council had to weigh school funding with all the other city services and debt services that the city has to provide,” William Patrick Pate, city manager, told Potomac Local.  “They voted to direct me to put a 3 percent increase into the city budget for the local school system, for just the year 2020.”

For the last three years, the budget agreement was a 2.625% increase for 2016 through 2019. But school board members have been asking for more funds, citing a host of issues that need immediate financial addressing, such as teacher salaries, after-school activities, and the ever-growing number of trailer classrooms.

And then there is the need for a new Jennie Dean school, which will cost an estimated $30 million.

“While it is not everything that some of my schools’ friends have asked for, this vote reflects the absolute priority that the council places on Manassas having high-quality public education,” Wolfe wrote, adding that the increased funding could help with maintaining competitive teacher salaries and programs.

Another budget proposal that was brought forward in December included an increased school operating budget of 2.625% as well as an additional .5% specifically dedicated to building the new Jennie Dean school, bringing the total to an increase of 3.1% over the next three years. However, it was rejected.

“You could argue that [this budget] is less” than the one proposed in December, Pate said. However, this agreement “doesn’t stipulate how much money has to be set aside for the new Dean building.” That potentially gives the school board more room to maneuver financially.

This budget’s one-year expiration date means that a 2021 budget will need to be decided as well. Pate surmised that officials would look at that in fall 2019 to reach an agreement.

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY — What should the future of parks and recreation amenities in Prince William County look like? Members of the community will get a chance to answer that in an upcoming forum on January 26.

The forum is just one part of a concerted effort the county has made in hearing what residents want more of in their parks. It is the last planned community forum at this time, so anyone interested is encouraged to come and share their ideas.

“We want to make sure we are making investments where our citizens want them to be,” Brent Heavner, communications chief for the county, told Potomac Local. “We encourage anyone who is interested to join us.”

There will be about 100 electronic response devices in circulation for participants in the forum. General questions will be addressed to the audience and participants can use the devices to indicate agreement or disagreement, and facilitate group discussion.

Consultants will work with participants to determine the appropriate balance of future amenities for Prince William County parks. Playgrounds, sports fields, hiking trails, cyclist trails, green space — all of these are recreational needs that could be made more of a priority if enough residents want it.

As one example, a few years ago many residents started to request more courts and areas for playing pickleball, a fast-growing sport across the country. Since then, Heavner said the County has developed more pickleball areas. It might seem niche to some, but if enough people request a recreational activity, it can gain traction.

The forum will help shape the county’s comprehensive plan, a ten-year vision for service in all aspects of county government.

“This gives us a vision of how the community wants to see their recreation assets develop over the course of the next decade and what their expectations are,” Heavner explained.

“If there are members of the community that have recreational needs that our current facilities and programs are not meeting, then we want to know that,” said Heavner. “That’s something we want to consider over the next ten years.”

Parks play a big role in resident satisfaction and the county’s attractiveness to visitors and new businesses. Open green space where a family can picnic, well-maintained biking trails, sports fields utilized by teams all over the nation, and children’s programs are just a few services the parks provide to the community.

In addition to the forum, surveys will be mailed shortly to a random, geographically representative sample of about 15,000 households in the county, followed by a data collection and summarization process.

The forum will take place on Saturday, January 26, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the James J. McCoart Administration Building. For more information, visit pwcgov.org/government/dept/park/Pages/community-needs-assessment-forum.aspx.