Blacksburg and Virginia Tech have teamed up to submit a joint application for Google’s recent push to build ultra-high speed fiber networks in a number of locations across the country. If selected, Blacksburg would be the recipient of Internet speeds 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today.

“Blacksburg was the first community in the world, through the Blacksburg Electronic Village, to explore how the internet could transform business, education, and community interaction,” said Ron Rordam, Mayor of Blacksburg. “More than 15 years later, we now have a population of citizens, university faculty and students who have demonstrated innovation and creativity as network producers, not just consumers, of high bandwidth applications and services. We believe this is exactly what Google is looking for with their gigabit to the home test bed project, and we are committed to working in partnership with them if Blacksburg is selected.”

The local project team is calling on the community for their help. There are two steps to completing the Google Request for Information (RFI), the government response and the community response. Both are due by March 26. Residents, artists, businesses and community organizations are asked to fill out a short online form and clicking on “Nominate Your Community”.

There is also an opportunity for the community to participate in a YouTube video contest and an application naming contest. The winning recipient of each will receive a $100 Downtown Blacksburg Gift Certificate. Details of the competition can be found at blacksburg.gov/google.