A quarter-century ago, Roanoke and Blacksburg’s technology community first celebrated itself.
The inaugural TechNite happened at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center, but as Russ Ellis remembers, it was a more casual affair than many others since.
“It was pretty scrawny by comparison,” said Ellis, an early player in the region’s tech landscape.
Bonz Hart, one of the leaders of the all-volunteer group that organized it, crewed the spotlight that they had wrangled from the hotel for a speaker and award presentations.
“Everybody knew that it was the start of something,” said Ellis, president of gNext Labs. “We just didn’t know what. But everybody enjoyed being together and kind of celebrating a common goal and a common mission. And I think people looked at it and went, yeah, we’ve got to do this every year.”
TechNite’s 25th anniversary celebration happens Thursday at Virginia Tech’s Beamer-Lawson Indoor Practice Facility. More than 500 people are expected to attend, with 72 nominees for awards, including top entrepreneur, innovator, small and large tech companies, regional leader and multiple STEM educators.
A more recent honor, the Hart of the Entrepreneur Impact Award, is dedicated to that long-ago spotlight holder’s memory. Hart, who founded Roanoke company Meridium, died in 2022 of pancreatic cancer. He was a driving force in what became the Roanoke Blacksburg Technology Council, which organizes TechNite.
Elaine Cayton, an original council member who organized the first TechNite, said it will be bittersweet to attend this milestone anniversary without Hart in the building.
“He was a remarkable guy,” said Cayton, a retired management consultant based in Virginia Beach since 2005.
The organization has been full of remarkable people since its inception, she added.
The RBTC, originally called the New Century Technology Council, formed in 1999 and rebranded in 2011, according to a timeline on the RBTC’s website. It spent a few years in between as the NewVa Corridor Technology Council.
The late Ray Pethtel, whose resume included years leading the Center for Transportation Research at Virginia Tech, headed the council in its first year. Hart, Leon Harris, Ellis, Jay Foster, Ken Ferris, Ted Melnik and Mary Miller were among those taking the reins in its early years.
“There really wasn’t a technology ecosystem, but there was a strong desire to have one,” Ellis said in a recent video conference. “And the more we looked around, the more we realized that there were a number of technology companies that were growing and trying to thrive here, and were really invisible, which was amazing.
“City or county, or whatever the entity was, paid zero attention to a bunch of technology nerds, even though our businesses were growing quite nicely. So we really just decided to … get together and support each other. And it was a small but potent group of folks that led that charge, and I would put Bonz Hart at the center of that initiative.”
Cayton remembered that the goal that first year was to put eyes on the overlooked tech scene, and maybe open some wallets. Her consulting firm had offices in Roanoke and at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, where she helped small- and mid-size tech companies with needs including management, marketing, market research and investment.
“The thing was that these companies, most of them were technology people, and they did not have business experience,” Cayton said. “So what they really needed … was funding. And my memory with TechNite was … we were trying to attract investors.”
As the council grew, so did TechNite. Within a few years, it was hosting 400 or more attendees, about double its first-year turnout. Speakers have included Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.; U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce Phillip Bond; and Aneesh Chopra — then Virginia’s secretary of technology before he became the United States’ first chief technology officer.
Meanwhile, the council was developing a mentoring program that it launched in 2002, with Novozymes (now called Novonesis) at the fore of a pilot program. RBTC’s Regional Accelerator and Mentoring Program, RAMP for short, launched in 2016 and since then has worked with 55 companies that have created more than 850 new jobs, selling products and services in the U.S. and abroad.
In 2013, TechNite inaugurated the RBTC Hall of Fame. Its first two inductees were Hart, whose software and services company aided industrial performance worldwide, and Vinod Chachra, whose software designs first transformed Virginia Tech’s library system, then libraries in 43 countries.
The council in 2017 went under the umbrella of a newer organization, the Roanoke Blacksburg Innovation Alliance, or RBIA (then called Verge).
[Disclosure: The Roanoke Blacksburg Innovation Alliance is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]
Erin Burcham is CEO of RBIA, which includes RBTC, RAMP and the Common Wealth Angels capital group. Taylor Spellman directs the RBTC and its talent program, ChangeMakerZ. John Hagy runs RAMP and Common Wealth Angels.
Spellman is TechNite’s lead organizer.
“For 25 years, TechNite has been more than an awards show — it’s been a milestone, a gathering point, and a reflection of how far we’ve come,” Spellman said in an email exchange. “It’s where we recognize the people and ideas driving the Roanoke-Blacksburg region’s tech-based economy forward. Startups have launched, industries have evolved, and innovation has accelerated thanks to the grit and determination of those in our ecosystem, past and present, who keep pushing what’s possible.”
She added: “As we celebrate this 25-year milestone, we’re not just looking back — we’re setting the stage for the next generation of builders, thinkers, and changemakers who will shape what’s next.”
