Farmville is preparing for change with the opening of SEED, the innovation hub located in Longwood Landings, on May 3, 2025. With the help of the Small Business Development Center (SBDC), SEED aims to provide a space where community members and students can bring an idea for a product and turn it into a prototype that can be pitched to banks, investors or angel funders.
SEED will offer workshops with training for every piece of equipment. Resources include 3D printing, sewing, virtual reality tools, music recording studios, video production resources and more. It will also provide Longwood classes with access to its resources, along with programs for the community.
SEED director Evan Jones said the innovation hub is to become a “third space” — separate from home and work, and to allow Farmville another place to build community. “This is the third spot… a third space where community members, students, faculty, can mingle together and share ideas and sit out here, eat their Chick-Fil-A and just become a tighter knit community and work together,” Jones said.
According to Longwood Associate Vice President for Community and Economic Development Sheri McGuire, initial funding enabled Longwood to conduct a study with an architectural firm to determine how best to utilize a 10,000-square-foot vacant space which had been empty for years.
“We did some community input sessions, and from there, realized that the makerspaces, the co-working space, the digital innovation lab, [and] the SBDC ould all function very well together in this space,” she said.
The results of this study led to a plan that secured initial grant funding from the Virginia Tobacco Commission, which provided the first installment toward construction. GO Virginia funded equipment and furnishings, while the U.S. Economic Development Administration supported the remaining construction. In total, over $3 million in grant funds have been secured, making the project almost entirely grant-funded.
SEED will feature entrepreneurial training and consulting with goals to increase business growth, jobs, capital and tax revenue. Offerings will include ideation and prototyping, a digital innovation lab and collaborative spaces.
They plan to have growth labs which provide structured consulting for business strategies that can help the community tackle real-world challenges, and entrepreneurship studies which allow Longwood and Hampden-Sydney to lead collaborative courses. This includes shared classes, minors, Civitae innovation courses and more.
They are also offering hands-on opportunities for Longwood students qualified for Federal Work Study, and eventually, Longwood Work Study. “I think this can be one of the spaces where students help us run this place and gain job experience while they're doing it,” Director of Educational Innovation and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Jacob Dolence said.
Additionally, Longwood students potentially have the opportunity to mentor K-12 students on CAD modeling and 3D printing projects. SEED envisions volunteers, students, and community members collaborating — whether teaching how to use equipment, creating media projects or even helping others learn new skills.
SEED offers opportunities for students across a variety of majors, not just those in STEM fields. McGuire and Dolence noted they have a wide variety of campus partners, including many academic departments such as the College of Education, Health, and Human Services, the College of Business and Economics (CBE), English, Communication Studies and more.
Hampden-Sydney Demo Day, April 22, is open to Longwood students and allows them to showcase innovation or business ideas. Participants will present their projects to judges and compete for prizes.
SEED officially opens on May 3, and staff members are working to make sure things go smoothly upon launch. “We’re… in that soft opening phase, there are going to be hiccups that we do not want to face after we've done a ribbon cutting. And so getting people in here, us[ing] the equipment, us[ing] the machines, particularly knowledgeable people who can look at a process for a machine,” Jones said.
To learn more, visit: seedva.org or @seed_innovation_hub on Instagram.
