Last year, Connected DMV and its regional partners created the organization’s COVID-19 Strategic Renewal Task Force that brought the region together with a mission of improving the long-term social, physical, and digital infrastructures for inclusive economic growth and renewal across the entire DMV region.

What the strategic initiatives and the last year of collaboration by the Task Force has revealed is that this kind of cross-sector, co-equal collaboration works. As such, the Task Force has agreed to make this model sustainable and transition to a new body called the DMV Regional Congress. Its role will be to serve as an enduring body in the region, representing academia, industry, the public sector, community, and philanthropy and ensure that all representatives have a co-equal seat at the table to continue the work already underway to bring further economic renewal and social equity to the region, as well as considering and approving new initiatives to solve some of the region’s greatest challenges.