Dr. Andrew Michael Cohill is an information architect and served as Director of the Blacksburg Electronic Village <www.bev.net [1]> from its start in 1993 until 2004. Blacksburg has been widely hailed as the most wired community in the world, with more than 87% of the residents online by late 1999 , and more than half of those users have broadband access--the highest per capita use in the world.

The Blacksburg Electronic Village is a model for the development of community networks around the country, and much of Cohill's efforts are related to teaching others how to create healthy electronic communities. He is co-chair of the Governor's Task Force on eCommunities for Virginia.

Cohill is on the Board of Directors of the Association For Community Networks, and former President of that organization. He has published numerous papers, articles, and book chapters, and has spoken widely on networked information systems, the Internet, and software systems design. He is an author and co-editor of "Community Networks: Lessons Learned from Blacksburg, Virginia", now in its second edition. He is in wide national and international demand as a speaker and consultant on community use of technology because of his effectiveness in speaking clearly and simply about complex technology issues, and his shrewd insights on the future of communities.

Cohill is an expert on the planning and design of community network infrastructure who has worked with more than 100 communities around the world.