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Topping the charts: Fourteen Fairfax County-area employers placed in “Forbes America’s Best Employers by State 2020” in Virginia — as judged by employees themselves. The local employers: no. 10: Capital One (Tysons); no. 13: Navy Federal Credit Union (Vienna); no. 14: Inova Health System (Merrifield); no. 21: Fairfax County government (Fairfax); no. 31: Fairfax County Public Schools (Merrifield); no. 55: SAIC (Reston); no. 64 Hilton (Tysons); no. 70: Booz Allen Hamilton (Tysons); no. 71: CGI Group (Fairfax); no. 73: General Dynamics; no. 78: Peraton (Town of Herndon); no. 83: AMERICAN SYSTEMS (Chantilly); no. 87: Leidos (Reston); and no. 100: ICF (Fairfax). To determine the list, Statista surveyed 80,000 Americans working for businesses with at least 500 employees. See the entire compilation in Forbes.

Powerful leadership: Victor Hoskins, the FCEDA’s president and CEO, is one of the “Virginia 500,” Virginia Business magazine’s compilation of the most powerful leaders in the state. He is one of 22 leaders spotlighted in the economic development section of the list. Others are Sol Glasner of the Tysons Partnership, Stephanie Landrum of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership, Stephen Moret of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, Buddy Rizer of Loudoun County Economic Development and Telly Tucker of Arlington Economic Development. Fun facts that Hoskins answered in the article include what a competitor would say about him, who he admires, what he has learned, and what his first job was with a pay stub. The entire Virginia 500 is in the September edition of Virginia Business.

Small tech titans: Fairfax County is the headquarters location for 18 out of the 30 companies in the Washington Business Journal’s list of “Top-Performing Small Technology Companies in Greater D.C.” (available to subscribers). Ranked by 2019 revenue, the winning companies were required to have fewer than 150 employees and be based in the Washington area. The local companies: no. 1: ThunderCat Technology (Reston); no. 2: Four Points Technology (Chantilly); no. 4: SeKON Enterprise (Reston); no. 11: Creative Systems and Consulting; no. 12: Kingfisher Systems (Falls Church area); no. 16: IT Concepts (Tysons); no. 17: Communications Resource (Tysons); no. 18: Building Infrastructure Group (Chantilly); no. 19: Computer Systems Center (Springfield); no. 21: E-9 Corp. (Alexandria); no. 22: SHR Consulting Group (Springfield); no. 23: Mobomo (Tysons); no. 24: TechTrend (Merrifield); no. 25: Concept Plus (Fairfax); no. 27: INADEV (Tysons); no. 28: Prism (Reston); no. 29: Sequoia Holdings (Reston); no. 30: MicroTech (Tysons).

Accessible innovation: McLean-based AppTek partnered with Gallaudet University’s Technology Access Program and its School of Science, Technology, Accessibility, Mathematics, and Public Health to develop a user-centric application for providing the deaf and hard-of-hearing community with a more accessible and engaging videoconferencing experience. The new application aims to provide videoconference participants with live closed captions and deliver more control of the user interface, allowing users to enhance the readability of real-time conversation transcripts for a more meaningful flow of spoken content, according to Global Banking & Finance Review.

Affirming new jobs: Tysons-based Affirm Logic, formerly known as Lenvio, a cybersecurity startup, secured a $25 million equity financing round. The funding, which came from an unnamed private equity investor, will go toward bringing on more engineering, sales and marketing staff as it continues to garner interest for its algorithm-based malware detection software. In all, it will help elevate a 19-person staff to what is expected to be a 25-employee workforce by the end of the quarter, the Washington Business Journal reported.

Instant pivot: The coronavirus pandemic forced the region’s health care providers to change the way they deliver care, shifting to telemedicine quickly and continuing to use virtual platforms to manage patients. When the pandemic hit, Reston telemedicine provider SOC Telemed immediately focused on building its customer base, bulking up its team and expanding its services, by making its specialists available to patients and providing its software platform to hospitals to use with their patients. “Covid created a problem on acute-care capacity management, it’s created problems with physician shortages and it’s put enormous cost pressures on the hospital systems — and SOC addresses all of those issues, and acute-care telemedicine addresses all of those issues — so the adoption and interest in acute-care telemedicine has been significantly boosted by this phenomenon,” said SOC interim CEO Paul Ricci. Find out more in about SOC in a DC Inno profile of how five D.C.-area companies are addressing problems created by the pandemic.

Deal, booked: Tysons-based Capital One bought intellectual property and technology from Cambridge, Mass.-based Freebird, a startup that offered flight protection and rebooking services to businesses. Freebird CEO and Co-Founder Ethan Bernstein is now the senior business director for travel at Capital One. A Capital One official says that the majority of the Freebird team will be joining the company, reported travel site Skift.

Cloud cover: OVHcloud, a Reston-based cloud-computing company, acquired the technology of Austin-based EXTEN Technologies, a storage software company. OVHcloud said that EXTEN Technologies has over 20 filed patents. OVHcloud is a subsidiary of French networking and data center company OVH. PotomacTechWire picked up the release.

Right up the alley: Reston-based Verity Commercial received the “Data Center Supplier Champion” award by the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) during its Virginia Data Center Awards event, held virtually this year, on August 26. For a second year, the NVTC recognized data centers for their growth and contributions to the region. Northern Virginia has one of the largest data center markets in the nation — coined “data center alley,” technical.ly DC reported.

More in store: Lidl US plans to open 50 new stores by the end of 2021, including six in Northern Virginia, bringing the total number of stores in the United States to 150. Germany-headquartered Lidl said it will invest more than $500 million in the new stores and will create about 2,000 new jobs across these communities. The new Fairfax County-area locations will be in Burke on Old Keene Mill Road; Chantilly on Chantilly Crossing Lane; and Merrifield on Gallows Road, reported InsideNoVa.

Envisioning more nurses: Phoenix-based Eduvision is looking to expand the Arizona College of Nursing into Virginia with a location in the Fairview Park office campus across the Capital Beltway from Inova Fairfax Hospital. Eduvision owns and operates the Arizona College of Nursing, which has locations in Arizona, Nevada, Texas and Florida. This would be the nursing school’s first Virginia location, according to Tysons Reporter.

Silver screen back on: After temporarily closing due to COVID-19 restrictions, Angelika Film Center in the Mosaic District re-opened last Friday. To reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19, the theater has several rules in place for moviegoers, including mask requirements, floor decals for social distancing, hand sanitizer stations, upgraded filters in the HVAC systems and more. A full list of the theater’s safety measures is online, notes Tysons Reporter.

Notable contract wins by firms in Fairfax County

SOS International received a five-year, $400 million contract to provide on-site translation and transcription services to the Department of Justice’s immigration review component. GovConWire

Science Applications International Corp. won a $171.5 million contract by the Navy to continue its support of training systems, including virtual and synthetic training environments. ExecutiveBiz

Northrop Grumman booked a $93 million contract to continue providing specialized technical support Air Force data systems and information technology modernization initiatives. GovConWire

Elbit Systems‘ U.S. subsidiary won a five-year, $79 million contract from the Defense Logistics Agency to supply equipment for the Army’s Bradley Fighting Vehicles. ExecutiveBiz

Alion Science and Technology scored a 60-month, $20 million contract from the Air Force Institute of Technology to provide autonomy and navigation technology development. ExecutiveGov

Featured business events

September 9 — Business Education Series – Make Traction on LinkedIn: Identify the Top 5 Strategies and Habits to Move Your Business Forward. The Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce presents a webinar featuring Jen Dalton, founder of BrandMirror. Click here to register.

September 10 — Partnering Across the Business Community. The Northern Virginia Economic Development Alliance presents the 11th webinar in its three-part, 12 session webinar series: “Beyond COVID-19: NOVA Business Resiliency Webinars.” Registration opens soon. Click here for more information.

September 15 — Talent Attraction Workshop: Marketing Northern Virginia. This workshop presented by the FCEDA will arm you with the resources you need to attract top-notch talent to Northern Virginia and answer your burning questions about what talent really wants — especially in the era of Covid-19. Click here.

September 15 — Global Virtual Exchange: US and Israel Economic Impact and Recovery: Defense and Homeland Security Sectors. The Dulles Regional Chamber of Commerce presents a webinar to identify business opportunities and further strengthen the Israeli/Northern Virginia relationship. Click here to register.

September 22 —TiE DC Diversity Panel Discussion. TiE DC presents a webinar discussion with successful business leaders from our Black Community as they share their experiences and guide us all through these unprecedented times. Click here to register

September 23 — Business Education Series: Quick and Easy Tips for Speaking in the Virtual World. The Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce presents a webinar featuring Frank DiBartolomeo, an award-winning speaker, presentation and interview skills coach, and seminar leader. Click here to register.

How the Fairfax County EDA can help

Forward Virginia Phase 3 reopening guidelines: Fairfax County began the third phase of re-opening businesses on July 1. The Forward Virginia plan provides guidelines that all businesses must follow. Residents are still advised that they are “safer at home.” Click here to find out the updated guidelines.

Get business assistance: The FCEDA is here to connect businesses of all kinds to resources and information. Visit the FCEDA’s Covid-19 Business Resource Hub for up-to-date information. For direct assistance, email the FCEDA at info@fceda.org, or call 703-790-0600 to leave a voice message for our staff. And click here for resources available in the other nine jurisdictions that make up the Northern Virginia Economic Development Alliance.