About the Author

My name is Sean Harvey. I’ve lived, worked, and raised a family in the Shenandoah Valley of western Virginia for more than three decades. My roots here run deep—not just in geography, but in spirit. Growing up here shaped how I see the world: its people, its landscapes, its ancient culture. These mountains and fertile valleys made me who I am.

Professionally, I am a technologist and advisor to some of the world’s largest companies. Over the last few decades, I’ve had the privilege of working at the forefront of emerging technologies—first the web, then mobile, and now AI. My work has taken me into boardrooms, product labs, and innovation centers across the globe. I’ve seen how quickly the world accelerates, how new tools reshape entire industries, and how power concentrates wherever innovation takes root.

Yet even as my career unfolded—often helping organizations across finance, capital markets, higher education, and telecom navigate the messy, unglamorous problems that shape how work actually gets done—my soul has remained anchored here. My desire is simple: for rural communities—here in western Virginia, in West Virginia, and across the country—to benefit from the innovation, opportunity, and wealth that has exploded over the past 30 years.

For centuries, rural America has been treated as an asset to be extracted:

  • natural resources pulled from mountains and soil

  • labor drawn into cities and factories far from home

  • young talent leaving for opportunity elsewhere

  • capital flowing outward, rarely returning

  • attention siphoned to distant centers of influence

This pattern is ancient. But today, the pace of extraction is accelerating. As AI, automation, and global networks reshape how work happens and where value accumulates, rural communities risk being further marginalized—unless we imagine another way, a better future for rural communities.

I believe the communities of western Virginia and West Virginia, and rural America more broadly, deserve a different future. A future that leverages our collective persistence, ingenuity, and self-sufficiency to reverse the impacts of extraction by reimagining the systems that let communities thrive: mobility, housing, manufacturing, and agriculture. A future that prioritizes equity, education, sustainability, and—most importantly—honors our cultural roots.

The goal isn’t simply to "create jobs," or to become the next Silicon Valley. It’s to imagine and build a future where—God willing—the greatest minds of the next generation don’t have to leave to find opportunity. Where they can choose to stay because the future is being built here, not somewhere else.

The next twenty years will determine whether rural America becomes a frontier of renewal — or a map of missed opportunities.

How My Beliefs Inform My Vision of a Rural Future

You may read this work and try to infer my political leaning. Go ahead—try. You’ll likely find contradictions, because my worldview isn’t built on ideology. It’s built on living in a rural place long enough to see what actually works—and what doesn’t.

I believe that capitalism and free markets remain the most efficient way to distribute capital at scale. I also believe that wealth should be shared equitably with all who create it.

I believe government is often inefficient. I also believe government is profoundly underfunded for the public services and infrastructure our communities rely on to succeed.

I believe in property rights. I also believe in the power of cooperatives, land trusts, and shared ownership models that keep wealth rooted in place.

I believe in tradition and the importance of heritage to a community’s identity. I also believe in diversity and the need for new ideas, energy, perspectives—and yes, new people.

These positions are not contradictions. They are tools. Rural communities need every tool available.

What I Hope Will Happen

The futures, scenarios, and essays you’ll find here are simply that: ideas. My ideas—synthesized from the work of many others, stitched together through my own practice. They are attempts to imagine what the next century of life in this region could look like.

Take these ideas. Share them. Challenge them. Build on them. Tell me yours.

Futures only become real when many voices shape them.

We need more imagination—not less.