Innovation

Cutting-edge Institutions, Initiatives Lead Region's Knowledge-based Economy

The goal of innovation is to create positive change – to make something better. Innovation leading to increased productivity is the fundamental source of increasing wealth in an economy. For this very reason, the business and political environment in Central Arkansas encourages and rewards continuous innovation and has many established organizations designed to assist in the process.

Little Rock Regional Chamber’s Technology Committee

The Chamber’s Technology Committee exists to identify and study challenges related to the technology industry and to provide initiatives and advice as to how to realize the region’s potential in this rapidly growing sector. The committee’s mission is to provide a local environment for Arkansas discoveries to grow and flourish in a global economy, develop the opportunities provided by local intellectual property, support the translation of discoveries into products and practices and to support the Governor’s long-term strategic plan for economic development.

The goal of the committee is to utilize Arkansas’s research discoveries to build a new industry that will create new companies, retain the best graduates, and provide high wage jobs. The committee’s current primary focus is in establishing a Research Park.

Research Park Initiative

Central Arkansas is in development on a “sense of place” to enhance the commercialization of its innovative activity and to house established research-based companies which can benefit from close proximity to research institutions. For the past several years, the Technology Committee has been working to support the efforts of the other organizations described in this section.

To expand on those efforts, a task force sub-committee, the Technology Park Committee (TPC), has taken the lead in creating a research park for Central Arkansas. To date, the TPC has:

• Developed criteria to form and operate a technology park
• Written legislation and obtained support by state four-year institutions, the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, the Governor and the General Assembly to enact Act 1045 of the 2007 legislative session, authorizing the formation of research park authorities and giving three authorities the requested powers to operate
• Obtained a report through a commissioned consultant evaluating the justification for a technology park in Central Arkansas, projecting its financing requirements and suggesting site selection criteria and site examples.

The next step, currently underway, is the formation of the Technology Park Authority.

The Central Arkansas Technology Park will be a vehicle for future economic development. It will stimulate more R&D activity, facilitate commercialization of research, provide a tool for recruiting and, just as important, retain research talent, assist in attracting R&D activities of established enterprises, and make Central Arkansas an alternative location for the R&D programs of companies which have local manufacturing.

Accelerate Arkansas

Accelerate Arkansas is a statewide, volunteer group of business and education leaders committed to building a competitive, knowledge-based economy in Arkansas with the goal of achieving parity in per capita income with the U.S. average by 2020.

The group’s mission is to foster economic growth by using the essential building blocks of the knowledge-based economy and to create an environment supporting entrepreneurship and continuous innovation. The core strategies to achieve this mission are to:

• Support job-creating research
• Develop risk capital that is available for all stages of the business cycle, especially the funding gap
• Encourage entrepreneurship and accelerated new enterprise development.
• Increase the education level of Arkansans in science, technology, engineering and math
• And to sustain existing industry through advancing technology and competitiveness

Arkansas Research Alliance

The Arkansas Research Alliance (ARA) is an organization dedicated to maximizing Arkansas’s ability to participate in the 21st-century economy by recruiting university scholars with a track record of incubating and commercializing businesses thereby increasing the number of competitive knowledge-based jobs for Arkansans. The organization is financed by the State General Improvement Fund and company contributions.

Create Little Rock

An initiative of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, Create Little Rock was launched to retain, develop and attract a talented, creative and competitive workforce to enhance the economic development of the Little Rock region.

Its purpose is directly tied to the economic future of the community. It used to be if you attracted the business, the people would come. Now, you have to have the people in order to attract and keep business.

While the group produces and participate in events, projects and programming to further its mission, its primary role is to shine light on what individuals and groups are doing to create Little Rock and provide the means for individual members to connect and partner with other vision-sharing members to tackle disparate issues and projects.

For more information, visit www.CreateLittleRock.com.

Innovate Arkansas

Innovate Arkansas works with new, technology- based entrepreneurs to turn inventions and high-tech concepts into viable businesses. The organization’s goal is to create high-paying Arkansas jobs in the knowledge, technology, and information-based industries resulting in a rise in Arkansas' per capita personal income. The three primary objectives of the organization are to:

• Recruit and assist technology entrepreneurs by conducting product assessments, market feasibility analysis, commercialization strategies, business plan development and product and concept valuation
• Work with university research centers to assist those technology innovations already identified in the university settings, and help provide the necessary business and financial support services
• And to identify existing technology employers who have unused intellectual property to negotiate control of the intellectual property, match the intellectual property with serial entrepreneurs and develop it.

The organization is funded by the State General Improvement Fund and Winrock International.

UAMS Bioventures

The primary mission of UAMS BioVentures is to convert Arkansas’ medical and biotechnology research into new companies and high wage jobs for Arkansans. The organization and its Technology Licensing Office were established as a formal outgrowth of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ (UAMS) interest in translating its research into products that benefit human health. UAMS BioVentures links the research minds at UAMS to global markets in order to advance Arkansas' scientific and economic development.

UALR’s Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology (EIT)

UALR’s Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology (EIT) has students, faculty and industry partners working together in some of the nation's most high-tech engineering laboratories.

Students in UALR’s EIT come from 67 of Arkansas’s 75 counties, 14 other states, and 36 foreign countries and can earn degrees in Information Science, Systems Engineering, Computer Science, Engineering Technology, Construction Management and Applied Science. These are the students who are becoming Arkansas's top-paid, most technically skilled employees of the future.

Offering a wide range of advanced computer-based degrees, the college is directly connected to more than 100 knowledge-based companies in Arkansas and surrounding states through its seven active Corporate Advisory Councils and its National Advisory Board.

The College also conducts a variety of outreach programs throughout the year designed to motivate students in grades six through twelve to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees. These outreach programs include:

• Pre-College Diversity Engineering Program (PCDEP) – which includes an engineering essay contest and the Engineering Olympics
• JETS TEAMS Competition – Junior Engineering Technical Society’s (JETS) Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics and Science (TEAMS)
• High School Research Program (HSRP)
• Regional Science & Engineering Fair Awards
• Engineering Scholars Program (ESP)
• Outreach Partnerships – such as Girls of Promise and Project Starting Block

UALR’s campus also hosts a new Nanotechnology Center shared with affiliate scientists throughout the state of Arkansas.

The Nanotechnology Center is becoming the state’s focal point for collaboration in the exciting new world of nanotechnology research and education. Thanks to the Nanotechnology Center at UALR and its revolutionary technology, the Little Rock region and the state of Arkansas can prepare for Arkansas’s future economy now.

For more information, Joey Dean (Vice President, Economic Development; Executive Director, Metro Little Rock Alliance), 501.377.6006.