A Look at AB Coverage of ARK Demo Day, Tech Summit, More

November 14, 2014

It's been a busy week in central Arkansas with Arkansas Startup Week events, the ARK Challenge's Demo Day and the Arkansas Technology Summit contributing to make it seem like an extended holiday for techpreneurs.

Plus, in NWA, NanoMech scheduled the grand opening for its impressive new HQ exopansion and another IA firm, NanoWatt Design, received a $100,000 grant from ASTA to commercialize its potentially revolutionary SCL technology.

Arkansas Business had coverage of Demo Day and Spencer Jones' big win. Jones' BVAD device may change the way patients receive IVs and blood draws. A sample:

Spencer Jones, a surgical nurse resident at CHI St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center in Little Rock, won an investment round of $150,000 for his innovative blood-draw device Wednesday at the ARK Challenge Demo Day in Little Rock.

Held at the Great Hall of the Clinton Presidential Center, Demo Day was the culmination of the fall 2014 installment of the three-month ARK Challenge accelerator. On Wednesday, participating teams presented their startup ventures and revealed progress made over the course of the startup "boot camp."

Jones launched his Little Rock startup, Jones Innovative Medical Solutions, to develop his patent-pending device — the Bifurcated Venous Access Device (BVAD) — targeted initially for diabetics who receive multiple blood draws and finger pricks during hospital stays. The idea came to him while treating patients at St. Vincent.

Full story here.

Plus, AB has coiverage from the afternoon session of Thursday's Arkansas Technology Summit, hosted by the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub at its Argenta Innovation Center.

An excerpt:

Investors participating in the Arkansas Technology Summit Thursday at the Argenta Innovation Center in downtown North Little Rock said they'd prefer to see an inspired pitch from a potential investment target than a detailed business plan.

Startups looking for funding need to adequately communicate a vision and convince potential investors they can realize that vision, they said. Detailed business plans with 100 pages of speculation...not so much.

Many of the state's heavy hitters in the fields of entrepreneurship, technology and university research participated in the summit...

Full story here.

 

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