News from the Innovation Hub: Tech Summit, Hub-UB, Girls of Promise
Lots going on, and coming up, at the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub, whose Argenta Innovation Center in downtown North Little Rock gets closer to opening.
Coming up, the Hub will host the Arkansas Technology Summit on Nov. 13. Here's a look at what the Hub has going on and what's on the agenda:
- The Arkansas Technology Summit, a showcase of some of the state's fastest growing tech companies including several IA client firms, will run Nov. 13 from the Launch Pad maker space at the Innovation Center. Organized by the UA, UAMS, UALR, ASU and UAPB, the Summit will begin with a Nov. 12 reception at the Clinton Library following the ARK Challenge fall Demo Day. According to the Hub, those universities have produced 43 startup companies that are still operating today, employing more than 300 and adding more than $36 million in federal grants and $100 million in private investments to Arkansas' economy. Wow. The summit's free: More info here; register here.
- Launch Pad director Joel Gordon talked robotics with the Girls of Promise recently at the Clinton Library. Girls of Promise is a program of the Women's Foundation of Arkansas that aims to interest girls in science. Gordon rotated them through five maker stations, which introduced them to skills they'll need for robotics and other projects including soldering basics, introduction to electronics, arduino microcontrollers, and 3-D printing and design.
- Janet Chu, and Arkansas native and recently appointed chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts, recently toured downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock and visited the Hub. Here's a report on her visit from Arkansas Business.
- Lighting guru John Rogers was the man at the latest Hub-UB, the Hub's monthly TED-like series. More from the Hub on his talk:
Most of us take light - in and around our homes, on the street, in our cities - for granted. But not John Rogers. As Hub-UB attendees saw earlier this month, Rogers purposefully uses light and its color as design elements, adding visual interest and creating a sense of depth. Examples he showed of commercial, residential and outdoor light treatments illustrated transformations of the ordinary into the extraordinary. Using color-changing LEDs, refracting lenses, fiber optic cables and black lights concealed behind panels, Rogers demonstrated how lighting design is an art, and technology, unto itself. Rogers also has designed the light features on the bridges spanning the Arkansas River in Little Rock. The beauty of these, especially on the Big Dam Bridge, is the way light enhances the structural elements of the bridges, rather than simply illuminating them. Does he have special plans for the future Broadway bridge, should he be asked to light it, too? "Video mapping with LEDs," said Rogers. "And I want it to be interactive." How cool is that?