ASTA's Tim Atkinson is This Week's Arkansas Business Executive Q&A
Tim Atkinson, president of the Arkansas Science & Technology Authority, is the subject of this week's Executive Q&A in Arkansas Business.
This week's AB sports a technology focus, and anyone paying attention to tech-based entrepreneurship in Arkansas over the past five years knows there's a lot to write about these days.
ASTA has helped many Innovate Arkansas client firms, including Bentonville's Movista, find the early traction they needed to start growing.
In AB this week, Atkinson addresses the role of ASTA in helping grow tech-based startups, encouraging students to enter the tech fields and more.
A sample:
ASTA’s mission is to advance the talent and innovation necessary for Arkansas to prosper. What is the major stumbling block to achieving this goal?
Our mission is broad. The major challenge in this area is aligning large organizations around similar goals. We work with everybody we can: higher education, manufacturing, other economic development agencies in the state, the governor’s office, as well as the small, intelligent startup companies trying to build jobs in Arkansas.
What specific things does ASTA do to promote the development, expansion and retention of knowledge-based industry in Arkansas? Are there things ASTA wants to do but can’t?
Having limited resources is the primary obstacle, but at ASTA we share an attitude of thankfulness for what we have, and we try to do the best job we can with those limited resources. We are intent on being good stewards with the money the state has entrusted to us. So to promote development, expansion and retention, we try our best to be a functional node in the large network of organizations in the ecosystem. If we can just put people together, it helps in the long run.
Good stuff. Full Q&A here.
And don't miss the other good stuff devoted to tech in this week's issue including advanced tech in the trucking industry, more on the UA's eVersity, the FCC redefining advanced broadband and more.
Check it all out in the weekly digital edition here.