innovate arkansas

A week from today Josh Quittner, editor-at-large for Time Magazine, will be the featured speaker at the 2008 Arkansas Venture Forum Conference, organizers announced recently.

The conference is set for Wednesday, Nov. 19 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. at The Peabody Little Rock.

Quittner covers consumer technology in the magazine and "brings a fresh, informed look at where technology is and where it is headed," Dextera Inc. Principal and AVF Conference Chairman Grey Williams said in a news release.

"This will be Josh's first visit to Arkansas and we are anxious to get this technology insider's view, especially as that will help us understand Arkansas' potential in the worldwide marketplace."

In the early '90s, Quittner wrote a pioneering column called "Life in Cyberspace" while working at Newsday and soon after joined Time Inc. In addition to writing technology-focused features and a technology blog for Time.com, Quittner, who lives in San Francisco, writes reviews of new products. He has a long history with Time Inc., most recently as managing editor of Business 2.0 and a writer for Fortune magazine.

The AVF strives to bring key resources together at the annual conference to help advance promising new Arkansas companies, Williams said.

This year's event again will provide a centralized and resource-rich opportunity for Arkansas' aspiring rural and urban entrepreneurs to meet other successful entrepreneurs, angel investors and a wide range of professionals with knowledge of how to match good ideas with development capital. Also, conference participants will have access to groundbreaking research, emerging technologies information and leaders of high-growth companies in Arkansas.

"Josh lives at the epicenter of technology," Williams said. "We believe the conference attendees are going to be interested in what he has to say."

Working at Business 2.0, in particular, Williams said, gave Quittner a unique perspective of the successes and failures of Silicon Valley-based companies and technology-based businesses. Under Quittner's leadership, Business 2.0 highlighted more gazelles operating in the Silicon Valley than operate in the remainder of the United States.