The Priority Is to Keep Tech Firms in Town

The state that brought you Dogpatch may be patching you through in 2001.

Arkansas’ budding telecommunications sector has the potential to rid the state of its hillbilly image and turn its Northwest corridor into a mecca of technology. That may take longer than a year, but a number of catalysts are already in place.

David Nelms, founder and chief technology officer of Integral Wave Technologies Inc. of Fayetteville, soon plans to begin manufacturing thin film passive components for electronics, like the hundreds used in every cell phone.

Aicha Elshabini, head of the University of Arkansas department of electrical engineering and computer science/computer engineering, is one of the nation’s premier experts on wireless technology.

Bob Friedman, incoming director of the UA’s Genesis Technology Incubator, recently received a patent for his Virtual Satellite technology. Manufacturing, distribution and further development operations for the product could spawn a local cottage industry.

It all appears to bode well for the state, given Forbes’ recent prediction that electronic data transmissions will increase 100 to 200 times in the next four years.

Bill Hargrave, a professor of computer information systems at the UA, said the trick would be keeping Arkansas’ good ideas from going elsewhere. State venture capital limitations and tax burdens make staying a tough choice.

“Until the state itself supports start-up technologies, my concern is we’ll become a birthing place for companies that go on to other places where they are supported,” Hargrave said. “We may be a breeding ground for ideas, but we won’t benefit if we can’t keep the technology here.”

Friedman said the convergence of technologies is driving telecommunications. And the core horses drawing that carriage are the laser-based Wavelength Division Multiplex, thin film components and inventions like the Virtual Satellite.

Hargrave said the impact of local telecommunications developments hadn’t been felt yet. But in a few years, the results of keeping Friedman, Nelms and Elshabini around could be staggering.

“What would have happened if Wal-Mart or J.B. Hunt got away?” Hargrave said.