THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 12, 1996 TAG: 9609120382
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MYLENE MANGALINDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 48 lines
The cadre of public and private leaders who joined forces this year to help shape Hampton Roads' future also wants to help secure the economic fate of the entire state.
The Hampton Roads Partnership announced it will sponsor a statewide technology conference to assess the importance to Virginia of new and emerging technology.
Planned as a joint venture with the Center for Innovative Technology, the Virginia Technology Council and the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, the partnership is tentatively scheduling the summit, its first public initiative, for November.
Partnership President Barry DuVal said, ``Our ultimate goal, of course, is to develop a strategic plan for charting Virginia's high technology future.''
The summit's secondary goal will be to define industry and regional visions of what and how that technological future will take shape.
DuVal expects the conference to draw people from throughout the state. It will be held in Hampton Roads.
A second high-tech conference in April 1997 will reconvene previous participants to discuss regional strategic plans for promoting specific technologies. Different regions will develop those plans between the two scheduled conferences.
Virginians will then work with leaders in the technology industry to ensure that these strategic plans can be implemented. Old Dominion University, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility - formerly known as the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility - NASA Langley and the local CIT office will lend their expertise to carry out this effort.
``I think this is going to be one of the early successes for the partnership,'' DuVal said.
Composed of 53 members of the region's educational, political, business and military constituencies, the Hampton Roads Partnership is a regional public-private organization attempting to chart the region's economic agenda. It was formed in May.
The Norfolk-based partnership is focusing on port development, military privatization, economic development with emphasis on high technology, transportation, tourism, professional sports and supporting the implementation for Plan 2007, a regional economic strategy overseen by the area's chambers of commerce. ILLUSTRATION: Color graphic by JOHN EARLE, The Virginian-Pilot by CNB