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Jeff Stinson Joins Innovation Hub as Silver Mine Director

3 min read

Jeff Stinson will join the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub and lead its Silver Mine co-working and entrepreneurial space set to officially open early next year, the Hub announced Tuesday.

Stinson will leave his position as director of UALR TechLaunch, the technology commercialization office at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, but will remain executive director of Fund for Arkansas’ Future, a private angel fund based in Little Rock.

Stinson will begin his duties with the Innovation Hub, a nonprofit that operates the Argenta Innovation Center in downtown North Little Rock, on Sept. 8. Stinson is a member of the Innovation Hub board of directors. He also will lead another Hub program that will be unveiled in September, according to a news release.

The Hub was launched in 2013 and earlier this year received a $1 million federal grant to complete renovation of the center and develop the Silver Mine.

Last month, the Hub announced plans to expand to northwest Arkansas in partnership with the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce. The Silver Mine is scheduled to officially open in early 2016 as an entrepreneurship resource center for co-working, startup acceleration, and other programming to support new and growing business enterprises, the release said.

Hub programs already in operation at the center are the Launch Pad maker space; the Art Connection, an after-school program that fuses art and entrepreneurship; and the STEAM Lab educational space for students in the STEM fields. 

“We are very pleased that Jeff Stinson will be joining the Innovation Hub to direct The Silver Mine,” said Warwick Sabin, executive director of the Innovation Hub. “His depth of experience in the public and private sectors, his background in entrepreneurial education, and his continuing role as manager of our state’s largest angel investment fund make him the perfect fit to develop and oversee our business-related programming.”

Through his roles at UALR and with Fund for Arkansas’ Future, Stinson has been a significant player in the rise of tech startups in central Arkansas. At TechLaunch, Stinson worked with university researchers to help them protect and commercialize technologies and inventions developed on campus.

Fund for Arkansas’ Future, officially launched in 2004, is the state’s first private angel fund. It focuses on early-stage Arkansas ventures and has launched two funds comprised of more than 100 individual investors. FAF has invested in more than 25 Arkansas startups, many of them Innovate Arkansas client firms. Stinson said IA client status serves as an almost-prerequisite to consideration from the fund.

This past spring, he provided Arkansas Business with a “patent primer” in which he discussed the technology commercialization process at research universities and the growth of the local tech startup ecosystem

“I’m honored to be joining the esteemed Innovation Hub team,” Stinson said. “The Launch Pad and Art Connection have paved the way with innovative programs touching thousands of Arkansans, and I’m pleased to be leading entrepreneurial training and development at the Innovation Hub. Warwick and I have planned a number of unique programs which we look forward to unveiling in the coming weeks. In short, it’s a very good time to be a current or prospective entrepreneur in Arkansas.”

A CPA by trade, Stinson earned an MBA with honors from the Owen School of Management at Vanderbilt University before coming to Little Rock in 1999 and working extensively in private equity markets. 

In addition to board service with the Innovation Hub, the former Arkansas Business 40 Under 40 honoree serves on the boards of Youth Home Inc. (president); the Arkansas Motion Picture Institute; the Little Rock Sister Cities Commission and Little Rock Sister Cities Foundation; the Advisory Board for TechPreneur; and the Arkansas Venture Forum Committee.

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