 |
|
Date Posted: 11/17/2006
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — AdvantageWest named David McConville the winner of the inaugural High Cotton Award for a community leader during the Five-State Summit on Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa on November 17.
"David is a bridge between the old and new economies," said Sam Neill, chairman of the WNC Film Commission and a board member of AdvantageWest. Neill called McConville a prime example of the high-tech knowledge worker touted by Richard Florida in his book "The Rise of the Creative Class." The co-founder of Eluminati Immersive Projection Design, McConville has been developing content for digital dome and immersive display technologies for the past decade.
A University of North Carolina at Asheville graduate, McConville returned to the mountains in 1999, when high-speed broadband allowed him to work from anywhere. He has been an active player in the community, promoting the Media Arts Project and the HUB Project, the community's new plan for economic development based on existing assets. McConville also was instrumental in bringing the Design Science Lab program to UNCA this summer, using methods developed by scientist Buckminster Fuller to tackle social problems at the local and global level.
"It's been an interesting few years engaging the citizens of Western North Carolina in how this interesting evolution of technology is changing our world," McConville said. He praised the collaboration rather than competition he saw among many in the community.
Economic developers from five Appalachian states gathered November 17 for a daylong summit on entrepreneurship and innovation at the Grove Park Inn. Hosted by AdvantageWest, the fourth annual summit drew about 150 participants for its first time in Asheville.
Anne Pope, co-chairman of the Appalachian Regional Commission, praised the regional approach of the summit to find new ways to develop rural economies through the mountains of five states. "You are absolutely on the right track,” Pope said. “It makes good business sense how the national economy is forming today around regional clusters."
Back
| |
