Bruno’s Little Italy to open on Main Street in Downtown Little Rock

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Artist's rendering of Bruno's Little Italy on Main Street
Artist’s rendering of Bruno’s Little Italy on Main Street
After over a year’s absence, Little Rock’s original Italian restaurant will re-open in downtown Little Rock on the ground floor of the Mann Lofts at 310 Main Street. The restaurant will be operated by Vince Bruno, son of the legendary founder of Bruno’s Little Italy, Jimmy Bruno, in partnership with his brother Gio Bruno. The family has a 60+ year history of serving the best Italian food in the Little Rock area, starting in the Levy neighborhood in North Little Rock, and followed by ventures on Roosevelt Road, Old Forge Drive, and Bowman Curve in Little Rock. “We are very excited to get back closer to our roots downtown,” said Gio Bruno, who will train the pie-men to toss pizzas visible through a window into the kitchen. Brother and Chef Vince Bruno commented that, “We have all the old Bruno’s recipes which we have been serving to several generations of Arkansas families and visitors alike.” Bruno’s Little Italy, which will have seating for 70 patrons inside and 30 more outside on an outdoor patio. [Read more…]

As Governor’s Cup Approaches, Business Plan Teams Gearing Up

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Like long-awaited spring, the annual Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup business-plan competition approaches, and student entrepreneurs from across the state are honing their pitches. The DWR Governor’s Cup is the state’s premier business-plan competition, and similar events are held in Oklahoma and Nevada. The three states made up the home territory for the old Donrey media empire. The winners from the Governor’s Cup contests in each state meet in May for the Tri-State Governor’s Cup in Las Vegas. [Read more…]

OBU Junior Has Winning Business Plan

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Photo by Rusty Hubbard Lindsey Fowler won the Ouachita Baptist University/Henderson State University Business Plan Competition for her business plan for TrustedWills.com, which would help customers put together wills, living wills and powers of attorney.
Photo by Rusty Hubbard
Lindsey Fowler won the Ouachita Baptist University/Henderson State University Business Plan Competition for her business plan for TrustedWills.com, which would help customers put together wills, living wills and powers of attorney.
Lindsey Fowler means business. Fowler, a junior a Ouachita Baptist University, took first place in the 2012 OBU Business Plan Competition and was recently the first-place winner of the Business Plan Battle of the Ravine against Henderson State University. At this competition, the top three business-plan teams from each university faced off against each other with written business plans that students have created. Fowler has a triple major at the university: business, political science and history. [Read more…]

Fayetteville Firm Nears Solar Cell Breakthrough

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Silicon Solar Solutions of Fayetteville has developed a method of improving the efficiency of solar cells by 15 percent, and the patent for its technology has been moved from provisional to pending by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Silicon Solar Solutions is a Genesis Technology Incubator client at the University of Arkansas and an Innovate Arkansas client firm. It received a $150,000 grant from the National Science Foundation in December to further advance the technology, developed in partnership with fellow UA graduate business plan team Picasolar. [Read more…]

A day in Fayetteville, a minute in Haiti

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At the University of Arkansas, students from Dr. Carol Reeves’ New Venture Development class are preparing to conquer the world, or save it, or both. In Haiti, impoverished people are echoing American complaints about modern life using words that hit awfully close to home. This is all related. I spent a day in Fayetteville last week for a story I am writing for a business magazine. It’s about the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup, a competition where college students create and present business plans for cash prizes. [Read more…]

UA Team Picasolar Wins Canadian Business Plan Competition

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A team from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville took the grand prize at a Canadian business competition for a process to improve solar cell efficiency, the UA announced Thursday. The team, Picasolar, won $20,000 for its first place prize at the IBK Capital-Ivey Business Plan Competition held Jan. 25-26 at the University of Western Ontario. The team was then invited to the Venture Labs Investment Competition at the University of Texas at Austin in May, an event that bills itself as the “Super Bowl of business competitions.” Picasolar’s process was invented by team member Seth Shumate and could improve solar cell efficiency by 15 percent, which could save manufacturers between $5 million and $10 million annually per production line. [Read more…]

$1 Billion Steel Mill Announced for Mississippi County

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The buzz was right. The super project is a new steel mill in Mississippi County. The state will pay $125 million of the construction cost ($50 million in a loan and the rest in a direct grant that means a greater cost because the bonds will have interest charges.) News release: Big River Steel, LLC today announced plans to build a more than $1 billion steel mill in Mississippi County, Arkansas that will directly employ more than 500 people with annual average compensation of $75,000 a year. [Read more…]

ACCG Names John Harrell Business Development Officer for Northwest Arkansas and Announces New Office Location

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The Arkansas Capital Corporation Group (ACCG) is pleased to name John Harrell as business development officer for Northwest Arkansas. Harrell joins the company at a time that coincides with the opening of the organization’s new office location at 1005 Beau Terre Drive in Bentonville and also at the time the NWA Business Journal ranks Arkansas Capital Corp. as third largest SBA 7A loan provider in Northwest Arkansas. [Read more…]

2013 Youth Business Plan Competition Winners Announced

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8th year of Youth Entrepreneur Showcase Business Plan Statewide Competition for fifth through eighth grade students.

Arkansas Economic Acceleration Foundation (AEAF), an affiliate of The Arkansas Capital Corporation, today announced the winners of the Youth Entrepreneur Showcase (Y.E.S.) statewide youth business plan competition for grades five through eight. Today’s winners, announced at Park Plaza Mall in Little Rock, Ark., were selected from 25 finalist teams that were announced in December. The competition included 204 teams made up of more than 600 students across Arkansas. Y.E.S. students from across the state work in small groups, led by their teacher advisors, to develop and market a business concept. The winners in the four competition categories are as follows [Read more…]

Group Seeks to Boost Job Growth, Economy

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Staff photo by Doug Strickland. Al Hodge, senior vice president of The Arkansas Capital Corporation Group, holds business cards for exchange Tuesday before speaking to a group of area bankers about the advantages of SBA loans and other government-guaranteed loans in a conference room at Curt Green & Co.
Staff photo by Doug Strickland. Al Hodge, senior vice president of The Arkansas Capital Corporation Group, holds business cards for exchange Tuesday before speaking to a group of area bankers about the advantages of SBA loans and other government-guaranteed loans in a conference room at Curt Green & Co.
Eleven area bankers assembled around a table in the conference room of Curt Green and Co. on Monday to listen to information on Small Business Administration loans. Read the full article from the Texarkana Gazette here.

National Science Foundation Awards Grant to CycleWood Solutions

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cycleWood Solutions
Nhiem Cao (left), president and CEO of cycleWood Solutions Inc., and company co-founder Kevin Oden pose with their film sample of a biodegradable plastic. Photo by Russell Cothren, University of Arkansas.
The National Science Foundation has awarded a $150,000 grant to cycleWood Solutions Inc., a Genesis Technology Incubator client at the University of Arkansas that is working to produce a sustainable alternative to the high-density polyethylene bags currently used in stores. Nhiem Cao, president and chief executive officer of cycleWood Solutions, said the grant allows the start-up company to continue to develop a prototype for what it calls the XyloBag. The XyloBag will be biodegradable and compostable, which allows it to comply with regulations that are forcing retailers to switch from polyethylene bags. Polyethylene bags harm the environment by polluting the world’s oceans and sitting forever in landfills. They are also expensive to recycle. As a result, cities in 25 states have either banned or are considering banning the use of polyethylene bags. [Read more…]

NMTC Program Extended for Two Years by American Taxpayer Relief Act

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On January 2, 2013, President Barack Obama signed the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (H.R. 8) into law which, in addition to addressing other “fiscal cliff” issues, extends the New Markets Tax Credit (“NMTC”) Program for two years. The Act provides for an annual maximum limit on allowable qualified equity investment of $3.5 billion for each year, mirroring the limits in 2010 and 2011. [Read more…]