Grab an early lunch at the Main Street Food Truck Festival then head north across the Main Street bridge to North Little Rock, where an afternoon of provocative speakers is planned for today’s Arkansas Times Festival of Ideas. It’s free and that could include some craft beer at the end of the session.
Our speakers are drawn from \ our recent cover story on visionary Arkansans.
The session is at the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub, at 201 East Broadway, a block east of Main in North Little Rock. The lineup:
12:30 p.m.: Matt Campbell , the Little Rock lawyer, civil rights champion and muckraker.
1;30 p.m.: Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira director of UALR’s George W. Donaghey Emerging Analytics Center and an internationally regarded expert on virtual reality.
2:30 p.m,: North Little Rock Police Officer Tommy Norman (2:30 p.m.), who’s gotten national attention for his devotion to community policing.
3:30 p.m.: Members of Arkansas’s Citizens’ Climate Lobby, including Chris Balos, who is fighting to save the Marshall Islands from rising seas.
4:3 p.m.: Grant Chandler, a brewer at Lost Forty Brewing who uses his microbiology background to isolate wild strains of yeast and in other experimental efforts.
There’ll be plenty of time for questions, perhaps free beer and an after-party at nearby Crush Wine Bar.