Speaker Fox adds startup speaker to House Economic Summit
January 16th, 2013 at 11:00 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Never led it be said that House Speaker Gordon Fox isn’t open to suggestions.
After Fox read a WPRI.com post suggesting that the House of Representatives’ economic summit on Thursday should have included someone who understands startup companies, the speaker agreed – and invited Owen Johnson, co-founder of startup accelerator Betaspring, to join the list of speakers.
House spokesman Larry Berman said the lack of startup representation was “inadvertent.”
“When it was pointed out to us that there was no startup, Speaker Fox said immediately that was an oversight – we really need to hear the perspective of a startup company, to see the hurdles that are necessary to start businesses – because we want to attract more businesses – so it’s important to get that perspective from startups,” Berman said.
Johnson will speak on the first panel. The economic summit is Thursday at Rhode Island College.
• Related: Few from private sector invited to RI House economic summit (Jan. 11)
Tags: betaspring, economic development, economy, gordon fox, house economic summit, house of representatives, owen johnson, startups
Nesi's Notes covers politics and the economy in and around Rhode Island for WPRI.com. (Twitter: 
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