Joel Gordon, director of Winrock International’s Arkansas Innovation Hub in North Little Rock since last May, has resigned and a search is on for his replacement, according to the Hub and Hub initiator John Gaudin of North Little Rock. Errin Stanger, director of programs, events and membership, is acting as interim director. We’ve put in a call to the Hub for more details.

Gordon was director of making when the Hub opened in 2013, co-founding the state’s first “makerspace.” He also founded the Mini Maker Faire at the Hub. He took over from former director Warwick Sabin, now director of U.S. programs at Winrock.

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In addition to the makerspace and co-working space, the Hub offers classes in laser cutting, printmaking, ceramics, 3D printing, graphic design and other forms of art/making/crafts, as well as workshops for both children and adults.

Correction: an earlier post said the Hub will also host some of the programming for a new accelerator for health-care technology startups later this year. That is incorrect.

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Applications for the initiative, called Health InnovatAR, to be managed by Jeff Stinson, director of the Fund for Arkansas’s Future, are due March 31. Six startups will be chosen; the accelerator will run from June 1 to Nov. 30. Health InnovatAR partners include Winrock, the Arkansas Heart Hospital, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and UAMS Bioventures, and is supported by the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.

In an announcement by Winrock on Jan. 8, Bioventures president Nancy Gray was quoted as saying, “BioVentures is dedicated to creating a statewide infrastructure to support a growing biomedical research capacity in Arkansas,” and that Health InnovatAR would be an important part of that work.

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