Summit attracts top tech leaders

A host of high-tech big wheels, from information technology leaders to inventors and visionaries from across the region, are slated to converge for a summit in Portsmouth on Oct. 14 and 15.

Billed as New England's technology summit, Future Forward 2004 will involve a mix of debates, demonstrations, panel discussions, and networking opportunities.

The idea is to give high-tech leaders a first look at new and emerging technologies being developed in the region and to give entrepreneurs and executives a chance to meet prospective users of their technologies, said Shayne F. Gilbert, president of Future Forward Events LLC, the conference's Boston-based organizer.

''It's a crossroads where new technologies meet their potential market," Gilbert said.

Fred Kocher of Portsmouth -- owner of Kocher & Co., a Portsmouth high-tech marketing business, and president of the New Hampshire High Technology Council -- said the conference is ''sort of what's new on the horizon in New England technology."

''The significance of this conference is that it brings together leaders of the high-technology community for all six New England states to focus on the newest and emerging technologies," said Kocher, an advisory board member of Future Forward. ''We're not talking about old technologies, but technologies that are barely emerging onto the scene. Technology's a fast-moving business, and the discoveries and pace of growth of some of these businesses is so much faster than the average business [that] it takes a lot to keep up."

The conference, which will feature an official welcome by Governor Craig Benson, is happening in New Hampshire because the state likes high-tech business, Gilbert said.

''New Hampshire is very receptive, and its economic infrastructure and tax base, lower housing costs, and lifestyle will continue to push companies out of the Boston area and up to New Hampshire," she said.

''New Hampshire's very attractive to small high-tech companies, because we have a very nurturing state," Kocher said. Launched in 1982, the New Hampshire High Technology Council now has about 220 members, a quarter of them on the Seacoast, he said.

Kocher acknowledges that New Hampshire and Massachusetts are economically ''joined at the hip."

''We have people in Massachusetts who work in New Hampshire, and people in New Hampshire who work in Massachusetts," he said. ''There's a lot of interplay, and the high-tech community in New Hampshire is very healthy."

The two-day conference, being held for the fourth year, is expected to bring about 150 corporate technology decision-makers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists to the Sheraton Harborside at 250 Market St., Portsmouth.

On hand, Gilbert said, will be representatives of large corporations such as Ree-bok International, Liberty Mutual Group, and PC Connection Inc., as well as the founders and executives of emerging technology companies such as PanGo Networks, a wireless infrastructure company based in Framingham, Mass., and Accentus, a maker of auditory display systems, based in Hanover, N.H.

Also on hand will be so-called venture capitalist angels like George McQuilken of Portsmouth. McQuilken, an MIT-trained engineer, is chairman of the eCoast Technology Roundtable and cofounder of the eCoast Angels Network, a four-year-old group that invests in early-stage companies. He will participate in a panel on how growing high-tech companies raise money.

''In America there are about 400,000 angels, and 14 people in our group are from the Seacoast," McQuilken said. ''Back at the turn of the [20th] century, angel was the term used for rich old gentlemen who backed Broadway musicals. . . . Now, some people picked up the term because we tend to risk and invest our own money to help early-stage companies."

While venture capitalists typically back 200 new emerging companies every year in this country, angels back thousands of them, McQuilken said.

''One of our goals is to attract capital and business entrepreneurship to our region," he said. ''The Seacoast and New Hampshire in general we believe are somewhat underserved by the venture capital firms in Boston."

McQuilken said the eCoast Technology Roundtable pushed for Future Forward to come to Portsmouth because it wants to promote a better business climate for technology for the Seacoast and attract new companies to the area.

''I believe our traditional industries are farming, fishing, fireworks, and firearms, so you'd better find some new industries, because the old ones aren't coming back," he said.

''Tattoos, lottery tickets, low-cost cigarettes, and low-cost liquor -- it's kept the state going for years," McQuilken said. ''But unless you attract a substantial number of industries to locate here, you're going to be a suburb of Boston."