More than 70 participants from central Arkansas gathered on Saturday, June 26, at UALR for the first BarCamp in the area since 2008.

Participants heard talks on a variety of topics from mobile game development to massive online open courses to startup fundraising.

Among the participants were nine Engineering and Information Technology SUPER (Summer Undergraduate Program of Entrepreneurship and Research) Scholars from UALR and other universities across the state.

BarCamp, an ad-hoc “unconference” that originated in San Francisco years ago, was developed by advocates of open environment learning. The informal event is usually filled with intense discussions, demos, and plenty of attendee interaction.

BarCamps could become a key brainstorming opportunity for Arkansans interested in collaborating on entrepreneurship and technology, according to Jordan Carlisle of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce.

One of the SUPER scholars, Josiah Brann, 20, a computer science major at UALR, helped coordinate the event.

In addition to UALR and the Chamber of Commerce, other event sponsors included Innovation Hub, AVC, Retrocat, Create Reason, and Innovate Arkansas.