[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13352]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     FIDELITY INFORMATION SYSTEMS TO LAUNCH VC FINTECH ACCELERATOR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Arkansas (Mr. Hill) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the important 
collaboration that is taking place in central Arkansas.
  The Venture Center in downtown Little Rock has been working with the 
publicly traded financial services company, Fidelity Information 
Systems, or FIS, to launch the VC FinTech Accelerator, a program that 
will bring innovators and entrepreneurs from across the world to Little 
Rock, where they will have formation opportunities for their early-
stage organizations. They will work through a curriculum designed to 
engender creativity, development, and potential.
  Through this program, we are able to invest in the future of our 
State and ensure that our economy and our business environment in 
central Arkansas will continue to thrive and expand.
  I recently had the opportunity to visit The Venture Center with the 
gentlewoman from Missouri, Representative Ann Wagner, and was impressed 
with the success of the center's accelerator program. It is providing a 
12-week rigorous program to assist FinTech startups, providing them 
with quality business development services. Ten FinTech companies were 
chosen to participate in this first accelerator program, and it will 
relaunch in 2017.
  This FinTech sandbox is producing transformational opportunities for 
both FIS, the innovative entrepreneurs in Little Rock, and for future 
consumers of these services. While this exciting program has only been 
active for a short time, it is already proving that it has the ability 
to assist in our efforts to grow the technology economy across our 
region.
  Little Rock's storied history and the evolution of FIS makes it a 
perfect site for this accelerator. I greatly appreciate the choice of 
Little Rock as the location to implement this source of future economic 
growth.
  I am grateful for the farsighted leadership at FIS, our chamber of 
commerce leadership team, and all those involved in making this program 
a success for central Arkansas.

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