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OAK RIDGE — The Tennessee Valley Corridor’s annual National Technology Summit reconvenes next week for the first time since the regional economic development effort first began there in 1995.

The two-day technology event will be held Wednesday and Thursday at the Y-12 National Security Complex New Hope Center in Oak Ridge.

Featured speakers during the event include corridor founder and host U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, who chairs the U.S. House Science and Technology Committee, U.S. Reps. Lincoln Davis and Phil Roe from Tennessee, as well as U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith from North Alabama.

Summit sessions and roundtable panels during the event will be devoted to new missions and opportunities for Oak Ridge and the Corridor; energy innovation in areas such as solar, nuclear and fuel cells; and how to best advance entrepreneurship and regional economic development in the region.

The upcoming Summit in Oak Ridge is the 21st in a series of such events that have strategically linked the technology-rich Tennessee Valley Corridor — from North Alabama through Tennessee into Southwest Virginia, Western North Carolina and Southern and Eastern Kentucky.

The Tennessee Valley Corridor has built on numerous regional assets including NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal, the U.S. Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Center, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the National Transportation Research Center, the Center for Rural Development, the National Safe Skies Alliance, several world-class research universities and dozens of corporate leaders in science and technology.

The organization has helped showcase the region’s superior quality of life and the people, business, natural and scientific resources needed for high-tech research, development, business and investment in the 21st Century.