Innovators from Microsoft and Intel will be in Dahlonega on Wednesday at a conference aimed at stimulating economic growth in North Georgia.

Gov. Nathan Deal will present the keynote address at the 2011 Economic Development Summit being held at North Georgia College & State University.

Ruben Boling, director of the school's Center for the Future of North Georgia, said the full-day event will center on using technology to spur development.

"What we're aiming to explore in the summit is how technology and economic development come together and how they work together to create jobs and to improve the economy in the region," he said.

The event is a partnership between the college's Mike Cottrell School of Business and the North Georgia Network, among other sponsors. Boling said about 250 people are expected to attend.

The morning sessions will focus on growth at existing businesses and will include a demonstration by Microsoft on how its Cloud platform can be used to develop a customer relationship management strategy. Another speaker will explain the basics of fiber optics, Boling said.

"We're also going to have someone there from Intel to talk about the whole idea of how we can access applications and information that are not right on our computer anymore," he said. "We're going to have availability of information any time, any place."

The afternoon session, with presentations by the CEO of the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative and the senior vice president of the National Data Center Group, will be geared toward economic development professionals and focus on recruiting technology-based companies to North Georgia.

"We'll be talking a lot about data centers and how they impact a region and what they're looking for to locate in that region," Boling said.

Boling said the school hopes to hold this summit annually.

"Economic development now is more of a regional effort, and if one area benefits the whole area benefits," he said. "And so I think as we work together and work as a region, we'll see the strength be highlighted even greater than it is on a local level."

The summit is being held in connection with the North Georgia Network project, which intends to improve broadband service in the region by laying a 260-mile fiber optic ring. The project would make broadband available to 42,000 households and 9,200 businesses in North Georgia.