(Cincinnati, OH -- 05/15/1996) -- Steve Forbes encouraged business executives to embrace technology as an economic accelerator in his opening address at today's FutureFocus '96.

"The microchip is extending the reach of the human brain the way machines extended the reach of human muscle in the last century," he said. "The same thing will be happening with this new era. It will make us all smarter, enrich us all and increase our standard of living."

Presented annually by marketing communications firm Hensley Segal Rentschler, FutureFocus is an exclusive, by-invitation-only, half-day briefing on emerging trends and issues of importance in the field of marketing communications.

In keeping with his presidential primary campaign issues of reducing government intervention in business affairs, the former candidate presented technology as a liberating force.

"The wonderful thing about this new era is that it fits like a glove with the basic American characteristic of individualism," he said. "In the machine age, there was a centralizing dynamic. You had big companies, big cities, big unions and big government. This new era is the opposite. It's Jeffersonian in its context: anti-hierarchical, anti-authoritarian and puts the power back with the people."

Forbes also encouraged less government regulation in the telecommunications industry to free companies to expand services in areas previously off-limits. The result will be more choices for faster transmission of information, he predicts.

Forbes' free-market, technology-focused ideals have been long admired by the event's organizers.

"Steve Forbes is one of the people we respect most in all of the world," said Hensley Segal Rentschler managing director Richard A. Segal Jr. "He is an articulate champion of the free market ideals which we embrace so passionately. He shares with us a belief that there's good reason to be optimistic about the future, and it is an honor to have him take the stage at FutureFocus '96."

Forbes assumed his current position with Forbes Inc. in February 1990. Since that time, the corporation has launched two Forbes magazine supplements, Forbes FYI and Forbes ASAP. Forbes Inc. also publishes Forbes Media Critic, a quarterly magazine that provides commentary on news reporting methods and ideologies.

At Princeton University, Forbes was the founding editor of Business Today, which became the country's largest magazine published by students for students, with a circulation of 200,000. The magazine continues to be published today by Princeton undergraduates.

Forbes is currently on the board of trustees of Princeton University, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

Keynoting this year's FutureFocus is futurist Stan Davis, author of FuturePerfect and 2020 Vision. Past FutureFocus keynote speakers included Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT's Media Lab, and digital revolution expert George Gilder, author of Life After Television and Spirit of Enterprise.

FutureFocus '96 is a qualified attendance event limited to Hensley Segal Rentschler clients and the CEOs and senior management and marketing executives of other corporations.