In the October 27, 2000 Issue:

Copyright State Science & Technology Institute 2002. Information in this issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest was prepared under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration. Redistribution to all others interested in tech-based economic development is strongly encouraged — please cite the State Science & Technology Institute whenever portions are reproduced or redirected. Any opinions expressed in the Digest do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

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South Takes on Digital Divide
In an economy driven increasingly by computer literacy and connectivity, leading the nation in the percentage of households not connected to the Internet is a distinction many in the South are working to eliminate. One South, Digitally Divided, the second annual TelecomSouth conference of the Southern Technology Council (STC), and its accompanying report Creating the CyberSouth are efforts in that direction.

Creating the CyberSouth, prepared for STC by the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, presents a discussion of the implications of the Digital Divide, statistics revealing the extent of the Divide in each of fourteen southern states, and examples of the programs and actions underway in several southern states to address the inequalities. Thirteen of the 14 Southern states were below the national average for the percentage of households with home computers in 1998.

Virginia Polytechnic found all of the Southern Growth members are responding in one way or another to the challenge of the Divide. For example, all 13 states and Puerto Rico have been actively working to close the gap between the access of public school students to computers and the Internet in affluent, suburban districts and those in lower-income and rural communities. In addition, a number of southern states are developing virtual schools to expand program offerings to districts without the resources to provide them locally. Initiatives to strengthen and expand the information infrastructure were common across all the Southern states as well. Website and contact information is provided for the all of the programs and initiatives highlighted in the report.

One South, Digitally Divided, held October 1-3 in Roanoke, Virginia included several sessions on topics with potential application or replications across the country, including: Who’s Responsible? Three Perspectives; The Activist State: States as Catalysts; Tackling the Training Issue; Creating and Sustaining State Telecommunications Plans; and, Funding Investments in Infrastructure.

The report and many conference presentations are available for download from the Southern Technology Council’s website: http://www.southern.org/main/digitaldivide/digidv1.html

Our thanks to STC Friday Fax editor Keecia James for alerting us of these resources.

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NASA Courts More University Involvement in R&D
After surpassing $1 billion in university-based R&D for the first time ever in FY 2000, and receiving a budget increase of $633 million for FY 2001, NASA has kicked off a major effort to further strengthen its relationship with universities and colleges. On October 19, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin and NASA Science Advisor General Spence Armstrong hosted a NASA/University Cyber-Conference laying out funding opportunities and technical research areas for universities to be more integral partners in NASA research and development programs.

In his opening remarks Administrator Goldin lamented the recent 6.5 percent and 2.0 percent decline in science and engineering (S&E) graduates, respectively, and the 15 percent drop in foreign-born Ph.D.s at the same time that the U.S. demand for scientists and engineers is projected to grow by 50 percent. The impact on the mission and activities of an agency like NASA, which is driven entirely by science and engineering, will be enormous if steps are not taken to address the trends, Goldin warned.

NASA recognizes the critical role universities and colleges must play to attract, educate, and train, the country’s future scientists and engineers, Goldin continued. Despite flat NASA budget levels in recent years, funding to universities has grown 35 percent since 1996.

General Armstrong also outlined several steps currently being taken to address university-identified barriers or obstacles to the NASA grants process. Issues related to shortening the review time, decreasing reporting requirements, and securing mult-year funding commitments were at the top of Armstrong’s list.

Several NASA offices made presentations outlining specific plans to increase NASA/university research and development partnerships. Offices included: Space Science, Earth Science, Biological and Physical Research, Human Exploration and Development of Space, and Aerospace Technology.

The entire 4-hour cyberconference can be viewed or heard at: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codea/codeac/WWW/academia/conferences.html

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Southern California Technology Innovation Index Released
With the goal of developing a common technology agenda among the region’s leaders, the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance (larta) has compiled its first regional innovation index benchmarking the area’s strengths and weaknesses in S&T. The Southern California Technology Innovation Index compares the five-county Los Angeles consolidated metropolitan statistical area with the California Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose), Austin, Texas, and Massachusetts. The San Diego and Santa Barbara metro areas are not included in the definition of Southern California.

The Index presents aggregated and standardized data for 20 indicators across three categories — economic vitality, innovation, and resources. Several areas of strength and others in need of improvement are identified in the process. For example:

The Southern California region has a total population 14 times larger than Austin and roughly 2.5 times the other two regions under consideration. Of the four regions, Southern California has the greatest real number of institutions of higher education and the most science and engineering students. Science and engineering students, however, comprise 2-3 times more of the residents in the other three regions as they do in Southern California.

While the Index does not present any concluding policy recommendations, discussions of the importance of each indicator and Southern California’s comparative performance are included. larta plans to prepare the index annually.

Copies of the Southern California Technology Innovation Index can be downloaded from http://www.larta.org

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Economic Indices on a Global Scale
This year’s Global Competitiveness Report 2000, released in September by the World Economic Forum, marks a significant departure from earlier editions by its level of sophistication in addressing the increasingly global nature of the economies of the Forum’s 59 member nations. While past reports have relied on one index providing a snapshot of a country’s economic performance, two indices are used to measure productivity and advances in the standard of living over different time horizons. A third index is introduced this year to measure the role of technology and innovation in a country’s economy while a fourth index is added to reflect the environmental sustainability of nation’s economic growth.

The United States replaced Singapore for top ranking among countries in a Growth Competitiveness Index developed by Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner of Harvard University. The index is designed to capture the ability for a country to achieve rapid economic growth over a long-period. Countries scoring high on economic indicators shown empirically to be related to cross-country growth rates are deemed competitive through the index.

Michael Porter, also of Harvard, developed the report’s Current Competitiveness Index, which is a measure of each countries ability to achieve high current productivity. Finland held top honors in the Current Competitiveness Index, while the U.S. took second place, followed by Germany.

The Economic Creativity Index, developed by Warner, assumes there are several paths to economic growth including one in which a nation is a center of innovation and another strategy that facilitates technology transfer and rapid diffusion of innovation. The index also takes into account the business climate in terms of accessability to venture capital and absence of administrative barriers. According to the World Economic Forum, the new index is an attempt to bring together under one measure several important aspects of innovation, technology transfer and diffusion. The United States ranked first, as an innovator, in comparison with countries good at adopting or importing technologies. Finland claimed second, followed by Singapore.

Also new this year is the Environmental Regulatory Regime Index. Developed by Porter and Daniel E. Esty of Yale University, this index attempts to understand the links between environmental regulation, sustainability and economic competitiveness. Finland, Norway and Switzerland finished in the top three places on this new index. The United States finished a distant ninth.

The Global Competitiveness Report 2000 includes profiles of each country, summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of each nation’s economy as well as data acquired through an Executive Opinion Survey conducted in conjunction with the report. To order the book, visit http://www.weforum.org

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NASA Awards $120 million for Promising R&D Projects
From a pool of more than 1200 applications, NASA has selected 111 projects across 30 states to receive funding through the Cross-Enterprise Technology Development (CETD) program. Designed to support one-to-three year research projects with high payoff technologies to revolutionize future space-flight systems, the $120 million CETD program is a primary method for identifying and developing revolutionary space technologies to stimulate new concepts for missions not yet conceived.

Forty-nine percent of the awards were made to universities. The balance of projects will be conducted by industry, and private and government laboratories. The list of selected proposals is available on the Internet at http://www.aero-space.nasa.gov/programs/xenterprise.htm

More information about the CETD program is available at: http://cetdp.jpl.nasa.gov/

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