In This Week's Issue
SSTI News and Analysis
New Efforts in AZ, TX Take Different Approaches for
Increasing STEM Grads
With the goal of integrating STEM learning into schools and
strengthening teacher effectiveness in STEM areas, Science
Foundation Arizona (SFAz) is launching the Arizona STEM Network,
which will be implemented over the next five years in school
districts throughout the state. In Texas, officials are counting on
a new $30 million fund to produce more STEM graduates by recruiting
top-notch research faculty to the University of Houston (UH).
The Arizona STEM Network builds on Gov. Jan
Brewer's plan for STEM education announced in
2010. SFAz will serve as the operational management hub to provide
focus, commitment and structure to achieve the goals outlined in
the implementation plan. Four strategic concentrations will guide
the work of the STEM Network over the next five years. These
include:
- Integrating STEM into schools and districts by working
with the governor's office, Department of
Education and county superintendents to extend STEM expertise
through Regional Education Service Centers.
- Predictive analysis and measurement of outcomes by
developing and deploying performance-based analytics and a
technology infrastructure to collect, analyze and disseminate
program metrics throughout the network.
- Strengthening teacher effectiveness by identifying
project-based STEM teaching models, engaging teachers and students
in STEM career exploration and professional development, and
supporting research and teaching faculty at Arizona higher
education institutions to develop innovative, content-focused STEM
education courses for new teachers.
- Creating meaningful business engagement opportunities by
designing activities for STEM advocates to mentor teachers, host
field trips, or contribute to curriculum development.
The network is supported primarily through a private foundation,
Freeport-McMoRan, Cooper & Gold, which provided $2.2 million to
establish the STEM initiative. The foundation announced a new
three-year commitment beginning in 2012 totaling $2.1 million for
operational funding that will allow SFAz to roll out its new plan.
Read the announcement: http://sfaz.org/live/collection/news-stories/114310.
A new initiative in Texas is aiming for the same goal of
producing more graduates in STEM fields, but efforts will be
focused on faculty recruitment with hopes of attracting
high-achieving students. Over the next two years, the University of
Houston (UH) will hire 60 new faculty members in STEM fields with
help from a new $30 million fund. The fund will provide startup
incentive packages to attract some of the
nation's most talented research faculty in the
fields of science, technology, education and mathematics, according
to a press release. The initiative is part of the
university's efforts to secure Tier 1 status.
Read more: http://www.uh.edu/news-events/stories/2012/february/0228STEM.php.
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U.S. Treasury Announces $3.6B in Awards for Distressed
Communities
The U.S. Department of Treasury recently announced the selection
of 70 organizations from around the country to receive a total of
$3.6 billion in New Markets Tax Credits awards. The awards may be
used to provide individual and corporate taxpayers with a credit
against federal income taxes for making equity investments in
community development entities. Read the complete list of
awardees...
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State of Michigan Establishes New Tech Transfer Network Led
by University of Michigan
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation announced the Tech
Transfer Talent Network — a new $2.6 million
initiative to increase the supply of seasoned entrepreneurs and
innovators who can lend their expertise to member
universities' tech transfer offices. The
University of Michigan's (U-M) tech transfer
office will lead the seven-university network and share its tech
transfer resources with member institutions. In addition to U-M,
the members are: Wayne State University, Michigan State University,
Michigan Technological University, Western Michigan University,
Grand Valley State University and Oakland University.
The Tech Transfer Talent Network's primary
purpose is to increase the supply of seasoned entrepreneurs and
innovators who can lend their expertise to university tech transfer
offices. The state hopes these connections will serve as important
bridges to launch technology-based startups or license university
inventions to established companies. U-M will help other
universities implement some of its
"talent-related initiatives"
including:
- The Catalyst database — to identify and
track experienced entrepreneurs who are willing to serve as
experts, mentors, consultants or co-founders;
- The Mentors-in-Residence program — to
attract experienced entrepreneurs to serve 12- to 18-month
rotations in the university's tech transfer
office, helping to assess new opportunities and mentor new startup
ventures;
- The Tech Transfer Fellows program — to
employ graduate students or other qualified personnel to help
assess technology and analyze markets for tech transfer
opportunities; and,
- A postdoctoral fellowship program — to
encourage graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to work
with a newly licensed business or a new startup venture.
Each university also will collaborate with its regional economic
development organization to promote increased access to mentors and
partnering businesses. Read the
release...
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Chicago Economic Plan Emphasizes Advanced
Manufacturing
This week Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel released the first draft of
a long-term plan for the city's economic growth
and job creation. The plan provides ten over-arching strategies to
guide Chicago's economic development efforts,
the first of which is a focus on advanced manufacturing. The plan also
calls on the city to support entrepreneurship and innovation in
emerging technology sectors. Read the full announcement...
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Pair of Reports Outline Actions for States to Accelerate
Entrepreneurship
By reducing legal and regulatory barriers to startups, states
can harness the power to encourage the formation and growth of new
companies, find two recent reports from the Kauffman Foundation.
The reports were issued in conjunction with
Kaufmann's third annual State
of the Entrepreneurship address and call for state level
initiatives and policy recommendations that have shown preliminary
success but have yet to be widely adopted.
In Startup Act for the States, several proposals are put
forth to act as a "menu of
initiatives" at the state level, which policymakers can
evaluate and adapt according to their needs. Ideas are organized by
stage of the entrepreneurial process, which include encouraging the
launch of new businesses, measures to facilitate the launch of new
ventures, and nurturing the growth of new
businesses.
To help expand the supply of entrepreneurs, the report
encourages state governments either directly or through their
influence over state regents who oversee universities to improve
the process of technology commercialization. States should
encourage universities to adopt standardized license agreements for
spinoff companies and experiment with the free agency model of
licensing, according to the report. Other recommendations include
promoting and encouraging experiential entrepreneurship education
at all levels of higher education. Successful models have taken
inspiration from for-profit startup accelerators like YCombinator
and TechStars, the report finds.
Reducing the administrative burdens of starting and closing
businesses and creating
"one-stop-shops" is urged for states
to facilitate business entry. Additionally, states can permit
digital firm formation to bring down the cost of
entrepreneurs' interaction with the legal
dimensions of business creation.
Other ideas for states include funding apprenticeship programs
and creating a culture receptive to entrepreneurs by branding
itself as immigrant-friendly.
The report is available at: http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedfiles/soe_address_2012.pdf.
The second report, A License to Grow: Ending State, Local,
and Some Federal Barriers to Innovation and Growth in Key Sectors
of the U.S. Economy, identifies barriers that prevent
disruptive innovations by entrepreneurs and discusses approaches
for overcoming some of the challenges. The report identifies
several areas in which excess cost and barriers to innovation are
created through regulation. These include legal services, health
services, drug approval and liability, education, and finance. Such
regulation can obstruct professional licensing and liability, which
in turn, affects businesses and restricts innovation, the report
finds.
Two alternative approaches to speed up the dismantling of state
rules that limit entrepreneurial activity focused on the federal
level are identified within the report. One idea is to enable
manufacturers to choose between regulation and tort liability. For
example, a manufacturer that bypasses the FDA approval process
would be subject to state tort liability and required to disclose
the lack of FDA approval to consumers, which the authors say could
give innovative drugs an additional path to market. Federal
chartering also is discussed as an approach to put competitive
pressure on strict state regulation.
The report is available at: http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedfiles/a_license_to_grow.pdf.
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Lack of Government Support Hurts U.S. Clean Tech Industry,
According to Report
Countries that put significant resources into
supporting clean tech innovation are rewarded with more emerging
and commercialized clean tech companies, according to
Coming Clean: The Global Cleantech Innovation Index
2012 — a new report from the Clean Tech Group, LCC. The U.S.
placed fifth out of 38 countries, with the top score for several
indicators including research and development funding, general
innovation drivers (i.e., Entrepreneurial culture and
"general innovation inputs") and
strong emerging clean tech innovation. However, in comparison to
other top performers, the lack of strong government policies in
support of clean tech hurt the overall health of the sector in the
United States. Other indicators that the U.S. performed poorly in
were renewable energy consumption and clean tech company
revenues.
Denmark ranked first due to its unique combination of a
supportive environment for innovative clean tech startups, evidence
of those startups emerging as well as a strong track record of
companies commercializing their clean tech innovations and
widespread market adoption. Israel (2nd),
Sweden(3rd) and Finland (4th) rounded out the
top five due to support supportive environment and high
concentration of new clean tech companies. However, due to their
relative size they lack the ability to scale-up these
companies.
Although China and India placed 13th and 12th respectively, they
"stand out as having a strong potential to rise
through the ranks in the coming years." In particular,
China leads in clean tech manufacturing, is strong in early stage
growth and shows potential to produce more early stage innovation
in the future.
The Clean Tech Group developed the index comprised of 15
indicators related to the creation and commercialization of clean
tech startups to measure the relative potential of each country to
produce entrepreneurial clean tech startup companies and
commercialize clean technology innovations over the next 10 years.
The 15 indicators were divided between Inputs to Innovation
(general innovation drivers and clean tech- specific innovation
drivers) and Outputs of Innovation (evidence of emerging clean tech
innovation and evidence of commercialized clean tech innovation).
Read the report...
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U.S. Clean Tech Investment Held Steady in 2011
U.S. venture firms invested $4.9 billion in clean tech companies
last year, nearly the same as in 2010, according to a year-end
report from Ernst & Young. Approximately 57 percent of all
clean tech investment was directed toward California companies. The
overall cleantech market was bolstered by five IPOs and 79
M&As. Read the release...
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Staff Picks
States May Divert Some Mortgage Settlement Money for Other
Priorities
In addition to helping homeowners, some states are looking to
offset steep cuts in programs and services made over the past few
years with the money they will receive under the settlement.
Read more ...
Census Bureau Reports More Americans are College Grads than
Ever Before
More than 30 percent of adults age 25 or older have at least a
bachelor's degree and more than one-third hold a
degree in a science or engineering field.
Read more ...
IBM Education Model Blends High School, College,
Career
The company outlines how Chicago and other cities successfully can
implement six-year schools, allowing students to
graduate with an associate's degree.
Read more ...
Innovation Campuses Exploding in the Midwest
Inside HigherEd finds many of the new campuses involving
partnerships with public colleges and private corporations share
the same goal of cohabitating academics and industry with hopes for
increased tech commercialization and new jobs.
Read more ...
Cincinnati Accelerator Seeks to Develop Commercialization
Strategy
The University of Cincinnati and the Midwest EB5 Regional Center are
partnering to establish a technology commercialization accelerator.
Gap funding or pre-seed awards will be available for promising
ideas.
Read more ...
Maryland Entrepreneurs Resource List Helps Startups Find
Executives
Startup companies seeking entrepreneurs available to take on
management roles pro bono have a new resource through the Maryland
Technology Development Corporation.
Read more ...
South Carolinians Still Eager to Invest in Startups
The 2012 Industry Partnership Fund reached its maximum of state
tax-creditable contributions ($6 million) two months earlier than
last year with 248 individuals and companies donating. Funds
support SCLaunch, which invests in high-tech startups.
Read more ...
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