SSTI Digest

James A. Anderson, the founder and CEO of Detroit-based retail consulting firm Urban Science, and his wife donated $25 million last week to support the entrepreneurial efforts of Wayne State University’s engineering and computer science faculty and students. The donation will establish The James and Patricia Anderson Engineering Ventures Institute, embedded within the university’s College of Engineering, a center to encourage faculty to commercialize new technologies, secure patents, and establish startup companies, while also providing mentors to young entrepreneurs and teaching best practices in innovation, tech transfer, and commercialization. Crain’s Detroit Business also reports the grant will fund five endowed chairs and several graduate scholarships, with an office set to be open and staffed by the end of the year. The family’s gift is part of Wayne State University’s Pivotal Moments fundraising campaign, which has now received more than half of its $750 million goal amount.

Earlier this summer, President Obama announced that his administration would be taking executive action to reform immigration policy, working to improve the entirety of the immigration system by tweaking individual components. This week, at a startup incubator in Los Angeles, the President revealed at least one of those components: the H1B system. As part of his remarks at a town hall meeting on innovation, the president declared his intentions to make the H1B system more efficient so that it encourages more people to stay in the United States. Capped at 65,000 visas for private-sector workers each year, the H1B (H-1B) visa program is the main visa used to bring high-skilled, foreign-born, talent into the United States.

Australian Minster Tony Abbott announced a $400 million AUD (approximately $352M USD) national Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda focused on building the country’s innovation economy, supporting apprenticeship and workforce programs that address the needs of industry, and promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.  The centerpiece of the agenda is a $188 million AUD (approximately $165.5M USD) initiative to create industry growth centers in five sectors: food and agribusiness; mining equipment, technology and services; oil, gas and energy resources; medical technologies and pharmaceuticals and advanced manufacturing services. These industry-led centers would provide funding and technical assistance to support the commercialization of products developed via university-industry partnerships. The government also calls for immigration reforms that ease English language and skills requirements to attract more skilled workers.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a coalition of Chicago organizations and private businesses have announced plans to place at least 1,000 workers in manufacturing jobs. The mayor’s 2015 budget proposal, presented this week, includes $200,000 for the effort, with another $750,000 in funds and in-kind contributions from partners. Recent growth in the region’s manufacturing sector has created an urgent need for workers with specific training and apprenticeships, according to the mayor’s announcement. Existing training programs would be leveraged to train participating workers and six local organizations have been tapped to aid in jobs placements. Learn more…

The U.S. Department of Commerce has released the names of the 27 individuals who will serve as the initial members of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE). NACIE, which will begin work in December, will advise the secretary of Commerce on transformational policies to help communities, businesses and the American workforce become more globally competitive. Subcommittees will explore the council’s three main focus areas: entrepreneurship, innovation and job-driven skills training. The list of council members includes representatives from the private, nonprofit and academic sectors, including several organizations involved in state and regional technology-based economic development. Read the announcement…

North Carolina’s new Economic Development Partnership began operations this week. The public-private partnership will assume many of the economic development operations of the state’s Department of Commerce (as described in an earlier Digest article), with most of its 34 staff members previously working for the department, according to the News & Observer. The partnership will help firms gain access to the state’s research, technology and academic resources, though the NC Office of Science, Technology and Innovation, which administers a number of innovation-focused programs, remains under the Department of Commerce. Learn more…

If a concentration of highly skilled workers is an important leading indicator to more widespread economic growth, which regions are leading the way? Using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to compare the educational attainment rates of the nation’s largest labor forces from 2005 to 2013, authors from the Cleveland State University Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs determine where America’s highest-skilled jobs are clustering. In ranking the percentage of labor force with a graduate or professional degree in 2013, the list of top five regions is perhaps unsurprising: Washington, D.C., San Jose, Boston, San Francisco, and New York – considered first-tier metros by nearly all accounts. In assessing the percent point change between the percentage of workers with an advanced degree in 2005 and in 2013, however, “second-tier” metros begin to emerge as leaders.

The Department of Defense’s (DOD) SBIR program is meeting three of its four legislative/mission-related goals, according to new study from the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies – SBIR at the Department of Defense. Those four congressional objectives of the DOD SBIR program are to:

• Stimulate technological innovation;
• Use small businesses to meet federal R&D needs;
• Foster and encourage the participation of socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses; and,
• Increase the private sector commercialization of innovations derived from federal R&D.

While DOD SBIR-funded projects are commercializing at a substantial rate, aligned with the DOD needs, and developing innovative technologies, the DOD has failed to increase the involvement of woman- and minority-owned small businesses in its SBIR program.

In celebration of National Manufacturing Day, the Obama Administration announced it will release a new competition to award more than $100 million to launch a new Institute for Manufacturing Innovation (IMI) focused on Integrated Photonics. The proposed Integrated Photonics Institute will assist in developing an end-to-end photonics ‘ecosystem’ in the U.S. and support research and development efforts across the country on domestic foundry access, integrated design tools, automated packaging, assembly and test, and workforce development in the research area related to photonics. Administered by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the formal request for proposal (RFP) should be released in early November.

Each year, the first Friday in October marks Manufacturing Day, a quasi-holiday where manufacturers nationwide open their doors to host open houses, tours, workshops, and other events to educate the public on the current state of American manufacturing. Although the phrase “American manufacturing” may conjure up images of oversized equipment or Rust Belt decay, the industry is, by many accounts, thriving. One of the highlights of this year’s Manufacturing Day was Jay Williams, the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development’s announcement of a nearly $1.9 million EDA grant to Wichita State University in South Kansas to support advanced manufacturing, fueling the creation of 500 jobs and providing competitive advantage to the region’s transportation equipment manufacturing industry.

After decades of seeing their suburbs thrive while their cores decayed, cities across the United States  are receiving a long overdue influx of talent and capital in what Alan Ehrenhalt describes as the “great inversion.” While a large proportion of wealth and population in many regions still lives in the suburbs, trends are shifting, and it’s not just anecdotal. Although the transformation of blighted buildings, the development of new rentals, and the appearance of boutiques and cafes littering sidewalks garners the most attention, there is a quantitative component as well.

The U.S. Small Business Administration has announced four new Regional Innovation Clusters that will be included among its portfolio of high-performing regional networks. Awardee clusters will receive $500,000-$550,000 for mentoring, counseling, pitch development and other small business support programs. The new members of SBA’s cluster portfolio include Milwaukee’s Water Technology Cluster, Southeastern New Mexico’s Autonomous and Unmanned Systems Cluster, a Retail, Supply Chain and Food Processing Cluster spanning the Ozarks region and a Marine Industries Cluster in several Gulf Coast states.