SSTI Digest

Information, telecommunications and electricity provide the basic building blocks for all tech-based economic development - regardless of industry sector, research field or location. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the technology infrastructure for many of the state's emerging tech-firms has been dismantled. How do you restore efforts to build a tech-based economy when the fundamentals are destroyed overnight?

Mississippi Technology Alliance (MTA), the leading tech-based economic development organization for the state, quickly responded to the Hurricane's wrath by launching a TechFix Mississippi Program to help small Mississippi companies rebuild.

In its third special session of the year, Mississippi legislators passed House Bill 3, an economic development package of grants and loans for high-tech and existing industry, including Gov. Barbour’s Momentum Mississippi Initiative.

The new Vice President for Business Ventures at the Mississippi Technology Alliance is Jim Lowery.

University of Southern Mississippi Research Foundation President Angie Dvorak was named president of the Area Development Partnership. Dvorak currently serves on the organization’s executive committee.

Angie Dvorak, vice president of research and economic development for the University of Southern Mississippi, is becoming president of the university's research foundation.

As the nation's economy shifts to knowledge- and technology-based industries, Mississippi's colleges and universities must provide expertise and leadership to attract new jobs and build a stable state economy, members of a special committee told the state House of Representatives last week.

The state must quickly commit substantial resources to higher education to achieve the goal of making Mississippi competitive in the New Economy, the chairs of the McCoy Working Group said. The group – organized by state Reps. Billy McCoy, Steve Holland and Charles Young – was created by the Mississippi Legislature last spring to develop a 20-year strategy for investment in higher education. The group is co-chaired by University of Mississippi Chancellor Robert Khayat, Commissioner of Agriculture Lester Spell and Hinds Community College President Clyde Muse.

Leland Speed has been named the new executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority.

Andy Taggart has been appointed president and chief executive officer of the Mississippi Technology Alliance.

U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Thomas Q. Donaldson, V has been appointed Director of the John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC), effective Jan. 5, 2004.

Tony Jeff has been selected to serve as executive director of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Mississippi.

Tony Jeff is the new executive director of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Mississippi.

The Mississippi Technology Alliance has released a second annual index focusing on the process of innovation, the links between innovation and technology-based economic development, and activities that government, academia and the private sector provide to support innovation and economic development.

First published in January 2002, the Mississippi Innovation Index presents technology goals, targets and annual performance levels for Mississippi, using data from the Institutions of Higher Learning, the Mississippi Development Authority, the Mississippi Employment Security Commission, the Mississippi Tax Commission and other national databases. The 2003 index updates data for the most current years published by the agencies and the previous 3-5 years.