SSTI Digest

In the global competition to create the best markets for entrepreneurs, Hong Kong moved up from second place in 2005 to reclaim the top spot, according to the Milken Institute's 2006 Capital Access Index. Hong Kong was first in the 2004 edition of the index. 

 

In 2006, Singapore rose from third to second place. The United Kingdom, ranking first in 2005, slipped back to third for the 2006 rankings, while the U.S. dropped from fourth to fifth because of an increase in the lending rate.

 

The big story is Canada, which rose from 10th place in 2005 to fourth on the latest index and shows the most improvement in scores for alternative sources of capital (moving from 30th place to 15th) and access to international capital (from 40th place to 18th).

 

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently announced the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) will conduct a new competition in fiscal year 2007 for cost-shared awards to support high-risk industrial R&D.



The ATP provides brief support to single companies or to industry-led joint ventures to accelerate the development of innovative technologies for broad national benefit through partnership with the private sector. ATP projects are selected in a competitive, peer-reviewed process.



Further details will be available when the competition is formally announced in the Federal Register this spring. Proposals will not be accepted before that time. Notices containing specific information, such as anticipated funding, eligibility criteria and proposal deadlines, also will be posted to www.atp.nist.gov and www.grants.gov.

Whether you call it an incubator, accelerator, technology center or innovation zone, most communities actively engaged in promoting tech entrepreneurship can point to a building or group of buildings that houses some of those efforts. These facilities increase the success of budding tech firms by providing some combination of low-cost space, shared resources, business assistance, intellectual property assistance, and access to capital. 

 

For incubators alone, the National Business Incubation Association tallied more than 1,400 public and private facilities as of October, 2006.

 

And each month there are more announcements of construction of a new center or expansion of an existing effort. Here are just four recent examples of the cornerstone of many TBED strategies:

When it comes to new firm survival in the service sector, do regions that have above-average high school dropout rates fare worse than regions with higher percentages of their adult populations earning college degrees? The answer, according to a recent discussion paper by Zoltan Acs, Catherine Armington, and Ting Zhang, is it depends.

 

In The Determinants of New-firm Survival across Regional Economies, the authors find, that regardless of whether the economy is in recession or growth, the higher a region’s high school dropout rates, the lower its new-firm survival rate in the service sector. [Note: High school dropouts are such a drain on state and regional economies, in fact, that many states are raising the legal age from 16 to 18 before a student can excuse himself from school permanently. For example, several governors used their State of the State Addresses this year to call for the change.]

 

This week's issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest exposes just the tip of the iceberg of information available on entrepreneurship. That's where the TBED Resource Center comes in handy. The TBED Resource Center, developed by SSTI in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Commerce's Office of Technology Policy, is an interactive website providing a wealth of information for practitioners, policymakers, university faculty, and researchers alike. With links to more than 4,500 reports, the website features information in a variety of TBED-critical topics in the U.S. and abroad.



More than 290 reports can be found on the TBED Resource Center when the topic entrepreneurship is selected.  



SSTI staff selections include:

Nineteen states that applied for assistance under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program in fiscal year 2005 saw an award-to-proposal conversion rate greater than the national average of 16.4 percent. Of those states, five experienced rates of greater than 20 percent ­- Nebraska (29%), Maine (27.3%), District of Columbia (25%), Montana (21.8%), and Washington (20%).



The top 10 states with the most awards in FY 2005 were California (816), Massachusetts (508), Virginia (242), Colorado (205), Maryland (204), Texas (198), Ohio (191), New York (186), Pennsylvania (176) and Michigan (111).

 

With Entrepreneurship Week, you and your colleagues may be more inspired to take steps to encourage entrepreneurship. But where to begin? What approaches should you consider? Or perhaps you are having problems developing an entrepreneurial culture?



Wouldn't it be great if there was one guide that you could turn to that captures the wisdom and experience of more than 50 experienced practitioners? One publication that would describe more than 14 ways that are being used across the country to encourage entrepreneurship? One publication that offers these suggestions from one seasoned practitioner:

The Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD) is seeking a director to run its Innovation and Technology Office. The director is responsible for implementing and expanding a statewide technology and innovation-based economic development program that encompasses a full range of sales, marketing, business recruitment, business development, community development and public relations activities. A bachelor's degree in the life sciences, engineering or a closely related field is required; a master's degree in these fields is preferred. A full description of this opportunity and others is available through the SSTI Job Corner at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.