SSTI Digest

Donald Jakeway will be the new president and CEO for the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

Joseph James is the new chief operating officer for the South Carolina Department of Commerce.

The Florida Venture Forum named Robin Kovaleski as the first executive director for the organization.

Former U.S. Congresswoman Connie Morella has been sworn in as the US Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

SSTI extends its sympathies to the family of Indiana Governor Frank O'Bannon. During his interrupted term in office, Gov. O'Bannon proved to be a strong friend of tech-based economic development efforts in the state.

Approximately $350 million in grants recently awarded by one of the nation's leading biodefense research agencies are intended to lessen the effects of any future bioterror attack. Administered by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the funding will be spread over five years for establishing eight Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research (RCEs).

Each regional center, receiving between $40-50 million, consists of several partner institutions. The eight leads are Duke University, Harvard Medical School, the New York State Department of Health, the University of Chicago, the University of Maryland, the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, the University of Washington, and Washington University in St. Louis.

Specialization may be the key to successful economic development strategies based on the life sciences, suggests the September issue of the fedgazette, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. This month's entire e-zine focuses on two issues of importance to many state and local tech-based economic development professionals — biotechnology and clusters.

Because the intellectual capital of the anticipated biotech revolution is highly mobile and the spillovers of bioscience research tend to be localized and concentrated geographically, the broad-brush approaches adopted by many states to build a biotech sector are not likely to have the desired payoff, fedgazette editor Ronald Wirtz writes in the cover article.

The availability and use of equity capital for early-stage investments varies greatly across the country. Seen as an integral component of most tech-based economic development, access to venture capital (VC) is on the agendas of several states — but several different approaches are used to address the problem. Recent announcements in four states illustrate the point:

A new study examining the post-Sept. 11 economy of New York argues the city's traditional approach to economic development, one which has banked on a few favored sectors such as financial and business services, is outdated and should be reconceived.

Engine Failure, a report funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, states that many of New York's troubling trends predate the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Such trends – the FIRE (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) sector losing jobs and market share to the surrounding region and other major cities, among them – were only accelerated by the after-effects of the Sept. 11 attacks and gains in telecommunications technology. Thus, New York's normally reliable industries are expected to produce minimal employment growth in the coming years.

Nineteen projects figure to share in the $23 million awarded last week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) for biomass research, development and demonstration activities.

USDA and DOE selected the projects as part of a joint program to increase America’s energy independence through the development of additional renewable energy resources from the agricultural and agroforestry sectors. Biomass is defined as organic matter that is available on a renewable or recurring basis.

“The conversion of biomass into biobased products, fuels and energy offers significant benefits to the nation through healthier rural economies, improved environmental quality and improved energy independence,” Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said. “These grants will help develop additional renewable energy resources and expand markets for agricultural products.”

Two new grants, each greater than $1 million, have been awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the societal implications of nanotechnology — the emerging discipline that seeks to control and manipulate matter on a molecular scale. The grants are the largest awards the foundation has ever devoted exclusively to research in societal implications.

Nanotech has been considered by many in the tech-based economic development community to be a "transformative" technology, one that could change the way we live and work as profoundly as did the microchip or the automobile. To speed the development along, NSF and 16 other federal agencies are supporting a nearly $1 billion-a-year National Nanotechnology Initiative.

Tight budgets are causing many state and local tech-based economic development (TBED) programs to delay new initiatives, even forcing some to scale back on the services already provided. But mottos like "getting more bang for the buck" and "doing more with less" are fast becoming tired, transparent clichés.

Given the economic restructuring underway (economists call it a jobless recovery), some states are beginning to rethink their whole economic development portfolio. During the past few weeks, alone, governors have created new commissions, committees or advisory councils to explore ways to foster better times. Everything is on the table. Elected stakeholders, policy makers, program practitioners and clients must feel the investments made toward building more prosperous economies are the right ones for their community — and that they are paying off.