SSTI Digest

As the digital economy matures and more regions around the country are prepared to offer the telecommunications infrastructure and skilled workforce required to compete for high-tech businesses, the implications for Silicon Valley were presented in a new report from Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network. Internet Cluster Analysis 2000, released last week, outlines several challenges facing the region.

Unlike Joint Venture's first internet cluster analysis last year, which focused on Silicon Valley's position in the Internet economy as well as identifying other key Internet Cluster regions (Austin, Washington DC, Seattle), Internet Cluster Analysis 2000 characterizes the global nature of the Internet industry today and presents the results of interviews with more than 100 Internet executives around the country.

While the Development Report Card of the States, issued annually by the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CfED) usually generates a news story in most local papers, a quick scan of several articles reveals the science and technology-related components of the report card get mixed play. This year’s report, funded by the Economic Development Administration, is available on-line in its entirety and has a customizing feature for ease of comparison.

CfED uses more than 70 measures and data sets as indicators of the effectiveness of each state’s economic development policies in three broad categories: performance, business vitality and development capacity. Each category has a number of sub units, which in turn consist of several individual measures. S&T indicators and those more generally related to tech-based economic development are somewhat scattered throughout the report card.

In an effort to improve the image of technology professionals and encourage teens to prepare for technical careers, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Technology Policy (OTP) has kicked off Get Tech, a national awareness campaign directed at America’s youth. The campaign is designed to inspire teens to prepare for the technology-driven jobs of tomorrow.

A centerpiece of the campaign will be radio and television public service announcements (PSAs) urging teens to take advantage of the opportunities open to those proficient in math, science, and computers. In addition to PSAs, Get Tech has developed a web site, www.gettech.org, that provides students with information about the careers of the future along with other features.

As mentioned in the last week's SSTI Weekly Digest, access to capital is a challenge for women-owned businesses. Springboard 2000, one nationwide initiative to overcome that obstacle, in less than one year, has assisted women entrepreneurs in science and technology businesses to raise more than $235 million in venture funding. The investments have been raised directly as a result of two forums held this year in Redwood City, California and Dulles, Virginia.

Last Friday, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded 19 grants through the NIH Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Program to biomedical research institutions located in states that had not fully participated in NIH funding in the past. Created in 1993, the IDeA Program is designed to enhance biomedical research capacity building among academic institutions and research institutions within the eligible 23 states and Puerto Rico.

States eligible to apply for IDeA grants are those that received less than $70 million in NIH funding from 1994 to 1998 or had an NIH grant award success rate of less than 20 percent over that period. In 1998, investigators from the 23 eligible IDeA states and Puerto Rico accounted for only eight percent of the total number of research grant applications received by NIH.

Totaling approximately $165.5 million over five years, the new IDeA grants were made to:

During the past two weeks, the Milken Institute has issued two similar reports documenting the difficulties and successes minority- and women-owned business have accessing capital.

The Minority Business Challenge: Democratizing Capital for Emerging Domestic Markets presents new findings and several specific recommendations to sustain minority businesses growth. The findings include:

The National Science Foundation’s Division of Educational System Reform is funding cooperative agreements with 13 urban school districts: Birmingham, Chattanooga, Chicago, Fresno, Memphis, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, Newport News, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia to improve K-12 mathematics and technology education. The awards are aimed at districts that already have improvement programs in place. The funds will help them expand current programs in science, mathematics, and technology as well as initiate new activities so all students have access to the programs.

State science and technology initiatives have been given higher profile in California as the state's lead economic development department changes its name to the Technology, Trade, and Commerce Agency. The new Division of Science, Technology and Innovation, led by Deputy Secretary Joe Raguso, will oversee the state's tech-based economic development efforts. In addition to assuming the responsibilities of the Office of Strategic Technology, the new division will also be responsible for science and technology-based strategic planning, developing funding programs to address the state's digital divide issues, and managing the state's Small Business Development Center program. Two new advisory councils, the California Research and Development Council and the Small Business Competitiveness Council will be created to advise and assist the new division.

The Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are offering for license several government owned patents, inventions and a trademark. A description and contact information for each opportunity are posted on the following SSTI webpage: 

http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/101300t.htm