Tthe five winners of the 2001 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation's premier award for performance excellence and quality achievement, include, for the first time, three winners in the education category: 

University of Buffalo Entrepreneurial Awards 

An in-depth look at the one-year success of a student company to win last year's first Panasci Entrepreneurial Awards at the University of Buffalo recently was highlighted in the Buffalo News. 

"If technology is at the core of the Innovation Economy, then investment in research and development is one of the principal drivers in the creation of that technology."

Alaska 

With the emphasis many state and local tech-based economic development organizations have placed on biotechnology over the past 12-18 months, few are far enough along in implementing their strategies to point to more than a handful of successes or new construction projects. The recent explosion in public investment of resources and policies toward developing local biotech capacity is largely based on the promise of anticipated economic gains in the near or not-so-near future. 

Editor's Note: The fifth installment in our review of the Governors' inaugural addresses, state of the state addresses, and budget messages for 2001. The first four articles in the series were over the past four weeks. Those issues of the SSTI Weekly Digest and all other previous editions are available on our website: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/2001/headlines01.htm

There is so much happening in state and local tech-based economic development across the country that we’re adding a new Digest feature: the Regional Roundup. Our goal is to provide 1-2 sentence coverage of news stories, reports and resources demonstrating the variety of activities underway to build a stronger tech-based economy. Of course, whenever possible, we’ll include a link or contact for more information.

It is widely argued in the tech-based economic development community that New Economy businesses, specifically computers and information technology, account for the tremendous economic growth of the last half of the 1990s. But does the data support this?

Many tech-based economic development programs recognize the importance of having seed and venture capital accessible to their start up tech firms and entrepreneurs. Some practitioners, though, see a challenge in encouraging equity investment in more conservative, risk adverse regions and localities. The dot-com “correction” of last year probably did not help.

Editor’s Note: During the next few weeks, nearly every Governor will present a State of the State and/or budget address outlining new initiatives or priorities for the upcoming year. In the past, SSTI has compiled excerpts relevant to tech-based economic development for publication. This year we will highlight significant proposals in the SSTI Weekly Digest and provide links to the actual speech, related background, press releases, etc.

"High paying jobs in growth areas are critically needed to offset the decline in wealth and employment from Alaska's North Slope. These new jobs require technical innovation, capital, management, and trained workers."

Mark Robinson resigned as chief operating officer of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council to join the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.