Robin Schabes, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's special assistant for technology, has announced her resignation. Schabes staffed the Mayor's Council on Technology Advisors.

Tucked in the fine print of Illinois' budget bills was language to merge seven financing agencies, according to the June 11 edition of The Bond Buyer. Among the agencies included in the merger are the Illinois Development Finance Authority, the Illinois Research Park Authority (inactive), the Illinois Community Development Authority and the Illinois Rural Bond Bank.

The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education recently released The Rising Price of Higher Education, which documents the rising costs of public education in the U.S. Using the data found in the report, SSTI has constructed a 50-state table presenting a comparison of the cost of tuition and fees at 2- and 4-year public institutions in 2001-02 vs 2002-03.

Several recent project announcements highlight communities using incubators and research parks, some of the tools for technology-based economic development, in specialized formats to capitalize on existing strengths and nurture additional growth of clusters of related tech firms. Such targeted approaches can help to focus other TBED activities for additional benefits.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has nominated Jack Lavin to run the newly named Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. The agency was formerly called the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs. Lavin was chief financial officer for Rezco Enterprises.

No region of the world encapsulates the aspirations of many metro and regional technology-based economic development programs as Silicon Valley, particularly to the benefits of having a cluster of technology companies feeding off of each other to the mutual benefit of all. The Valley was the global tech leader during the heyday of the IT boom, but is undergoing a tremendous structural shift since the dot-com bubble burst.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has appointed Julie Curry as deputy chief of staff for economic development and labor.

Midwest Angel Network Association Launched in Illinois

Central California's Regional Technology Alliance has changed its name to the Inland Empire techSOURCE.

Annually, SSTI looks at the various addresses given by the nation's governors at the beginning of the year. Over the next several weeks, the SSTI Weekly Digest will profile the excerpts concerning programs, policies and issues immediately affecting the tech-based economic development community.

Richard C. Atkinson, the president of the University of California system since 1995, will receive the prestigious 2003 Vannevar Bush Award from the National Science Foundation for lifetime contributions to the nation in science and technology.

Nonprofits looking for financial assistance, technology assistance or assistance in general may not need to look much further than one browser window. Two online resources, TechSoup and Gifts In Kind, offer a wide variety of tools that can help nonprofit organizations stretch tight budgets.

Perhaps in no other sector are efforts to grow an industry so dependent on a strong public-private partnership as they are for biotech and the life sciences. Most of the research funding for the field flows from the government to universities and research institutions. Industry then steps up for clinical studies and commercialization.