With assets totalling more than $15 billion, the Indiana Public Employees Retirement Fund (PERF) has decided to place $100 million into higher-risk equity placements through its first Indiana Investment Fund. The fund will exclusively target venture capital deals within Indiana, according to the PERF news release. Like pension funds in many states, PERF has a requirement to place a certain percentage of its assets in private equity. The PERF goal is 5 percent and includes real estate deals as well.

Kevin Holmes returned to his alma mater, Santa Clara University, to join the Leavey School of Business as executive director of its Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE).

Bruce Kidd is the first director of entrepreneurship for the Indiana Economic Development Corp.

A concentrated effort to support the Sacramento region's many green tech entrepreneurs could lead to Silicon Valley-style success in clean energy technology (CET), says a new report from the McClellan Technology Incubator and the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance (SARTA).

One of the latest big-ticket investments targeting stem cell research came from Ann Arbor last week as the University of Michigan committed $10.5 million of its internal resources to establish an interdisciplinary center for stem cell research. The announcement is one of dozens from around the country since California voters approved Proposition 71 in 2004, borrowing $3 billion over 10 years for stem cell research.

David Goodrich announced he will leave his position as CEO of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership at the end of the year.

In the Dec. 19, 2005 issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest, an editor's note highlighted the mega-investments several states are making to establish themselves as significant players in key research areas.

The Indiana Health Industry Forum announced James "Mike" Brooks accepted the position of president and CEO effective July 11.

Purdue University professor Jerry Woodall was chosen to lead the university's Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship.

California leads the world in biotech research today and likely will continue to dominate in the years to come according to The Dynamics of California's Biotechnology Industry, a new report from the Public Policy Institute of California. The report concludes that California retains a sharp biotech edge, despite reports of firms leaving the state or establishing plants elsewhere.

John Hanak is the new director of the Purdue Technology Center of Northwest Indiana.

A child born in the U.S. today who obtains a master's degree directly after college and high school will have been in the job market for only 1-2 years in 2030. Many people in the tech-based economic development community want that girl or boy to study math, science or engineering. A more basic question, though, is where will that child live as a young adult?

The majority of an anonymous gift of $26.5 million to the University of Southern California (USC) will be used to increase the representation of women in the hard sciences and engineering faculty and encourage middle school girls to choose a science pathway in education. Money also will be used to create new faculty positions in the sciences, upgrade laboratories, increase scholarship aid for undergraduates, create new fellowships for graduates and fund child care.

With the goal of developing a common technology agenda among the region’s leaders, the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance (larta) has compiled its first regional innovation index benchmarking the area’s strengths and weaknesses in S&T. The Southern California Technology Innovation Index compares the five-county Los Angeles consolidated metropolitan statistical area with the California Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose), Austin, Texas, and Massachusetts.

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.

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: