This is your opportunity to shine in the spotlight! By hosting SSTI’s 14th Annual Conference in 2010, you can increase your national and international visibility by showcasing the success of your state and/or community’s tech-based economic development efforts to thousands of TBED professionals.

Responding to a statewide economic downturn, Gov. Ted Strickland announced two major TBED initiatives, injecting more than $1 billion into job creation and offering a free year of tuition at Ohio public universities for high school seniors.

 

According to the latest stats on venture capital investments, half of all U.S. VC investment during the last quarter of 2006 supported companies in two small areas of the country: Silicon Valley and New England (primarily the Boston metro area). With the exception of only a handful of other large metro areas and, since the origin of the modern venture capital industry some 25 years ago, most other cities have struggled to attract the attention of venture capitalists.

It is the opening day of AUTM’s 2007 annual conference in San Francisco, the largest gathering ever of individuals from around the world interested in university technology transfer.

A gala held last weekend at Google headquarters in California officially kicked off a $50 million fundraising campaign for the X Prize Foundation, which provides funds for the development of new prizes. The prizes are designed to support breakthroughs for specific challenges in medicine, energy production and consumption, education, and transportation.

Membership in SSTI allows access to the most extensive network of current and past practitioners, academics and policymakers who are attempting to speed commercialization and encourage innovation.

Joining SSTI places your organization with today’s TBED leaders. SSTI connects you to active members in 46 states, Puerto Rico and Canada, enabling you to share experiences and best practices with your peers from across the continent.

The following recently became SSTI affiliates or supporters:

Coming a little late in the year to be included among our Tech Talkin’ Govs series (see Digest issues for Jan. 8, 15 and 29 and Feb. 19), Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland delivered his first State of the State Address on Mar. 14. Below are excerpts from his address calling for a $1 billion investment in alternative and renewable energy technologies over four years.

 

SSTI serves as the TBED community’s go-to resource and strategic partner when dealing with TBED issues. SSTI’s unique ability to address the information needs of its members comes from the fact that SSTI’s staff and board have been “in the trenches” of technology-based economic development. SSTI’s president, vice president and board members, including former Governors John Engler of Michigan and Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, have more than two decades’ of direct policy development and service delivery experience.

Diffusion of effort can be a great thing in fostering local or regional economic development because there are so many fronts on which the battle must be fought: workforce; business retention and recruitment; entrepreneurship; infrastructure; investing; and, science and technology addressing the needs of different sectors such as manufacturing, retail, service, financial or information technology.

240 events already posted on SSTI's web calendar

Although only a few events remain for 2003, SSTI's web calendar of science and technology (S&T) items has brief descriptions and contact links for 240 regional or national conferences, meetings and workshops planned for 2004.

Although only a few events remain for 2002, SSTI's web calendar of S&T items has brief descriptions and contact links for more than 120 regional or national conferences, meetings and workshops planned for 2003.

The Angel Capital Electronic Network (ACE-Net) will be privatized by September 1, 2000. The Internet-based listing service for growing companies and angel investors has been run by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced that his proposed budget for 2007-08 will include a $95 million initiative to support new and existing facilities for high-tech research. The California Research and Innovation Initiative would provide funding to several university-based projects around the state hosting clean energy, biotechnology, and nanotechnology research and commercialization activities. Gov.

Ohio Department of Development Director Bruce Johnson has been sworn in as the state's lieutenant governor. Johnson is expected to serve both positions for the balance of Gov. Bob Taft's term.

NBIA Releases Revised Business Incubation Guide

Michael DeAloia has been named tech czar for the City of Cleveland.

Real estate developer Robert Klein II was selected as chairman of California's stem cell oversight committee.

One of the biggest obstacles for products drawing on alternative energy is finding a market big enough to bring the cost down of their new technologies to attract the larger more risk-adverse population of consumers. Californians are stepping up to the challenge after committing to invest nearly $3 billion over the next 10 years to aid in the shift to cleaner power.

The University of California (UC) is demonstrating success in several key areas under a compact designed to facilitate timely graduation. Findings of the first annual report reveal the university is achieving success in degree production in high priority areas for the state, effective community college transfer, and transfer of research innovations to the marketplace, according to the UC press office.

Foundations and philanthropists are playing increasingly important financial roles for many academic and regional technology-based economic development (TBED) efforts. The latest issue of Philanthropy News Digest, the weekly electronic newsletter of the FoundationCenter, highlights three recent announcements that provide examples of the size, scope and opportunity presented by these types of awards. The announcements are summarized below.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest federal funding source for life sciences research conducted by small tech firms, has selected the Larta Institute to manage its nationwide Commercialization Assistance Program. The multi-year $2.5 million award will target Phase II recipients of the NIH Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Programs (SBIR/STTR).

There are less than 100 of our readers - now approaching a total of 100,000 - that may be able to look into their electronic mailboxes and even eight-year-old paper files to see that this issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest is our 400th. What began in March 1996 as a two-page weekly fax to key science and technology leaders in most states has evolved into the one of the most widely read e-news sources for the tech-based economic development community in the U.S.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) launched last month a $17.2 million national Biotechnology Worker Training Initiative in support of the President’s High Growth Job Training Initiative.

“This $17.2 million in training funds will recruit and train workers for jobs in the biotechnology field, which is expected to be one of the fastest growing sectors by 2012,” said Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao.

The U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) recently released reports making recommendations to address the challenges faced by the manufacturing industry. One of the recommendations in the NAPA report suggests creating a strategic plan that articulates the "next generation" of the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP).