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.

In signing his state's fiscal year 2003-04 budget on August 2, California Governor Gray Davis shaved General Fund expenditures by $7 billion in an effort to address a $38.2 billion budget shortfall. Among those cuts was funding for the California Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency (TTCA), the state's principal catalyst for innovation, investment and economic opportunity.

TOP Reauthorized and To Grow, Says Senate Commerce Committee

Joint Venture: Silicon Valley has named Russell Hancock as its new president and CEO.

What policies, investments and programs would be most effective for communities trying to attract, retain or build a local pharmaceutical industry? Research parks? Tax incentives? Biotech seed capital funds?

Duane Roth is the new executive director of UCSD CONNECT. Roth was CEO of Alliance Pharmaceuticals in San Diego.

While the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have voiced caution and funded efforts to understand the potential societal and environmental implications of nanotechnology deployment, both agencies announced much larger funding commitments - totaling $213 million - to expedite commercial applications for the explosive field.

Nanotech Solutions for Cancer

During the states' fiscal crisis, a number of TBED programs were eliminated, while others survived. SSTI staff spent a fair amount of time analyzing what the survivors had in common, and we boiled the results down to three items that successful TBED programs have in common. While it may seem simplistic, the three commonalities are:

More than half since recession "officially" ended

There is little comforting news in a new statistical report for workers in the U.S. information and communication technologies (ICT) sector. Researchers from the University of Illinois-Chicago found the sector lost 403,300 jobs between March 2001 and April 2004.

As part of a new initiative to address pressing ethical, legal and social questions raised by recent advances in genetic and genomic research, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) has awarded approximately $20 million in grants to fund interdisciplinary centers within universities around the country over the next five years. NHGRI is one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP), a nonprofit economic development organization based in Philadelphia, seeks someone to serve as director of its investment and entrepreneurial services. Established in 1982, BFTP exists to stimulate economic growth through innovation, entrepreneurship and the development and adoption of new technologies.

The discounts ending this week on registration and accommodations for SSTI's annual conference will pay for much, if not all, of your round trip airfare to Philadelphia, so we encourage you to act soon on both. Or you can use the savings toward having one of your colleagues attend as well!

A two-year grant from the Pennsylvania Dept. of Community and Economic Development enabled Lehigh University to announce last week the appointments of Glenn Doell and Graham Mitchell to serve respectively as director of the office of technology transfer and director of the entrepreneurship program.

New York City Launches Second Biotech Incubator Companies wanting to commercialize new technologies can now bring their companies to Brooklyn, with the June opening of a new technology incubator located near Downstate University's biochemistry department.

Travel and training dollars are limited for most tech-based economic development programs. For many states, these are the first budget items frozen in a cutback. As a result, you need to get the most bang for each dollar spent on professional development for each staff member.

Few of us would consider one piece of a jigsaw puzzle to be sufficient for comprehending the whole picture. Similarly, a state or regional strategy to develop a knowledge-based economy is not complete with just one element of a complete portfolio to nurture science, technology and entrepreneurship.

Florence Mendelson has resigned as president and CEO of Pittsburgh-based Innovation Works. She will remain in her position through the end of the year, helping to identify her successor and implement plans for fiscal year 2005.

One word sums up today's efforts to build tech-based economies: challenging. A restructuring manufacturing base, revolutionary scientific breakthroughs, China and Inda heralding a truly global economy, and tight budgets have left many states and communities simply reacting to change or waiting for better times.

In the coming weeks, many Digest readers will receive the 24-page full color brochure in the mail. If you can't wait until then or want to make sure you get a copy, a PDF version is available for download on our conference website: http://www.ssti.org/conference04.htm [expired]

Slate of 30 breakout sessions SSTI's largest offering yet

The agenda is packed. Packed with great breakout session topics and engaging presenters. With as many as 30 breakout sessions, this year's conference offers something for everyone. The session titles are provided below. Brief descriptions of each topic are presented in the brochure and will be available our conference website:

Teri Ooms is the first director of the new Joint Urban Studies Center in Wilkes Barre, Penn.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has announced the top 10 U.S. universities receiving the most patents during calendar year 2003. The University of California tops the list for the tenth consecutive year.

Victor Hwang has been promoted to the position of president at Larta.