A month after a federal court ruled that high-speed Internet service can be defined as a utility, four states have announced commitments to expand high quality, reliable broadband services to rural areas and other underrepresented groups. Two Midwest states, Wisconsin and Minnesota, will provide funding to help support projects that improve access to broadband and spur economic prosperity.

Students at several California community colleges as well as California State University (CSU) campuses have access to a new incentive to graduate in four years through new state “promise” programs.  Gov. Jerry Brown Jr. signed SB 412 and AB 1741 creating “promise” programs that act in conjunction with a new 2025 Graduation Initiative, aiming to boost the number of students graduating from those institutions in four years to 40 percent. Success in the programs is intended to help address future workforce needs of California and improve achievement gaps.

Venture development organizations are reaching into new territory for funding partners and finding success in innovative models. Two new funds, the San Diego Tech & Life Science Investor Syndicate and Rev1 Fund I in Columbus, OH, have recently opened with less traditional funding sources, testing the waters of crowdfunding and heavy corporate backing, respectively. The San Diego fund, launched by CONNECT, allows anyone wanting to invest $1,000 the opportunity to participate alongside more experienced lead investors.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced a number of grants last week to aid regional innovation and entrepreneurship efforts through infrastructure improvements, the creation of new spaces, and business improvements in regions across the country. The grants fund projects in AR, AZ, CA, ME, MI, and OH.

The nation’s largest system of higher education with over 2 million students is trying to connect community colleges to their regional economies through a three-year, $17-million-dollar investment to establish a statewide network of maker-focused colleges. The California Community College (CCC) Maker Initiative may provide a model for community colleges to infuse making, innovation, and entrepreneurship into students’ college experiences while helping them prepare for STEM/STEAM careers with the necessary skills for 21st Century jobs.

After training nearly 80 PhD scientists and engineers in the craft of policy making, the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) has awarded planning grants to nine other states to evaluate the potential to create a policy fellowship for scientists and engineers in their state capital. The new one-year grant, which is administered by CCST and funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Simons Foundation, will support teams in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington as they work on feasibility studies and other strategic steps toward creating science fellowships in their state policy arenas.

California’s efforts to grow the role of its community colleges (CCs) was reinforced with the governor’s recent budget request to establish a fully online public community college, while a report reviewing the state’s established pilot program to offer baccalaureate degrees at some CCs presented some serious questions.

California online community college proposed

SSTI’s Tech Talkin’ Govs feature continues as governors across the country roll out their state of the state addresses. We review each speech for comments relevant to the innovation economy, and bring you their words directly from their addresses. In this fourth installment, we present excerpts from governors in California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Dakota, South Carolina and Wisconsin.

A bipartisan group of 17 governors signed the Governors’ Accord for a New Energy Future – a joint commitment to support the deployment of renewable, cleaner and more efficient energy technologies and other solutions to make the U.S. economy more productive and resilient as well as spur job creation in member states.

State economic growth relies on the availability of a workforce capable of filling open positions. But increasingly around the country, one of the top concerns of employers is finding the right talent to fill these roles. Beyond corporate strategies in hiring, states are increasingly developing new initiatives to keep their pipeline of talent flowing.

Addressing accessibility, affordability and ensuring workforce preparedness topped legislators’ agendas in many states during the 2014 sessions. States and regions are increasingly competing for talent as the trend toward growing and nurturing innovation ecosystems continues.

Breaking a two-year impasse, legislators in Illinois were able to pass a state budget that reinstitutes an R&D tax credit and implements workforce development programs. In California, the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (Go-Biz) will see a 28 percent increase in funding, while other innovation initiative are receiving level funding. In other states whose budgets SSTI analyzed this week for TBED-related funding, we found that Innovate Mississippi was able to maintain state funding and new funding was appropriated for workforce development at the state’s community and junior colleges; a variety of programs were cut in North Carolina; and, Ohio will not get funding for a state office focused on commercializing research across key industries that the governor had proposed. More findings from California, Illinois, Mississippi, North Carolina and Ohio are detailed below.

SSTI has reviewed another mix of state budgets as governors across the country continue to release their proposals. Some states, like California and North Dakota, are seeing cuts in the amount of money designated for TBED-related work, while others like Minnesota are in a more favorable fiscal situation and continue to fund such initiatives. Still others, like Rhode Island, are proposing new initiatives.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is exploring options for its future as funding provided through its bond issue dwindles.

The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana metropolitan area is home to the largest number of manufacturing jobs in the country, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Approximately 510,900 people are employed by manufacturing firms in the Los Angeles metro, about 100,000 more than in the Chicago-Joliet-Naperville area, which is ranked second for manufacturing employment. Other top metros include New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington.

Within the past month, two of America’s major research universities – the University of California system (first in total R&D expenditures, according to the NSF) and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (eleventh in total R&D expenditures) announced new funds to increase the rate at which their students, faculties, and researchers are able to commercialize their ideas into new businesses.

On September 28, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 850 into law, which establishes a pilot-program that will allow 15 of the state’s community colleges to launch low-cost bachelor’s degree programs in vocational fields of high demand by state industries.

On the heels of a recent memo from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) highlighting the difficulty middle-skill workers are having finding a route into the modern economy, reports from two tech hotspots suggest that local action is needed to ensure that tech success translates into widespread economic prosperity.

Due to the effectiveness of employer-sponsored training program, U.S. states are working to build partnerships with industry partners that leverage public resources to help develop a 21st century workforce that addresses specific industry needs. Over the last month, partnerships have been announced between states and key industry leaders including AGCO, CVS, Tesla, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. Some of those collaborations are detailed below.

Over the last several years, universities have been forced to reimagine ways that they engage with alumni beyond the traditional method of fundraising via alumni donations. These universities and their alumni associations want to increase alumni involvement and facilitate interactions between their high-achieving alumni, faculty, and students. Over this same time span, many universities have increased the size and scope of their entrepreneurship curricula and degree programs.