Mark your calendar for Oct. 21-23 to attend SSTI's 13th annual conference Seize The Moment in Overland Park, Kansas! Past attendees know SSTI's conference is the premiere professional development event for the TBED community. And 2009 will be no exception.

The Piedmont Triad Research Park laid off Bill Dean, director of the park, and Nancy Johnson, marketing director. Park officials said that the park's project manager and executive assistant also were laid off.

The circumstances leading to SSTI's 13th Annual Conference make this year's event critical. We encourage you to join us in Overland Park, Kansas October 21 - 23, 2009 to Seize the Moment. As you scan the conference website, you'll discover we're putting together our most complete and complex conference yet.

Connecticut's General Assembly approved a biennial budget that includes major increases for science and technology research and education at the University of Connecticut and a boost in funding for the state's others higher education institutions. The $44 billion budget also includes continued funding for the state's economic development programs.

W. Steven Burke is the new president of Biofuels Center of North Carolina.

For nearly every budget issue SSTI has prepared during the first decade of the 21st century, our opening paragraphs read like obituaries. The previous administration was ideologically opposed to the government taking an active role to support economic development, even tech-based economic development, beyond increases for university and federally based research. Spending for federal programs that support regional community and economic growth were slashed repeatedly.

J. Mike Books is leaving his post with the Indiana Health Industry Forum to become the first economic development director for the city of Columbia, Missouri. He also will serve as president of the Regional Economic Development Inc. Brooks will assume his new responsibilities on July 15.

Tech entrepreneurs in Kansas would lose a long-time independent friend and ally in their efforts to expand the state's economy if the FY10 budget proposed by Gov.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius delivered her State of the State Address last week proposing new initiatives and continued funding for several TBED programs emphasizing education and innovation as key to the state’s future economy.

Complete descriptions of these opportunities and others are available at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.

Complete descriptions of these opportunities and others are available at: http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.

Technology-focused incubators are an important component to fostering entrepreneurial development in a region by nurturing businesses in the earliest stages of development and helping them grow into larger companies that employ high-wage workers and bring new technologies to the market. The following select announcements provide an overview of new incubators from across the nation, illustrating the vital role of entrepreneurial development in growing high-tech regional economies.

Four recipients selected as best practice models in technology-based economic development were honored during an awards ceremony last week in Cleveland during SSTI's 12th Annual Conference. The awards follow a national competition emphasizing impact and replicability in approaches to building and sustaining tech-based economies.

Elaine Pullen resigned as chairman of Connecticut Innovations to focus on her consulting business.