Your kids may not be bored of summer yet, but if you're an avid bird watcher, you know the season has already changed to fall as Yellow Warblers and several species of shorebirds begin their migrations south by July 4.

Terry Blum, dean of Georgia Tech's College of Management, will resign her position on June 30, 2006.

SSTI's annual conference is already considered by many to be the nation's premier educational and networking experience for the tech-based economic development community. However, the ninth annual conference to be held October 20-21, 2005 - keeping with years past - gives certified economic development professionals even more reason to attend.

A study suggests policies enacted in 1999 to encourage cooperative research, establish tech transfer structures and provide venture capital contributed to a dramatic shift in the biotech topography in France.

While many regions, states and countries are lamenting a drain of talent from their area, the Pakistan Higher Education Commission is taking an opposite strategy to strengthen the nation's science and research capacity: sending up to 15,000 of its brightest students to study selected disciplines abroad through its Foreign Ph.D. Scholarship Program.

In the opening ceremony of the 2005 FORTUNE Global Forum, held in Beijing on May 16, Chinese President Hu Jintao broadly outlined the course his country is taking to reach a goal of quadrupling its 2000 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by the year 2020. Science, technology and innovation figure prominently in the strategy.

The first conference mailer went to the post office yesterday, but we're too excited to delay announcing that the website for SSTI's 9th Annual Conference is now available to accept registrations and provide preliminary information for the tech-based economic development (TBED) community's premier professional development event of the year. The conference will be held on Oct.

Recognizing the economic benefits of engaging young people in science and technology, Ontario's McGuinty government recently launched the Youth Science and Technology Outreach Program. The new program links high school students with researchers to support in-depth mentorship experience and postsecondary career advice.

Do tax credits pave the way for more investment in R&D and equity investments in new enterprises? Or, do they reward companies and venture capitalists for investments they would have made anyway?

Discussions on these questions can become quite heated and fueled by data supportive of both sides, as two new academic analyses demonstrate.

There are several factors that go into location decisions for biomedical firms. Proximity to strong university research capacity, other biotech businesses, and technically competent workers are all important considerations. With the financial investments many states and localities are making toward the life sciences, however, the field of prospective locations for successfully launching a biotech firm has grown considerably larger than the "usual suspects."

The Georgia Department of Economic Development announced William Boone is the first director for the new Agricultural Center of Innovation.

Anne Wein is the new executive director of Southeast BIO, a nonprofit organization concentrating on the growth of the life sciences industry.

Conference Only seven days remain until the opening of SSTI's 9th Annual Conference in Atlanta. More than 330 of the nation's top thinkers and practitioners for the TBED community will convene at the InterContinental Hotel seeking guidance from their peers.

On Monday, Oct. 31, the Southern Growth Policies Board, the Southern Technology Council, Georgia Institute of Technology, the Council on Competitiveness and the Georgia Research Alliance will host a one-day Southern Technology Innovation Summit at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center in Atlanta.

Due to SSTI's annual conference being held in Atlanta next week, the next issues of the Digest and Funding Supplement are slated for Nov. 7, 2005.

To support innovation and technology with increased accessibility for small-and medium-sized firms, Canada's Minister of Industry, David Emerson, announced a new program that will replace Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC).

Drawing expertise from 53 speakers and panelists from 19 states, SSTI's 9th annual conference - to be held Oct. 19-21 in Atlanta - promises to provide its attendees unparalleled opportunity to learn about the latest and best thinking to encourage state and regional growth through tech-based economic development. Want proof?

Not too surprising. Put the premier professional development opportunity for the tech-based economic development community in a great city and you'll draw hundreds of participants from at least 45 states and several other countries. Offer conference attendees five-star accommodations at prices well below market and we've ended up with the largest room block yet for an SSTI annual conference.

Limited Seating Remaining in Three Preconference Sessions

For more information on the positions below, visit SSTI's online Job Corner at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.

The early bird registration and hotel room block for Investing in a Brighter Future: Building Tech-based Economies, SSTI's Ninth Annual Conference, ends on Tuesday, September 20.  To register for the conference, which is October 20 and 21, you can visit the conference website at http://www.ssti.org/conference05.htm and select the registration form.

Whether you use Outlook, Palm, Day-Timer, Filofax, or Post-Its to keep track of the items on your "To Do" list, make sure these two items on your lists to be wrapped up by next Tuesday, Sept. 20:

Georgia Tech announced that Dr. Jeffrey Skolnick will join its faculty this spring as the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Computational Systems Biology.

Only 13 days left to register early for SSTI's 9th Annual Conference!

Save $100 by Registering Before Sept. 20, 2005.

Many of the readers are new to the Digest since last year's conference, so we're getting questions about how SSTI's upcoming 9th annual conference, to be held in Atlanta on Oct. 19-21, differs from other events.

The easiest way to answer that is to let the conference speak for itself — through the comments we received from past participants: