The first two installments of SSTI's annual look at how TBED will play in the 2005 legislative priorities of the governors can be found in the Digest archives on our website: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/digest.htm

Indiana

The Board of Directors of BioCrossroads, Indiana's life sciences initiative, announced David Johnson would succeed Charles Schalliol as CEO.

Public policies should seek ways to promote entrepreneurship in order to boost economic growth, according to a review of existing research by David Audretsch of Indiana University.

The Purdue Research Foundation has appointed Robert J. Wichlinski as executive director of the new Purdue Technology Center of Northwest Indiana and Kathy DeGuilio-Fox as the center’s business development manager.

The pace for new advances in science and technology has quickened significantly over the past 10 years -- so much so that companies are challenged to stay current with the latest innovations. Entire new fields such as nanotechnology are being created while products introduced this week may be obsolete before the year is out.

Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan has named David Dorff as the state's first director for the new Office of Small Business Advocacy.

Brian Mefford will assume the position of president and CEO of Kentucky's Center for Information Technology Enterprise.

Advocates for deregulating Kentucky's broadband industry argued doing so would result in increased rural access to high speed Internet services. They'll have the chance to prove it with Gov. Ernie Fletcher's signature this week on deregulation legislation, HB 627.

Elizabeth Gatewood has been named director of Wake Forest University's new Office of Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts. At Indiana University, Gatewood was the Jack M. Chair of Entrepreneurship and the director of the Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Linda Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the Center for Information Technology Enterprise, has announced she will be leaving the position this fall to return to her academic career at Western Kentucky University.

Indiana Gov.-elect Mitch Daniels recently named Michael "Mickey" Maurer as president of the Indiana Economic Development Corp.

Indiana Gov.-elect Mitch Daniels has named Chuck Schalliol as his budget director. Schalliol had been on loan from Eli Lilly and Co. since April to serve as president and CEO of Central Indiana's BioCrossroads.

Going into yesterday's elections, it was clear at least five states would have freshmen governors as three incumbents chose not to run for re-election and two incumbents lost their parties’ nominations to seek new terms. The five states were Missouri, Montana, Utah, Washington and West Virginia.

According to Gov. Ernie Fletcher, Kentucky is on the wrong side of a widening digital divide as the Commonwealth ranks 44th in its proportion of high-tech companies, 45th in household computer use, and 43rd in citizen Internet use. To help improve these figures, the governor has called for a broadband deployment and adoption plan that will leverage state, federal and private investment to have full, statewide broadband deployment by 2007.

The Alaska MEP, a new nonprofit entity formed by the Alaska Native Arts Foundation and the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation, has named Robert Pope as the first Interim Director.

Effective Jan. 1, Donald Kuratko will be executive director for Indiana University's Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Kuratko is currently runs Ball State University's entrepreneurship program.

Karl Koehler is returning to the Indiana 21st Century Research and Technology Fund to serve as its director.

TechPoint, Indiana's statewide technology council, has named Cameron Carter to serve as president and chief executive officer.

Congratulations to Del Schuh and his staff at the Indiana Business Modernization and Technology Corp. (BMT), honored as the Project of the Year in the Economic Development category from the National Association of Management and Technical Assistance Centers. The award, BMT's second in as many years from the group, was for a program entitled, "Moving from Distress to Commerce through Collaboration."

The first director for the new Indiana Venture Center will be Steve Beck.