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.

Gov. Jim Doyle signed the 2009-11 biennial budget last month, providing funding for university-based research and enhancing tax credits for angel and venture investors supporting high-tech R&D.

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.

Rebecca Blank, the acting U.S. secretary of Commerce, is expected to be the next chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The Board of Regents is scheduled to vote on the recommendation April 5.

London's Mayor Boris Johnson has announced an initiative to transform Olympic Park into a creative and digital business hub for the city. According to an article from startups.uk, the proposed redevelopment promises to boost the United Kingdom's (UK) GDP by $450 million ($692.5 million US) and create more than 6,500 new jobs.

London's Mayor Boris Johnson has announced an initiative to transform Olympic Park into a creative and digital business hub for the city. According to an article from startups.uk, the proposed redevelopment promises to boost the United Kingdom's (UK) GDP by $450 million ($692.5 million US) and create more than 6,500 new jobs.

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. Jim Doyle announced two new initiatives focusing on investments in manufacturing R&D and increasing angel and venture capital investment to grow new businesses.

 

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.

As many stories in this issue of the Digest point out, academic institutions serve a critical role in performing R&D for the nation’s innovation pipeline. While most of the attention of national policymakers is directed toward the size of federal and industrial investments in R&D, the burden of financing the infrastructure to support much of that research activity falls on states and institutions of higher education. And that burden has a steep price tag.

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.

John Hindman announced his resignation as secretary of the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development.

Governor Rick Perry recently announced Alan Kirchhoff of Austin has been promoted to director of Texas Emerging Technology Fund (TETF). Kirchhoff replaces longtime Perry advisor and former TETF director Mark Ellison, who left the Governor's Office to become associate vice chancellor of economic development for the Texas A&M University System beginning Oct. 1, 2008.

For several years governors across the country have announced life science and biotech initiatives that are as broad as they are large. The devil is in the details, and in most cases related to bio-based economic development, so are the opportunities.

Southern Growth hired Ted Abernathy, Jr., former Executive Vice President & COO of the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, to serve as its Executive Director, filling the vacancy created by Jim Clinton's resignation in September.

Colin Scanes is the new vice chancellor for research and economic development at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Scanes formerly was the chief economic development strategist at Mississippi State University.