A community essentially has two options for strategies to diversify its economic base: traditional economic development or technology-based economic development (TBED). The traditional approach of recruiting or inducing companies to relocate to their community from elsewhere creates an atmosphere of competition, rivalry and one-upmanship among cities and regions as they bid to buy firms' location decisions. Often, it is also difficult for small and mid-sized communities to compete on these terms.

Former Massachusetts State Senator Peter Larkin is the senior vice president and chief operating officer for the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council.

The challenge for industry, academic leaders and policymakers in Massachusetts over the next few years is to translate the competitive strengths of the state's economy into new companies and new jobs, the ninth annual Index of the Massachusetts Innovation Economy indicates.

Robert Chernow was appointed to the newly created position of vice provost for entrepreneurship at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

New York's lead agency for promoting tech-based economic development (TBED) in the state soon will have a new name, if not a complete makeover. Under enacted budget legislation, the New York Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR) will become the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation by Jan. 1, 2006.

As expected, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney rejected last week Senate Bill 2039, the bill supporting stem cell research. Exercising a power not enjoyed by all governors, Gov. Romney sent the measure back to the legislature with four amendments for consideration, rather than vetoing the measure.

New York's Empire Zones Program dodged a veto from Gov. George Pataki as an agreement was met with the legislature to restructure the program. The state budget, signed into law last week, extends the program and allows for an additional 12 zones to be created throughout the state.

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney promoted Renee Fry to serve as director of the Department of Business and Technology, the state agency tasked with retaining and attracting jobs and steering economic policy throughout the Commonwealth.

Craig Watters is serving as interim director of the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship at Syracuse University. Past director Nola Miyasaki has relocated to Hawaii to join a biotech company.

Sometimes a little money is all that may be required to discover that an innovation in the lab is worth millions in the marketplace. At least that's the goal of a small grant program launched this afternoon by the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center (MTTC). The MTTC Tech Commercialization Awards will provide $5,000 mini-grants for technology assessments and investigations by academic and industrial researchers within the Commonwealth.

George "Mick" Stadler is the new CEO for the incubator at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Michael Tentnowski is the new director of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Incubator.

Policymakers and practitioners continually seek new ideas to integrate into their overall TBED strategies in order to capitalize on innovative approaches and remain a competitive force in the global marketplace. Over the last few months, two new concepts in TBED aimed at supporting higher education have surfaced in New York and Wisconsin with two distinct goals: achieving the status of a world-renowned research capital and increasing college graduates to raise per capita income.

 

Jeffrey Boyce was named the assistant vice president of the Research Foundation of the State University of New York. Boyce had been the deputy commissioner for manufacturing services at Empire State Development.