Due to the Christmas and New Year's Day holidays, the next issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest will be published during the week of Jan. 8, 2007. Publication of the Funding Supplement also will resume in January, following this week's issue (Dec. 18, due out by Thursday).

To help entrepreneurs start and manage businesses, the Kauffman Foundation recently launched Kauffman eVenturing™ ( www.eVenturing.org).

Steven Weathers is the new president and CEO of the Regional Growth Partnership in Toledo, Ohio.

The University of Toledo and its partners are seeking a director for the Toledo Science and Technology Corridor. The Corridor is an initiative to enhance the region's innovation-based economy through investments that promote linkages and collaboration among academic institutions, business industries and government entities.

The University of Cincinnati has appointed Anne Chasser to serve as associate vice president for technology transfer and commercialization in the school's Office of Research.

The Kauffman Foundation recently launched "Giving Back to Entrepreneurship," a website dedicated to informing entrepreneurs how they can use their energy and creativity to support their communities and help jumpstart the next generation of entrepreneurs.

By nature, angel investing is a risky endeavor. Angels are often involved with unproven seed- and early-stage companies and are frequently the first outside investors to become involved in a new venture. Despite these risks, a report released by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Angel Capital Education Foundation argues that angel investors working through investor groups often achieve attractive returns.

So far this year, SSTI's Funding Supplement has made its subscribers aware of more than 1,400 different opportunities to secure funding. If you aren't a subscriber, your client companies, academic researchers, and state and local TBED efforts are at a significant disadvantage!

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

Pat Snider, the first CEO for BioGenerator in St. Louis, announced her departure from the two-year-old organization by the end of the year.

Following defeat at the polls two years ago, Ohio's state legislature has agreed nearly unanimously to again have voters decide on whether or not the state can issue bonds in support of the final component of Gov. Bob Taft's tech-based economic development strategy -- Ohio's Third Frontier Initiative.

SSTI is proud to announce the addition of two new staff members to its team. Sheri Stickely will join SSTI on Aug. 15 as a Vice President. Sheri is leaving the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Technology (OCAST) to join SSTI. She has served most recently as Interim Executive Director and has been with OCAST since its inception in 1987.

Ed Morrison, formerly with the Weatherhead School of Management in Cleveland, opened the Institute for Open Source Economic Development. He will continue to maintain the EDPro weblog.

A ballot initiative designed to bolster the Ohio economy and create jobs by continuing the state’s public works infrastructure program and supporting the commercialization of science and technology-based research was announced last week by Gov. Bob Taft and other legislative leaders. The initiative, to appear on the Nov.

Randa Hayes is the new director of the business development and trade division of the Missouri Department of Economic Development.

Designed to ease the transaction burden on university technology transfer offices and encourage more open and efficient access to research, the Kauffman Foundation recently unveiled iBridge, a web-based platform under the Kauffman Innovation Network.

Between 1996 and 2004, an average 0.36 percent of the U.S. population created a new business each month, representing approximately 500,000 new businesses per month, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.

John Gardner has been named the first vice president for research and economic development for the University of Missouri system.

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

RiverVest Venture Partners, a life science venture capital firm headquartered in St. Louis, announced it will be opening an office at the BioEnterprise facility in Cleveland. The office will be managed by Karen Spilizewski, who is joining RiverVest on a part-time basis as a vice president on Jan. 1.