The White House announced plans to host its first ever Demo Day, a new initiative to empower a variety of entrepreneurs from around the country to launch and scale innovative companies. Unlike a private-sector demo day, where investors watch and react to the pitches of entrepreneurs, the White House Demo Day, to be held this summer, will highlight success stories from entrepreneurs across the country, with an emphasis on best practices for inclusive entrepreneurship.

The federal government should invest in strategic technologies and multi-agency initiatives to iincrease U.S. advanced manufacturing capabilities, according to a new report from the President’s Council of Advisors in Science and Technology. The Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) Steering Committee “2.0” is a cross-sector, national effort to secure US leadership in emerging technologies that create high-quality manufacturing jobs and enhance the nation’s competitiveness.

President Obama announced  the creation of the new Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (Smart MII) – a $140 million public-private partnership to develop smart sensors for use in advanced manufacturing. Headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC) – a consortium of nearly 200 partners from academia and industry as well as nonprofit organizations – will lead the Smart MII.

This week, the White House is celebrating its third National Week of Making – an important part of its Nation of Makers initiative that seeks to expand opportunities for students and adults to engage with the maker movement. In addition to numerous commitments and announcements made at federal agencies, several other projects rooted in strong partnerships were announced.

While progress has been made, challenges remain in the goal to advance cancer research, according to the “Cancer Moonshot” report Vice President Joe Biden delivered to the White House on Monday. The “Cancer Moonshot” is the current administration’s effort to accelerate 10 years’ worth of progress in cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment into just five. The Washington Post detailed remaining challenges, including a lack of coordination among researchers, outdated funding cultures and slow dissemination of information regarding new treatments. The White House has urged Congress to approve $1 billion in funding for the effort, along with money for other health initiatives and the National Institutes of Health.

As artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to become an increasingly large contributor to future U.S. economic growth, policymakers must be thoughtful about the technology’s implications related to federal R&D strategy, societal benefits, and public policy, according to two recently released reports authored by the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Subcommittee on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

Immigrant entrepreneurs would be allowed to remain in the United States for an initial period of up to two years, and, conditional upon meeting certain benchmarks, could potentially stay in the country for one additional period of up to three years under a newly proposed rule by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) branch of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As part of the International Entrepreneur Rule, which is now open for a 45-day comment period, certain international entrepreneurs would have an opportunity to start or scale their businesses in the United States. In an official blog post by White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Deputy Director for Technology and Innovation Tom Kalil and Assistant Director for Entrepreneurship Doug Rand, the authors note that the new reform would propose clear criteria to identify those entrepreneurs with the potential to provide significant public benefit to the United States. Evaluating entrepreneurs on a case-by-case basis, the proposed rule would consider factors such as: the entrepreneur’s ownership stake (at least 15 percent) and leadership role in the startup; the growth potential of the startup; competitive research grants of at least $100,000 from federal, state, and local government agencies provided to the firm; and the investment of at least $345,000 by qualified American investors.

A new report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers provides a broad overview of student loan-debt in the United States and yields some potentially surprising conclusions: while the $1.3 trillion in total student-loan debt in the U.S. may seem like a staggering amount, the authors of Investing in Higher Education: Benefits, Challenges, and the State of Student Loan Debt contend that this is helping, not hurting the nation’s economy. The authors posit that college is best viewed as an investment that typically yields a high return, even with the high upfront costs.

U.S. Senators Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Gary Peters (D-MI) sent a letter requesting a 4 percent increase in appropriations for the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Standards and Technology to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The White House announced an executive order to review the H-1B visa program, and the accompanying language suggests the administration’s interest in reforms to emphasize applicant skills and wages.

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney lifted the federal hiring freeze last week and asked agencies to plan for workforce reductions.

Government offices focused on innovation have been around for several years, yet some states and even the federal government are seeking new ways to incorporate the concept into their offices. This week the White House announced a new Office of American Innovation, while earlier this month Rhode Island used its Office of Innovation to launch a new effort called the Government Innovation League, and in January Ohio’s governor proposed funding a new state office focused on innovation, emerging technologies and their job-creation potential.

Challenge.gov, an online portal that facilitates public-sector prize competitions, is celebrating its fifth anniversary later this year. Numerous federal agencies have used prize competitions to spur innovation around areas ranging from water desalination to lung cancer, according to a White House blog post.

On Wednesday, President Obama launched a new National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI) by executive order. The multi-agency effort will seek partnerships with academia and industry to build high-performance computing systems capable of exascale processing and more than 10 times as fast as existing supercomputers.

American manufacturing competitiveness is on the rise, according to a study issued by the Boston Consulting Group and touted by the White House. Only seven of the 25 largest exporting countries in the world have lower manufacturing costs than the United States. The primary gain in U.S. advantage has come from access to cheap domestic supplies of natural gas. Wholesale prices for natural gas have dropped by over 50 percent since 2005 and are expected to decline for at least the next five years.

This week, the White House hosted its first Maker Faire where President Obama announced a number of new public-private collaborative efforts to spur U.S. manufacturing entrepreneurship. In order to capitalize on the recent spike in manufacturing entrepreneurship, the administration is enlisting more than 90 mayors and local leaders to make new spaces available for manufacturing and prototyping.