Due to length considerations, this week's Funding Opportunities Supplement to the SSTI Weekly Digest was sent separately.

Innovation, flexibility, speed to market, and closeness to the customer are the common characteristics shared by successful small and medium manufacturers (SMMs), says a new report from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). The report reveals 15 best practices that are followed by successful SMMs and identifies challenges faced by manufacturers in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released Geographic Area Statistics: 2004, a report that details manufacturing statistics collected from the 2004 Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM). The report provides data on the number of all manufacturing employees, number of production workers, all employees payroll, value-added by manufactures, cost of materials, and value of shipments by state.

It only seems natural that SSTI celebrate a decade of convening the premiere professional development event for the nation's tech-based economic development community in a state that, for nearly 20 years, has been a pioneer for innovative approaches to transform regional economies — Oklahoma. SSTI's 10th annual conference and pre-conference intensive workshops will be held at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City on Oct. 31-Nov. 2.

With China and India on the doorstep and U.S. universities facing an attrition of science and math students, America must do more if it wishes to produce the well trained scientific and technical workforce necessary to remain competitive in world markets. That is the overarching theme of a new national education and innovation initiative proposed by the Association of American Universities (AAU).

While it is safe to say that new medicines, electronics, educational tools and other inventions have improved the lives of countless people, a new project by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) describes more than 100 such breakthroughs that probably would not exist if not for the practice of technology transfer.

Innovation and tech entrepreneurship take money — different amounts at different stages with different strings. As a result, increasing access to capital is an objective of many state and local technology-based economic development programs.

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), in partnership with several public and private organizations, has outlined a plan to address telecommunications infrastructure needs across the state.



LinkMichigan, released last week, addresses several telecommunications infrastructure issues or concerns that were increasingly facing the public and private sector, including:

With so much attention given to increasing private seed and venture capital activity as a means of growing tech-based economies, one might expect that encouraging and attracting community development venture capital (CDVC) – that is, equity investments and entrepreneurial assistance to meet both profit targets and community development goals – would be a common element of a state or local community’s portfolio of economic development tools.

San Jose, Austin, and San Francisco received top honors in the 3rd Annual Forbes-Milken Institute Best Places Ranking. San Jose and San Francisco raced to the top of the list from 29th and 42th place respectively in 1999. Completing the top ten metro areas in 2000 are: Boulder, CO; Dallas, TX; Santa Rosa, CA; Boise City, ID; San Diego, CA; Phoenix-Mesa, AZ; and Oakland, CA. The top metro area east of the Mississippi River, Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC, came in 13th.

Colorado

With an overall positive review, the Office of the Inspector General within the National Science Foundation (NSF) has made several recommendations for improving the performance of NSF's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). EPSCoR plays an important and strategic role in many states’ efforts to build a stronger research enterprise and tech-based economy. In FY 2000, the NSF EPSCoR program distributed $51.7 million to 19 states and Puerto Rico.

The Small Business Administration has extended the deadline for states to submit proposals in response to program announcement no. FAST-01-R-001 for the Federal and State Technology Partnership (FAST). FAST will support state efforts to foster economic development among small high technology businesses through federally funded innovation and research and development programs. According to the website for the SBA Office of Science & Technology, the deadline for proposals has been extended to June 28, 2001.

Ever wonder how many SSTI Weekly Digest articles have covered tax credits? (Answer is 47) strategic plans? (35), biotechnology? (80), workforce issues?(92), indicators? (14), telecommunications? (77), math & science? (50), capital, both seed and venture? (150)



To help make your research efforts easier, SSTI has restored the search feature for our website: http://ssti.org.master.com  Feedback from users would be appreciated.

With an eye toward helping to make Kansas City a leading center for biomedical research, James Stower Jr., founder of American Century mutual funds, and his wife are donating $1.114 billion to the Stowers Institute of Medical Research. The donation is considered one of the five largest philanthropic gifts in history.

Calling for the program to more than triple in size by 2007, Senator John F Kerry (D-Massachusetts) and several other Senators introduced legislation last week to reauthorize and expand the Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR).

In today's edition of the Federal Register, the Small Business Administration (SBA) has issued the draft revised policy directive for the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program. The public is invited to comment on the proposed directive, which provides guidance to the ten federal agencies participating in the program. SBIR annually awards more than $1 billion to small businesses across the country for research and development.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has published the detailed statistics for the Moneytree™ survey of venture capital (VC) activity for the first quarter of 2001. As promised in the May 4, 2001 issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest when the summary results were announced, SSTI has prepared the accompanying table presenting the distribution of VC by state.

The following is a sampling of the more than 60 events included in the SSTI Calendar of Events webpage: http://www.ssti.org/calendar.htm

President Bush intends to nominate P.H. Johnson to be Federal Co-chairperson of the Delta Regional Authority. He currently practices law with the firm of Johnson Bobo in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

President Bush intends to nominate P.H. Johnson to be Federal Co-chairperson of the Delta Regional Authority. He currently practices law with the firm of Johnson Bobo in Clarksdale, Mississippi.