SSTI Digest

The SSTI Board of Trustees has appointed Kristy Campbell, president & chief operations officer at Rev1 Ventures, and John Fernandez, chief executive officer at The Mill, as members of the board.  “I look forward to working with Kristy and John as new board members,” Dan Berglund, SSTI’s president, said with their appointments. “Both are proven, inspiring leaders, have been long time friends of SSTI, and demonstrated strong commitments to advancing the TBED community.”

SSTI has recently expanded its staff to include Aaron Hagar as their vice president for innovation finance. Hagar brings over twenty years of experience spanning biomedical research, heath care, public policy, and technology-based economic development to share with SSTI's members. He has significant experience building partnerships, creating innovative solutions, shaping public policy, and developing data-driven strategies.

America's Seed Fund returns to the J.W. Marriott in Austin, Texas, for the SBIR/STTR Spring Innovation Conference from June 9 -11.  SSTI Weekly Digest readers may use these discount codes to reduce their cost for attending:

The AI market is projected to reach $4.8 trillion by 2023—a 25x increase in just 10 years, according to the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 2025 Technology and Innovation report. The technology will be leap-frogging other “frontier tech markets,” including the Internet of Things, which currently dominates 36% of the market for emerging platform technologies. The super-charged AI market will impact up to 40% of global jobs, both positively and negatively. How this growth will affect jobs in different countries and how the effects could be directed to increase fairness globally is of great concern to UNCTAD and the focus of the new report.

UNCTAD asserts that up to one-third of jobs in nations with advanced economies are at risk because of efficiency gains resulting from AI automation. "Workforces in advanced economies are at greater risk since more of their jobs involve cognitive tasks,” said the report authors, but added, “However, these economies are also better positioned than emerging and low-income economies to capitalize on the benefits of AI.”

SSTI’s recent webinar for its EDA-funded TBED Community of Practice work explored the emerging trend of creating centralized tech transfer offices (TTOs) serving multiple institutions. Centralized approaches are intended to more efficiently help develop and commercialize inventions from smaller or regional colleges and universities. Panelists Kayla Meisner of Kentucky Commercialization Ventures (KCV), Charles Layne of LaunchTN, and Carlos Baez from the Puerto Rico Science, Technology, and Research Trust highlighted the value centralized models bring to regions and the national landscape.
 

May 20, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. ET | Zoom 

This webinar will explore how organizations can develop meaningful industry partnerships that drive tech-based economic development. The Central Indiana Corporate Partnership (CICP) will share its approach to creating compelling value propositions for potential partners and converting these initial connections into lasting, mutually beneficial collaborations. Their AI initiative, AnalytiXIN, will serve as a case study, demonstrating the methods and principles that have made their industry engagement efforts successful.

Speakers:
 - Nathan Ringham, Vice President, Research and Insights (CICP)
 - Darshan Shah, Executive Vice President, Data and AnalytiXIN (CICP)

Register for this webinar here.

Most countries have dramatically increased their investments in R&D over the past two decades, with OECD nation spending reaching a record high nearly $1,600 of gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) per person in 2023 (PPP[1] converted), approximately triple the value recorded in 2000. Although the U.S. has an extremely strong R&D output, relatively smaller economies, like Israel and South Korea, lead when expenditures are standardized for better comparison across nations.

This edition of Useful Stats uses internationally comparable figures from the OECD’s Main Science and Technology Indicator (MSTI) database to benchmark R&D performance across OECD nations in both per person PPP-adjusted dollars and as a share of gross domestic product (GDP). Examining the data in this manner provides potential context for understanding the priority countries set for becoming more research-intensive and, perhaps, more innovation-centered in future economic growth.

A recently published InfoChart from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) presents an annotated walk through federal R&D obligations from FY 1951 through 2024, explaining key events influencing key moments in the surges and downswings along the nation’s path to supporting discovery, research, development and innovation. The data is presented in constant 2017 dollars. 

One of the top perennial concerns of America’s manufacturing and business communities relates to the workforce. The main issues may vary year to year; examples include too few workers available, skill mismatch, poor work habits or preparedness because of non-work issues such as basic education attainment, drug use, prison records or lack of work ethic. Among factors complicating workforce development responses are the diverse and disparate skill needs across the spectrum of occupations and sectors, the rapid advancement of technological innovation, and the array of private and public skill development and training efforts. 

As a result, federal involvement in workforce development has crept into many programs and funding priorities where, traditionally, skill development and training did not reside. That might all be changing with the executive order President Trump signed on Wednesday, April 23 2025.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) recently released a report on the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) program with data through December 31, 2024. As of the end of 2024, Treasury has disbursed nearly $4 billion of the $10 billion set aside for the program in the 2021 American Rescue Plan of Act. 

In terms of the three-tranche, formula-based allocation structure of the SSBCI program, the report documents the first disbursement to 130 jurisdictions, the second for 20, and the third, or final, tranche for six.

Within this article, SSTI provides two data visualizations to graphically compare states and their progress with accessing SSBCI funds. 

The graphics below include data for only the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and not Tribal governments.

The same April 23 executive order as mentioned above requires Labor, Commerce and Education to work together and prepare by the end of August, a plan “to reach and surpass 1 million new active apprentices.” Apprenticeships were a preferred skill development program during President Trump’s first term in office as well. 

Priorities for the new strategy laid out in the order that may appeal to state and regional TBED efforts include expanding the Registered Apprenticeships to “new industries and occupations including high-growth and emerging sectors.”

Additionally, the plan highlights two particular federal programs as vehicles that may see increased support. The executive order says the plan shall identify “opportunities, including through the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education (Perkins V) Act and Federal student aid, to enhance connections between the education system and Registered Apprenticeships.

The short answer to the question, “Is college still worth it?” is, “It depends.”

Attending higher education institutions may impart an array of societal and personal development benefits. Still, one factor of increasing import that raises the question of the worthiness of attaining a college education in a market-driven economy is the personal cost involved. The question becomes even more pertinent based on three trends: rising costs, decreasing employment opportunities for college graduates and a fair share of Americans having little or no confidence in higher education. 

Consider these three trends: