SSTI Digest

An educated workforce is one of the elements required for a knowledge economy, but not all of the critical jobs require a Ph.D. or even a B.A. Few would dispute, though, the importance of successfully completing high school.

With a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Center for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan Institute has prepared a report entitled Public High School Graduation and College Readiness Rates in the United States. The report includes several tables presenting the high school graduation rates by state and race. Overall, 10 states had graduation rates above 80 percent (shown in parentheses): North Dakota (89), Utah (87), Iowa (85), South Dakota (85), West Virginia (84), Nebraska (84), New Jersey (84), Wisconsin (81), Montana (81), and Idaho (81).

Seats Available for Developing Angel Organizations, Financing TBED Workshops Despite increasing the number of seats available by nearly 50 percent, SSTI is forced to close registration for the full-day preconference workshop, An Introduction to Tech-based Economic Development. Because of the workshop's interactive design, attendance is always capped for this perennial favorite. SSTI will maintain a short waiting list (via the online registration form) in the event of any cancellations. Only people registered for the full conference on October 21-22 will be accepted on the waiting list for the pre-conference session.

The remaining two preconference offerings are designed to accommodate larger audiences so seats remain available in each.

Randy Burge has announced his resignation as director of the New Mexico Department of Economic Development's Office of Science and Technology. Mike Orshan will serve as acting director beginning Sept. 29.

Donald Jakeway will be the new president and CEO for the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

Joseph James is the new chief operating officer for the South Carolina Department of Commerce.

The Florida Venture Forum named Robin Kovaleski as the first executive director for the organization.

Randy Burge has announced his resignation as director of the New Mexico Department of Economic Development's Office of Science and Technology. Mike Orshan will serve as acting director beginning Sept. 29.

Donald Jakeway will be the new president and CEO for the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

Joseph James is the new chief operating officer for the South Carolina Department of Commerce.

The Florida Venture Forum named Robin Kovaleski as the first executive director for the organization.

Former U.S. Congresswoman Connie Morella has been sworn in as the US Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

SSTI extends its sympathies to the family of Indiana Governor Frank O'Bannon. During his interrupted term in office, Gov. O'Bannon proved to be a strong friend of tech-based economic development efforts in the state.

Approximately $350 million in grants recently awarded by one of the nation's leading biodefense research agencies are intended to lessen the effects of any future bioterror attack. Administered by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the funding will be spread over five years for establishing eight Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research (RCEs).

Each regional center, receiving between $40-50 million, consists of several partner institutions. The eight leads are Duke University, Harvard Medical School, the New York State Department of Health, the University of Chicago, the University of Maryland, the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, the University of Washington, and Washington University in St. Louis.

Specialization may be the key to successful economic development strategies based on the life sciences, suggests the September issue of the fedgazette, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. This month's entire e-zine focuses on two issues of importance to many state and local tech-based economic development professionals — biotechnology and clusters.

Because the intellectual capital of the anticipated biotech revolution is highly mobile and the spillovers of bioscience research tend to be localized and concentrated geographically, the broad-brush approaches adopted by many states to build a biotech sector are not likely to have the desired payoff, fedgazette editor Ronald Wirtz writes in the cover article.

The availability and use of equity capital for early-stage investments varies greatly across the country. Seen as an integral component of most tech-based economic development, access to venture capital (VC) is on the agendas of several states — but several different approaches are used to address the problem. Recent announcements in four states illustrate the point: