If You Are Interested in Strengthening the Economy, This is the Conference to Attend!

The economic circumstances leading up to SSTI’s 13th annual conference make this year’s event critical. We encourage you to join us in Overland Park, Kansas, October 21 – 23, 2009 to Seize the Moment.

This year’s conference will bring together distinguished speakers like Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School and Rob Atkinson of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation who will challenge conventional thinking; experienced practitioners who will share best practices; and, leading individuals who are breaking new ground in their attempts to build a tech-based economies. Plus, we’ll have four stimulating roundtable discussions examining some of the thorniest issues we’re facing—improving metrics that are being used, re-examining equity programs, and engaging universities.

At this moment, every aspect of the U.S. economy is in a period of transformation. And nearly every aspect of getting out of the current mess is related to one or more of the fundamental principles of tech-based economic development, or TBED, for short. That’s pretty impressive. The public/private programs, policies and investments being made to support TBED have never been as important or critical as they are at this moment.

Even so, the rules for TBED’s fundamentals are in flux – capital access, university engagement, entrepreneurship assistance, research funding priorities, commercialization paths, you name it. To borrow from Ben Franklin, one of the nation’s great innovators, “When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.” In short, if your approach to promoting economic growth isn’t evolving, you’re writing its obituary.

To seize this moment, the visionary leaders of the TBED community need a forum to discuss how to turn the current realities into opportunities for innovation. SSTI’s 13th Annual Conference provides that forum. The following is a list of the sessions designed to help the TBED community seize the moment. Full descriptions and lists of speakers are available online at: http://www.ssticonference.org/schedule.html

Pre-conference Workshop Options:

• Where Do We Start? Introduction to Technology-Based Economic Development
• NIST's Industrial Technology Programs: Tapping the Technology Innovation Program and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership

Main Conference Sessions:

• Plenary: TBED for the Next Decade: Charting the Future for America's Competitiveness
• Plenary: The Future of Public Equity and Entrepreneurship Programs
• Excellence in TBED: The Inside Stories, Part I
• Setting Your Federal Agenda: Working with Your Congressional Delegation
• Addressing Capital Gaps: Lessons from the Field
• Measuring TBED’s ROI with Metrics that Matter: A Roundtable Discussion
• The Kansas TBED Strategy
• Telling Your TBED Story
• Universities and Colleges as Drivers for Growth
• Where Do Equity Programs Go from Here? A Roundtable Discussion
• Excellence in TBED: The Inside Stories, Part II
• Securing Federal Support for Your TBED Agenda
• Beyond Licensing: Maximizing the Impact of University Technologies
• Developing a Common Set of TBED Metrics: A Roundtable Discussion
• Encouraging Risk-Taking in Risky Times: Building an Entrepreneurial Culture
• Virtually Free TBED: Web 2.0 Tools for the TBED Community
• Alternative Approaches for Reaching TBED Goals
• Engaging Universities in Economic Development: A Roundtable Discussion

Registrations may be made by phone (614.901.1690), fax or online through the conference website at: https://www.ssti.org/Conf09/register.html