SSTI Digest

A concentrated effort to support the Sacramento region's many green tech entrepreneurs could lead to Silicon Valley-style success in clean energy technology (CET), says a new report from the McClellan Technology Incubator and the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance (SARTA). California is already a leader in clean energy, according to the report. For example, a study conducted for the California Air Resources Board revealed that the state supports 180,000 jobs in environmental businesses -- 22,000 of which are in clean and renewable energy. Clean energy also is a growing sector with total worldwide market sales projected to grow by $85 billion over 10 years, and investment in global clean energy has doubled in the past four years, the report indicates. While the Sacramento area has some of the essential "ingredients," it is lacking in others, the report states. The region leads the country in CET research and regulatory knowledge; however, it is lacking a culture of industry-university partnerships and streamlined access to resources of the holders of intellectual capital. Also…

One of the latest big-ticket investments targeting stem cell research came from Ann Arbor last week as the University of Michigan committed $10.5 million of its internal resources to establish an interdisciplinary center for stem cell research. The announcement is one of dozens from around the country since California voters approved Proposition 71 in 2004, borrowing $3 billion over 10 years for stem cell research. With total spending on medical research now approaching $100 billion annually, up 154 percent from what it was a decade ago according to the Alerion Institute, many states seem to be feeling a need to get ahead or just catch up with their peers as each new funding commitment is announced. To justify the public investment, the political rhetoric accompanying the calls for state funding in life science research generally, and stem cell research more specifically, is often colored by promises of economic growth and the development of new industries as well as new approaches to life-threatening ailments. California's independent, nonpartisan think tank on…

Russel Hancock is the new president and CEO of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley.

A partnership between U.S. universities, research centers, private sector corporations, and Indian institutions recently was formed to improve engineering education in India and offer U.S. faculty the opportunity to collaborate with Indian researchers. Universities UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, the State University of New York at Buffalo, and Case Western Reserve University are joining with Indian institutions led by AMRITA University, along with the government of India and the country's Department of Science and Technology. Private sector partners QUALCOMM Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and Cadence Systems, Inc. are funding the program. To improve engineering education, AMRITA is developing world-class undergraduate and graduate engineering courses to be transmitted via Edusat, a satellite launched by the Indian Space Research Organization, to multiple educational institutions throughout India. Representatives from all the parties involved signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding last month, according to a news release…

California leads the world in biotech research today and likely will continue to dominate in the years to come according to The Dynamics of California's Biotechnology Industry, a new report from the Public Policy Institute of California. The report concludes that California retains a sharp biotech edge, despite reports of firms leaving the state or establishing plants elsewhere. Authors Junfu Zhang and Nikesh Patel note that the state generates more than half of U.S. biotech revenues and accounts for nearly half of national R&D spending. California biotech garnered 46 percent of the venture capital invested in biotech between 1992 and 2001 and accounts for 40 percent of the nation’s biotech jobs, according to the authors. Nonetheless, Zhang and Patel warn against assuming biotech will produce the same economic boom for California and the U.S. as produced by information technology during the last decade. Zhang and Patel point to the longer time for biotech start-ups to reach profitability, the lack of network effects driving exponential growth, and no…

A child born in the U.S. today who obtains a master's degree directly after college and high school will have been in the job market for only 1-2 years in 2030. Many people in the tech-based economic development community want that girl or boy to study math, science or engineering. A more basic question, though, is where will that child live as a young adult? If you guessed in the West or South, you have a good chance of being right, based on the latest population projections from the U.S. Census Bureau. Thirty percent of the nation's population will live in California, Texas, or Florida if the Bureau's guesses are close. Each of the three states are projected to gain nearly 13 million new residents during the next 25 years. The mix of residents by age is considerably different, as Florida's population aged 65 or over is expected to jump from 17.6 percent, already the nation's highest concentration, to 27.1 percent by 2030. As the editors of the…

Two organizations with seemingly the same goal in mind recently released statistics on the health of their region's technology sectors. Relying on different methods, the Pittsburgh Technology Council (PTC) and the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance (SARTA) both analyze and report the impact of technology clusters on the local economy. PTC's annual State of the Industry report gathers growth indicators from state and federal resources to track southwestern Pennsylvania's employment statistics, number of tech companies, and total annual payroll for information technology, life science, advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, and environmental technology industries. According to PTC, the goal is to quantify the impact and draw attention to the region's significant technological resources. The 13-county analysis also features an overview of eight emerging clusters such as robotics, supercomputing and nanotechnology. In addition to industry-specific measurements, the report also provides numerical data that include R&D expenditures at universities, average annual SBIR funding, and…

What are the factors of commercial success? As they say in real estate: location, location, location. So what makes a good location for commercializing innovation? Innovative ideas clearly thrive where R&D spending flows and local patent activity exists. But, do R&D dollars and level of patents also indicate locations for tech transfer? Not necessarily. A recent working paper in applied economics finds a more complex web of relationships at work. Dr. Joshua Rosenbloom of University of Kansas seeks to identify the factors in common for the areas with greatest commercial innovation in The Geography of Innovation Commercialization in the United States During the 1990s. Dr. Rosenbloom analyzes three measures of commercialization: public grants (SBIR and STTR), venture capital investments, and initial public offerings (IPOs) within the 50 largest U.S. metro areas. He also uses econometric models to identify the factors that influence those measures of commercial innovation, or tech transfer. Controlling for variation due to population, Rosenbloom found that patent…

Oleg Kagonovich has been promoted to the position of CEO of the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance. He formerly served as Chief Operating Officer.

As a percentage, Silicon Valley has lost more jobs over the past four years than any U.S. metropolitan area since 1939, but evidence shows the region is stabilizing with a return to levels reminiscent of the late 1990s. Funding for venture capital is up, per capita income is increasing, and research and development funding has reached new highs. Yet, the region's most striking feature of late is, perhaps, the way it is growing, according to the 2005 Index of Silicon Valley. The index, recently released by Joint Venture: Silicon Valley, shows the state of the region's economy is a muddled picture depending on how far back one goes to measure it. Since 2004, the results are positive, but medium-term-and-beyond comparisons reveal sharp declines. If one benchmarks the region against pre-dot.com levels, then it would appear the Valley has "resumed an incremental pattern of growth," the authors say. Silicon Valley has experienced a change in how it grows, the index states. It has grown in terms of productivity, but not in terms of jobs, and evolving patterns of housing development attest to the…

NBIA Releases Revised Business Incubation Guide The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) last week released an updated version of its business incubation manual. The revised second edition of A Comprehensive Guide to Business Incubation includes 71 chapters geared toward helping small businesses grow and offers the advice of more than 200 incubation professionals. The guide is divided into four main sections: fundamentals of incubator development, best practices in incubator management, working with clients, and special topics in business incubation. To purchase a copy, visit the NBIA online bookstore at http://www.nbia.org/store. Albany, N.Y. Officials looking to convert an empty Department of Transportation building in Albany, N.Y., into a business incubator are hopeful it will bring 8,000 scientists, researchers and office workers in 20 years, according to a Times Union story. Located at the W. Averell Harriman State Office Campus, the building features 133,000 sq. ft. for prospective tenants. The managing board overseeing the campus's transformation to…

Real estate developer Robert Klein II was selected as chairman of California's stem cell oversight committee.