SSTI Digest

Join an Exclusive Club of Outstanding Economic Development Organizations! SSTI has released the online version of the 2016 SSTI Excellence in TBED Awards Program. Available at sstiawards.org, the online version of the awards brochure will highlight changes to the awards program including the categories for 2016: Most Promising TBED Initiative Building Prosperity Through Science & Technology Creating Prosperity Through Entrepreneurship & Capital Enhancing Prosperity Through Competitive Industries Increasing Prosperity Through Economic Opportunity The brochure also includes: An overview of the program; Application Guideline; Recommendations for Writing an Award Winning Application; Frequently Asked Questions; and, SSTI Awards Informational Call Recording. Deadline for applications is 5 P.M. ET, July 8, 2016. Submit your organization’s application, today!

The Delta Regional Authority  (DRA) released the Regional Development Plan III (RDPIII) – an economic development strategy to help guide DRA’s 252-county region’s economic growth over the next five years. In RDPIII, DRA identifies three goals and related action items to guide its economic development efforts in the Delta region: Improved Workforce Competitiveness – Advance the productivity and economic competitiveness of the Delta workforce; Strengthened Infrastructure – Strengthen the Delta region’s physical, digital, and capital connections to the global economy; and, Increased Community Capacity – Facilitate local capacity building within Delta communities, organizations, businesses, and individuals. In addition to the overall strategy, DRA also published eight state strategies for Alabama; Arkansas; Illinois; Kentucky; Louisiana; Mississippi; Missouri; and, Tennessee. Each state strategic plan includes state specific action items for DRA and a SWOT analysis as well as a profile of existing economic development efforts and key state demographics. 

In an effort to prepare students for post-secondary education that meets the needs of key state industries, Iowa Gov. Terry Brandstad signed  HF 2392 into law on May 26. The new law will attempt to modernize Iowa’s career technical education system as well as increase the number of Iowans with a post-secondary education by helping eighth-grade students develop career and academic plans with an emphasis on work-based training; establishing regional partnerships to help schools provide career technical education; and, expanding career technical education to include new areas in key state industries. By requiring regional partnerships between high schools and local employers, state leaders hope to increase the likelihood that young Iowans complete a post-secondary degree at a local community or technical college in an area of demand for state or local employers.  S&T industries identified in the bill include information systems; applied sciences and technology; engineering; manufacturing; and, health sciences. These efforts are intended to help achieve the governor’s goal to have 70 percent of the state’s workforce educated beyond a high school…

As the 2015-2016 academic calendar comes to an end, several universities announced large financial contributions from foundations to address large societal issues including cancer and a variety of neurological disorders.  These large-scale initiatives will be undertaken at universities in California, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) also announced the launch of its SPARK program, an online research initiative designed to become the largest autism study ever undertaken in the United States. In May, the Weill Family Foundation announced a $185 million donation to the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) to establish the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences – a 270,000-square-foot facility located at the UCSF's Mission Bay campus that will house a brain and nervous system disorders clinic as well as state-of-the-art research laboratories. The gift also will establish the UCSF Weill Innovation Fund to support high-risk, high-reward neuroscience research projects and support for graduate students and young investigators in the neurosciences.  The goal of the initiative is to…

Newly released research from the Kauffman Foundation finds that in 2016, Washington, D.C., Austin, San Jose, Columbus, and Nashville were the five highest ranked metropolitan areas for the Index of Growth Entrepreneurship. The five highest ranked states were Virginia, Utah, Maryland, Arizona, and Massachusetts. As described in the SSTI Digest last week, The Kauffman Index of Growth Entrepreneurship measures the growth of entrepreneurial businesses in the United States, complementing the foundation’s recently released Index of Startup Activity and Index of Main Street Entrepreneurship. At the metropolitan level, few broad geographic conclusions can be made, as entrepreneurship has grown in pockets of virtually every region, according to The Kauffman Index of Growth Entrepreneurship Metropolitan Area Trends report. As an aggregate, the index was the highest in the Washington, D.C. (14.4), Austin (10.9), and San Jose (8.0) metropolitan areas, and lowest in Detroit (-1.3), Miami (-1.0), and Riverside-San Bernardino (-0.7). At the state level, The Kauffman Index of Growth Entrepreneurship State Trends report distinguishes between the largest and smallest 25…

Ten Connecticut startups competed in a $10,000 pitch competition at CTNext last week, but the five-year-old state initiative finds itself the winner of a much higher-stakes appraisal. Gov. Dannel Malloy approved the FY 2017 state budget bill on June 2, which will make CTNext an independent organization with $67 million in bonding support. Among the powers assigned to the organization are managing an innovation-places program and maintaining a crowdfunding website, in addition to a broad array of activities geared toward promoting tech-based economic development in Connecticut. CTNext was created in 2011 under Gov. Malloy as an initiative within Connecticut Innovations to foster startups by improving the state's support network. The initiative has established a membership-based network of entrepreneurs and service providers, managed a commercialization voucher program through regional incubators, and hosted the Entrepreneur Innovation Award pitch competition. These activities could be seen as a precursor to preparing the companies for the venture capital programs operated by Connecticut Innovations. The budget bill significantly alters the programs…

Although the growth of young entrepreneurial businesses has increased it has not yet returned to pre-Recession levels, according to new research from the Kauffman Foundation.  The Kauffman Index of Growth Entrepreneurship measures the growth of entrepreneurial businesses in the United States. In 2016, the index experienced the largest year-over-year increase in the last decade, according to its authors, Kauffman researchers Arnobio Morelix, E.J. Reedy, and Joshua Russell. Despite this uptick, however, entrepreneurial growth is still down compared to the levels experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. As a complement to Kauffman’s Index of Startup Activity and Index of Main Street Entrepreneurship, the Entrepreneurial Growth Index is comprised of three indicators: Rate of Startup Growth, measuring how much startups grew in their first five years after founding; Share of Scale-ups, measuring the share of businesses that start small and grow to employ more than 50 people by their 10th year of operation; and, High-Growth Company Density in a region, measuring the prevalence of fast-growing companies with at least $2 million in annual revenue and 20 percent…

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a federal funding opportunity (FFO) to establish and sustain up to eight Regional Alliances and Multistakeholder Partnerships to Stimulate (RAMPS) Cybersecurity Education and Workforce Development. Through this announcement, NIST will commit up to $1.6 million for state or regional consortiums that identify cybersecurity workforce development pathways that address local workforce needs. Although lead organizations must be a nonprofit or institution of higher education, NIST encourages public-private partnerships with industry and local governments. Proposals are due July 12, 2016. As cybersecurity becomes an increasingly vital element of national security, other countries also are announcing significant cybersecurity strategies focused heavily on investments in R&D. Large-scale efforts are being undertaken in Australia, China, and the United Kingdom. In Australia, the federal government will commit up to 230 million AUD (165.9m USD) in 2016 into a national cyber security strategy released in April that is comprised of 33 new initiatives to help bolster the country’s cyber capabilities. To…

As the National Science Foundation (NSF) celebrates its 66th birthday, NSF’s Director France Córdova unveiled a nine-point research agenda to shape the federal agency’s future for the next several decades. These nine big ideas are intended to “illustrate how increased support for the type of basic research that NSF funds could help answer pressing societal problems,” according to an article from sciencemag.org. NSF’s leadership also hopes to build public and subsequent federal government support for significant federal investments in its agenda as well as spark the interest of industry and foundations to invest alongside the federal government. In addition to NSF’s release of a proposed long-term research agenda, two reports focused on Big Data and advanced computing infrastructures were also released by the federal government in May. The NSF agenda is divided into two types of idea areas – research ideas and process ideas. The research ideas are intended to help guide the research community with new questions being asked and new challenges being addressed.  They include: Harnessing Data for 21st Century Science and…

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) released a notice of intent to establish and sustain a Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute for Reducing Embodied-Energy and Decreasing Emissions (REMADE) in materials manufacturing. The $70 million funding opportunity will be released in June to enable the development and widespread deployment of key industrial platform technologies that will dramatically reduce life-cycle energy consumption and carbon emissions associated with industrial-scale materials production and processing through the development of technologies for reuse, recycling, and remanufacturing of materials. Earlier this month, EERE also announced a new pilot program in partnership with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) in four states – Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia – to provide small businesses with better access to resources. Similar to other NMIIs, the lead institution’s eligibility is restricted to institutions of higher education and nonprofit…

After over four years of “anxious waiting,” equity crowdfunding is now legal across the U.S. allowing non-accredited investors to make equity investment in startups through a registered online portal. With the adoption of the final rules for Title III of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will allow startups to raise up to $1 million over a 12-month period through public solicitation without having to register its securities. To help investors and startups understand the new rules, the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance also released a new set of Regulation Crowdfunding Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations (C&DIs) addressing, among other topics: public communications; investment limitations; and, balance sheet disclosures. In an article for PitchBook, George Gaprindashvili also provides an overview that highlights key aspects of the new regulations for each  stakeholder group impacted by the equity crowdfunding – potential investors, startups, and crowdfunding platform. 

Although many leaders of high-tech incubator and accelerator programs do not currently offer targeted programs to ensure inclusivity of all populations, they have conveyed they would like to do so, according to new research from the Initiative for the Competitive Inner City (ICIC), with financial support from JP Morgan Chase. The research brief, which was unveiled this week as part of Detroit’s Startup Week, draws on interviews with more than 75 entrepreneurship, incubator and accelerator program managers to identify barriers to inclusivity and present potential strategies that could increase the participation rates of women and minority entrepreneur. The research brief suggests that there are several key barriers for women and minorities that inhibit their involvement in high-tech incubators and accelerators. The recruitment of women and minority entrepreneurs can be hindered by the limited networks of incubator and accelerator managers, according to ICIC.  Those initiatives that are responsible for developing university research, where the pipeline of entrepreneurs may not be as diverse, can also struggle with inclusivity.  One leading barrier to…