SSTI Digest

Organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area will spend more than $20 million this year to bridge the digital divide, according to Who's Funding the Digital Connect?, a report released this month by the San Francisco Foundation. More than 54 organizations will provide computer access and/or training to more than 75,000 low income and underserved individuals in one of the most technology-savvy regions in the country, according to the study.

The study provides a base inventory of the digital divide programs and services provided in the area, the sources and stability of funding, and critical gaps in both service delivery and funding. The San Francisco Foundation will use the information as a component of Digital Connect, a larger strategy to eliminate barriers to technology for low income, under-represented, and underserved communities.

Key findings include:

The majority of an anonymous gift of $26.5 million to the University of Southern California (USC) will be used to increase the representation of women in the hard sciences and engineering faculty and encourage middle school girls to choose a science pathway in education. Money also will be used to create new faculty positions in the sciences, upgrade laboratories, increase scholarship aid for undergraduates, create new fellowships for graduates and fund child care.

The USC program favors a long-term approach to redressing the gender imbalance in the sciences and engineering faculty. USC will use most of the $20 million of the gift apportioned to the issue as an endowment, applying its investment income toward hiring women faculty and providing enduring support for faculty, postdoctoral fellows and students. A networking group composed of USC’s female scientists has advised the university on the establishment of the program, called WISE, for Women in Science and Engineering.

With the goal of developing a common technology agenda among the region’s leaders, the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance (larta) has compiled its first regional innovation index benchmarking the area’s strengths and weaknesses in S&T. The Southern California Technology Innovation Index compares the five-county Los Angeles consolidated metropolitan statistical area with the California Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose), Austin, Texas, and Massachusetts. The San Diego and Santa Barbara metro areas are not included in the definition of Southern California.

The Index presents aggregated and standardized data for 20 indicators across three categories — economic vitality, innovation, and resources. Several areas of strength and others in need of improvement are identified in the process. For example:

As mentioned in the last week's SSTI Weekly Digest, access to capital is a challenge for women-owned businesses. Springboard 2000, one nationwide initiative to overcome that obstacle, in less than one year, has assisted women entrepreneurs in science and technology businesses to raise more than $235 million in venture funding. The investments have been raised directly as a result of two forums held this year in Redwood City, California and Dulles, Virginia.

During the past two weeks, the Milken Institute has issued two similar reports documenting the difficulties and successes minority- and women-owned business have accessing capital.

The Minority Business Challenge: Democratizing Capital for Emerging Domestic Markets presents new findings and several specific recommendations to sustain minority businesses growth. The findings include:

State science and technology initiatives have been given higher profile in California as the state's lead economic development department changes its name to the Technology, Trade, and Commerce Agency. The new Division of Science, Technology and Innovation, led by Deputy Secretary Joe Raguso, will oversee the state's tech-based economic development efforts. In addition to assuming the responsibilities of the Office of Strategic Technology, the new division will also be responsible for science and technology-based strategic planning, developing funding programs to address the state's digital divide issues, and managing the state's Small Business Development Center program. Two new advisory councils, the California Research and Development Council and the Small Business Competitiveness Council will be created to advise and assist the new division.

In a move designed to significantly improve access to higher education, California Governor Gray Davis signed legislation this week that will significantly expand the state's scholarship programs. Under the new legislation nearly one-third of high school graduates will receive scholarship assistance through the state's Cal Grant program, according to the bill's sponsors. The expansion means that students that maintain a high grade point average and come from middle to low-income families will have their tuition covered by the state of California for all four years of college. Additionally, a new scholarship program was created directed at the state's highest achievers in math and science.

Through its Digital Village Program, Hewlett-Packard is providing up to $15 million in products and resources over a three-year period to three communities who need assistance to participate fully in the New Economy. East Palo Alto, CA already has been designated as a Digital Village; the remaining two will be selected through a competitive process.

To be considered, an applicant must meet the following criteria: 1) be an underserved community - facing geographic, technological and/or economic barriers to achieving the desired community vision, 2) have a population of no more than 50,000 residents, and 3) the applying community partnership must include: local school district(s); a local or nearby community college or four-year institution; and a public agency, community college, four-year college or university, or private nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization.

The Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance (larta) has released its 2001 Federal Technology Funding Guide which profiles 89 regularly scheduled federal programs that support technology development and deployment. Each profile includes descriptions, contact information, timelines, and examples. Targeted to technology companies, the guide presents only programs with eligibility requirements open to for-profit businesses. 

The free, 152-page Guide is downloadable from: http://www.larta.org/ecommerce/FTFG2001.htm

Using the microsystems industry in the Southwest as a model, Ross DeVol, Director of Regional and Demographic Studies of the Milken Institute, has written Blueprint for a High-Tech Cluster, a 40-page policy brief on one of the hottest trends for tech-based economic development. Recognizing the importance of technology and knowledge in the New Economy, and that "knowledge is generated, transmitted and shared more efficiently in close proximity," DeVol asserts that those regions with leading clusters in key technologies will enjoy greater economic growth and stability. "Success in creating high-tech clusters is now the distinguishing determinant in regional vitality," states DeVol. 

Blueprint outlines and describes ten specific strategies for developing a high-tech cluster: 

Academic Indirect Cost Rates  Paying for University Research Facilities and Administration, a report released this week by the RAND Science & Technology Policy Institute, finds universities are already paying a significant share of the costs associated with their research partnership with the federal government. Pressures to increase that cost-sharing could lead to a slowdown in investment on research and research infrastructure and, potentially, to a decline in the partnership's contributions to health, education, defense, science and other vital research areas, according to the report's authors, Charles A. Goldman and T. Williams, with David M. Adamson and Kathy Rosenblatt. 

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, as big defense contractors closed their doors and unemployment climbed, San Diego looked as if it might not recover. Between 1990-1993 alone, nearly 60,000 high-paying jobs were lost to defense and aerospace cutbacks. Although the region had some of the ingredients to be successful (defense technologies, a strong university, medical and bioscience institutes, and a desirable climate), the players did not come together to face their economic woes. It took losing two major bids for federal R&D facilities to spur community leaders to action.