SSTI Digest

Veolia, The Water Council, and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation have reached an agreement to launch the emPowering Opportunities in Water (POW!) program – a two-year national competition to support entrepreneurship and economic development while fostering sustainability efforts in the field of water. Sometime this year, Veolia, a leading water and wastewater treatment company, and The Water Council should issue a nationwide challenge to fast-track water-related ideas by entrepreneurs and startups revolving around specific areas of interest.  Startups that have the highest likelihood of solving the challenge, will be chosen to enter the program that will be housed at The Water Council’s Global Water Center located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Read the announcement…

Over the past few months, SSTI has followed proposals issued by governors in their budget requests, State of the State Addresses, Inaugural Speeches and other events. Now that many state legislatures have begun approving budgets, the Digest will check on the status of these proposals, and examine the state of technology-based economic development funding in the states. This week, we review actions in Alaska, Colorado and Indiana.

AlaskaThe Alaskan legislature reached a fiscal year 2016 operating budget agreement earlier this week (HB 72), but were unable to close a $3 billion gap. Gov. Bill Walker convened a special session on Wednesday to demand that lawmakers find a way to balance the budget.

Under the current agreement, legislators allocated $3 million for economic development and $11.5 million for an eighth round of renewable energy project grants through the Alaska Energy Authority.

As a component of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Skills for Business initiative, The Communities That Work Partnership is a new joint project aimed at accelerating industry-led workforce development and training efforts.  The partnership will competitively select six groups from across the country comprised of industry, government, education, workforce, and economic development leaders, each of which is pursuing employer-driven talent development strategies that promote economic growth and opportunity in their regions. Through a $500,000 grant from DOC’s Economic Development Administration (EDA), the Aspen Institute Workforce Strategies Initiative (AspenWSI) will lead the initiative, providing technical assistance and leadership development resources.

A webinar for prospective applicants will be held at 2:00 P.M. on Monday, May 15th. Interested participants can register here.

Although the benefits of basic research are often misunderstood due to their lack of immediate payoff, a new report by the MIT Committee to Evaluate the Innovation Deficit finds that this research is of the utmost importance in sustaining U.S. economic competitiveness. In The Future Postponed: Why Declining Investment in Basic Research Threatens a U.S. Innovation Deficit, the authors, MIT faculty members from a variety of fields,  provide numerous examples of how basic research benefits have helped to shape and maintain U.S. economic power, as well as a number of tangible cases of under-exploited areas for future innovation. Given that recent notable scientific achievements, such as landing on a comet or the development of the world’s fastest supercomputer, were led by international competitors, the report urges for continued government role in spurring innovation and a long-term approach to viewing R&D activities. 

In 2014, Angel groups in the Great Lakes region invested more dollars than anywhere else in the country, 17.2 percent of the U.S. total, including angel groups in California (17 percent). This marks the first time a U.S. region other than California led in dollars invested by angel groups since the Halo Report has started to track angel investments.  Rob Wiltbank, an author of the report, indicated that the Great Lakes region’s activity was driven by several large investments made by angel groups. The Angel Resource Institute’s 2014 Annual Halo Report data is based on 870 deals totaling $1.65 billion in total rounds including co-investors.

Increase was the key word used in the 2014 Annual Halo Report. The authors found that 2014 was a busy year for Angel groups across the country:

Following a lively debate over education funding, state worker pay and pensions, Maryland legislators approved a $40 billion budget. Under the approved legislation, $68 million would be available to support the state's most expensive school districts. Gov. Larry Hogan, however, had favored using those funds, and an additional $132 million, to shore up the state's pension fund, according to the Washington Post. Gov. Hogan will not be able to spend these funds for any other purpose than that approved by the legislature, but has expressed an interest in letting the funds go unspent.

The approved budget provides $3.8 million for the Office of Business Development, $3 million for Maryland's Office of Strategic Industries and Innovation, and $1.8 million for the Small Business Development Financing Authority.

Even after equity crowdfunding reached a milestone earlier this month with new Securities Exchange Commission proposed rule changes, state legislatures across the country continue to pass intrastate crowdfunding bills. In April, governors from Arizona (HB 2591) and Colorado (HB 1246) signed bills that will allow startups and other businesses in their respective states to raise capital via equity crowdfunding exemptions. Arizona and Colorado joined Massachusetts (Read more in the SSTI Digest) as states that have passed exemptions since the start of the year. The next state most likely to pass crowdfunding legislation is Minnesota – once they are able to finalize compromise between lawmakers and state regulators.

The Illinois Accelerator Research Center (IARC) is a new research facility for scientists and engineers from Fermilab, Argonne, and Illinois universities to work alongside industrial partners to develop breakthroughs in accelerator science and apply them to areas such as computing, health, industry, and homeland security. Using electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles at high speeds and to contain them in well-defined beams, accelerator technology allows for the investigation of many aspects of particle physics and application in a variety of industries.

Throughout the United States, policymakers continuously call on entrepreneurs to be an important cog in the economic engine. One of the key barriers to entrepreneurship, however, has grown largely as a result of state policies: burdensome student loan debt.  In the United States, the total amount of student debt is estimated at $1.2 trillion, a record high, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Purdue University President Mitch Daniels, who previously served as Indiana’s governor, discusses the many ways that persistent student loan debt is a long-term threat to the inventiveness and innovation that has long been dependent on solving the nation’s economic problems.

The rise of advanced manufacturing has opened the door to a resurgence of New England's manufacturing economy, according to a new report from The New England Council and Deloitte Consulting LLC. In Advanced to Advantageous: The Case for New England's Manufacturing Revolution, the authors suggest that the existing network of universities, private manufacturers and government partners give the region a competitive advantage in advanced prototyping, additive manufacturing and the Internet of Things. Leveraging that advantage, however, will require cross-state cooperation to build comprehensive educational pathways, rebrand the local industry and secure an Institute of Manufacturing Innovation. Read the report...

The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced that it will commit $4 million to the second round of the Growth Accelerator Fund Competition. Launched in 2014, the competition makes awards of $50,000 each to help fund operating budgets for accelerators and other entrepreneurial ecosystem models in parts of the country where there are fewer conventional sources of access to capital (e.g., venture capital and angel capital investors). For this round of funding, applications are encouraged from manufacturing accelerator models. Applications are due June 1. Read the announcement…

Although the percentage of college graduates with science and engineering (S&E) or S&E-related majors has increased, the proportion of college graduates employed in an S&E occupation has remained relatively unchanged at 10 percent since 1993, according to a recently released InfoBrief from the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Engineering Statistics. In the brief, authors John Finnamore and Beethika Khan use the most recent data from the National Survey of College Graduates (NSCG) to identify the distinguishing characteristics of the United States’ college-educated population.