SSTI Digest

SSTI would like to visit your city and bring 350 of our closest friends! Bids for the 2013 conference are due January 14. To request a conference information packet and discuss this exciting opportunity contact Noelle at sheets@ssti.org or 614-901-1690.

With $130 million in funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), seven universities will establish development labs to address global development challenges through science and technology in partnership with agency experts and policymakers. A new discipline of development science that combines math, science and engineering at the University of California-Berkeley and a Social Entrepreneur Accelerator at Duke University focused on health care delivery are among the projects supported as part of USAID's Higher Education Solutions Network. The network has up to five years to achieve its goals, and for every $10 of USAID funding, the universities and their partners are contributing an additional $6.60 to the network.

Each of the seven lead universities will establish a development lab related to their available resources and expertise. They include:

The world's fifth annual Global Entrepreneurship Week kicked off on Monday celebrating and encouraging innovators and entrepreneurs throughout the world. Founded by the U.S.-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the UK-based Make Your Mark Campaign, the weeklong program now spans 115 countries with 37,000 activities that reach upwards of seven million people. Activities include a Global Cleantech Open Ideas Competition, Startup Weekend and the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards. More information about Global Entrepreneurship Week 2012 can be found at http://www.unleashingideas.org/.

Rhode Island has released its 2012 Benchmarking the Rhode Island Knowledge Economy, a follow-up to the inaugural report published last year. Produced by the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and Rhode Island Science & Technology Advisory Council, Benchmarking is a comprehensive report of the state's innovation capacity and a method of measuring over time Rhode Island's innovation economy in comparison to the region and the country. The report looks at 19 categories for overall economic strength, including more traditional measures such as gross state product and per capita income, but also for measures of the state's innovation capacity, like patents issued, R&D performance, and the attainment of science and engineering degrees and their inclusion in the state workforce. Of the 19 metrics, Rhode Island improved their national ranking in 11 areas, including significant improvements in venture capital investments as a percent of gross state product, total R&D performance as a percent of gross state product, and math scores for 8th graders.

Yes, it could happen. SSTI's 17th Annual Conference in 2013will be the first conference since NASVF members became SSTI members expanding SSTI to include more than 350 organizational members nationally. It is our hope that this conference inspires more collaboration, creativity and economic success around the nation. Your organization could host SSTI's 17th Annual Conference during the fall of 2013. The nation's greatest thinkers and practitioners for building tech-based economies could descend on YOUR city to build momentum for and place a spotlight on the work you are doing. Please contact Noelle Sheets, director of membership services, at or 614-901-1690 to request a conference information packet and discuss this exciting opportunity today! Letters of intent are due Jan. 14.

SSTI is pleased to welcome Reese Neader to our team as a research associate. Reese is the former policy director for the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network and is a political science graduate from Denison University.

Renée Winsky has been appointed the executive director of the Chesapeake Innovation Center.

Mark Kvamme has resigned from JobsOhio effective Nov. 1. He is succeeded as president and CIO by John Minor, formerly the managing director at JobsOhio.

Reed Hall has been named the interim CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. Hall will fill the position until a permanent CEO is selected to replace Paul Jadin, who announced in September he would be leaving the post.

Earlier this week, 11 U.S. states (and Puerto Rico) held gubernatorial elections, and 44 states held elections for at least one house of their state legislative body. As a result, five states elected new governors, as did Puerto Rico. Partisan control of state legislatures changed in nine states. The results indicate a growing trend toward state governments unified under a single political party. Only 12 states now have divided state governments, in which one party controls the governorship and the other party controls at least one house in the legislature, according to the National Council of State Legislatures (NCSL). Before the election, a total of 20 state governments were split. NCSL notes that this is the lowest number of split state governments since 1952.

Congressional elections earlier this week did not change control of the U.S. House of Representatives or Senate, however, science committees in both houses are set for significant turnover, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is slated to lose ten members, one-quarter of its membership, and is expected to gain a new chairperson. No member of the Senate Science, Commerce and Transportation Committee was defeated, but Republican Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Olympia Snowe of Maine are both retiring. Learn more...

On November 15, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) will host the "SEC Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation," an annual forum focused on the capital formation concerns of small business. This year's agenda will focus on the implementation of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act), specifically equity-based crowdfunding regulation. The forum also will look at issues related to capital for small business that were not addressed by the JOBS Act.

The Congressional Research Service recently published findings on the current conditions of federal support of academic research, highlighting the threat that constrained university, state and federal budgets places on critical basic research. Although there is growing recognition that R&D is crucial to the long term health of the nation's science and technology sectors, data from the report shows U.S. colleges and universities have seen a decline in financial support at the federal, state and private levels. The situation is worsened by the conclusion of federal stimulus funding for university research and a decline in revenue for 35 states in FY12.

The answer may not be clear, but both sides can agree the U.S. skills gap will continue to deepen if changes do not occur. In the U.S. manufacturing sector, the skills gap may be less pervasive than many believe, according to a report from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). BCG researchers estimate the U.S. is short 80,000 to 100,000 highly skilled manufacturing workers. That shortage represents less than 1 percent of the nation's 11.5 million manufacturing workers and less than 8 percent of its 1.4 million highly skilled manufacturing workers. The researchers also found only seven states — six of which are in the bottom quartile of U.S. state manufacturing output — show significant or severe skills gaps. They conclude shortages are local, not nationwide, in nature and reflect imbalances driven by both location and job classes.

Ahead of the 2013 legislative sessions, groups in Florida and Wisconsin unveiled reports on revamping higher education to better fulfill workforce needs and strengthening sectors most likely to produce jobs. In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott's Blue Ribbon Task Force on Higher Education urged differentiated tuition making it more affordable for students to pursue in-demand careers. Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Technology Council identified four strategies to help strengthen the state's technology-based economy — including passage of an early stage capital bill similar to one that stalled in the legislature last year. Both groups hope their recommendations will gain traction in the upcoming sessions.

Recommendations from the seven-member task force created by Gov. Scott earlier this year to assess progress and evaluate challenges in Florida's university system mirror many of the governor's own goals, particularly prioritizing STEM education and increasing the number of STEM graduates in the state.