SSTI Digest

What TBED Approaches are Successful in the Current Economy?

We're confronting almost unprecedented problems on the national, state and local levels. Technology-based economic development (TBED) can provide the leadership and long-term solutions that states, universities and communities need to ensure our future is one of prosperity rather than problems.

On Oct 21-23, the 300+ participants from more than 40 states that may attend SSTI's annual conference will debate and identify smart approaches for promoting regional growth through science and innovation that can provide leadership into the next economy.  The proof is packed into this year's conference agenda: more than a dozen real life examples that are TBED's cutting edge survivors of a truly hard knock economy. For example:

The U.S. will not be able to achieve its goals for human space flight unless substantial changes are made to NASA's plans for the next decade, according to a report from the U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee. The report's conclusions and recommendations, if they are adopted by the Obama Administration, would have significant impacts on those state and local TBED initiatives focused on NASA installations, space science, and the aerospace industry.

The committee finds the FY2010 budget for NASA does not provide sufficient support to maintain a viable space exploration program. If the space shuttle program ends next year, as scheduled, the U.S. will lack the ability to launch astronauts into space for at least seven years. This seven-year gap would include the entire scheduled five-year operational period of the International Space Station (ISS). The report concludes that the U.S. should adjust its timing for the decommission of the shuttle program and ISS, draw on global and private resources for continuing human space flight and re-examine its goals in space.

This year as states were wrestling with significant deficits, several proposals to consolidate TBED initiatives with other units of government emerged. The most recently decided was in Connecticut, where the General Assembly did not move forward with a plan to merge the state's two primary financing agencies, Connecticut Innovations and the Connecticut Development Authority to form a new Connecticut Economic Innovations Authority. Gov. Jodi Rell had proposed the consolidation.

Governors in New York, Kansas, and Hawaii also outlined similar restructuring plans for the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology, and Innovation, the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation, and Hawaii's High Technology Development Corporation, respectively. As in Connecticut, none of the proposals were approved by the states' legislatures. In New York and Kansas, the stand-alone lead TBED organizations were proposed to be consolidated into the states' conventional economic development departments. In Hawaii, HTDC was to become part of the University of Hawaii system.

Halfway through its money and its first decade, Ohio's Third Frontier Initiative has helped generate a $6.6 billion impact for the state, according to an independent assessment released by the Ohio Department of Development (ODOD) on Tuesday. The report also credits the initiative's investments for creating 41,300 jobs within Ohio over the past five years.

Making an Impact: Assessing the Benefits of Ohio's Investment in Technology-Based Economic Development Programsprovides a supporting backdrop as Gov. Ted Strickland and the state legislature consider whether or not to place a possible extension of the Third Frontier Initiative on the May 2010 ballot. A large component of the Third Frontier's funding comes from a $500 million bond package Ohio voters passed four years ago.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E), housed at the U.S. Department of Energy, has released a Request for Information (RFI) to assist the development of its future funding opportunities and initiatives. Public and stakeholder ideas are needed in two categories:

Identifying the novel and cutting-edge scientific discoveries, as well as their potential applications, to push advancement in transformative energy applications; and, Suggesting certain technologies that can overcome barriers, or "choke points", in the path of developing solutions to energy problems.

The RFI is looking for concepts that currently are not supported in topic or scale by other applied-energy technology initiatives associated with the Department of Energy. Future ARPA-E funding initiatives will not target exploratory basic research or large-scale demonstrations, but will concentrate on developing scientific breakthroughs on new energy technologies.

Once again, SSTI's annual conference continues to be the most affordable professional development event of the year for the state, local, and university-based TBED community. Early registration discounts, which knock off $100 from the lowest prices already in the field, will expire Sept 29. Make the smart investment for your TBED program and your career by registering today. More information, including a registration form, is available at: http://www.ssticonference.org

Earlier this month, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved $750 million in financing over the next five years to Argentina's federal government for the country's Technology Innovation Program.

Argentina's R&D intensity as gauged by the ratio of R&D expenditures to GDP has increased in recent years, from 0.4 in 2003 to 0.51 in 2007. However, compared to a R&D intensity of 2.3 percent of GDP for OCED countries, Argentina lags considerably behind.

The Technological Innovation Program, an initiative of Argentina's Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation is designed to change that, primarily through three main components:

The United States Army has unveiled a new competition to foster the development of software and services that will be of use to the military. Apps for the Army would help speed the development process for Defense IT projects by providing an incentive for the military community to participate in creating innovative applications. Officials say that the program will help tap into the work already being done by military personnel to design software that is tailored to the demands of the battlefield. The pilot program is expected to launch by the end of the month and, if successful, would eventually be replicated within other Department of Defense (DoD) agencies.

President Obama has named Ron Bloom as the administration's senior counselor for manufacturing policy. Since, February, Bloom has been a senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and he sits on the president's automotive industry task force.

Detroit Renaissance and the Michigan Business Leadership Council are uniting to form a new organization called Business Leaders for Michigan. The new organization supports the Michigan Turnaround Plan.

The U.S. Senate confirmed John Fernandez as assistant secretary of commerce for economic development. A former Mayor of Bloomington, IN, Fernadez will oversee the Economic Development Administration.

Often overshadowed in the media by state budget deficit reporting, city fiscal conditions are rapidly declining and expected to worsen through 2010 and beyond, finds the National League of Cities (NLC) annual survey. Additionally, pessimism about the ability to meet city fiscal needs is at its highest level in the history of NLC's 24-year survey on city fiscal conditions.

Because of a typical time lag of 18 months to several years before economic shifts have an impact on city conditions, many cities just now are registering the effects of the national economic downturn, according to the report. It is expected that the deeper effects of the recession likely will be experienced and reported by cities beyond 2009, with the leanest years likely to be 2010 and 2011.

City finance officers responding to the survey reported a cumulative 2009 budget gap of 2.9 percent mostly due to decline of income and sales tax collections and the rising costs of providing services. Some of the key findings of the survey include:

The current fiscal pressures on regional technology-based economic development initiatives have been never greater than they are now. And, as the article above points out, things are going to get worse over 2010 and 2011 before they get better.

Additionally, since local communities became proactive partners with their universities, businesses, tech councils, civic organizations, and states to support economic growth through innovation, the need for local TBED never has been greater. Economists and policy wonks agree: the next economy is being built on innovation and technology.

So how will you sustain or jumpstart your regional TBED initiatives as traditional sources of funding contract?

SSTI is dedicating several sessions at our upcoming Annual Conference specifically to help answer that question for local, nonprofit, university and state TBED programs. Here are some highlights:

This week's Digest covers two new independent reports that separately assess two critical aspects to how well nations are prepared for the economic recovery: competitiveness and educational attainment. The news, obvious in our choice of headlines, may suggest the past year - actually several years - has not been kind to the United States relative to other nations. Reading the articles one will see, however, that it isn't time that is working against the U.S. but rather our progress on several indicators of preparedness for a future based on innovation, technology and entrepreneurship. The reports show other nations are succeeding in laying a more solid foundation for their future than the U.S. is preparing for itself.

At this moment, every aspect of the U.S. economy is in a period of transformation. And nearly every aspect of getting out of the current mess is related to one or more of the fundamental principles of tech- based economic development (TBED).