SSTI Digest

Bill Kirkland will head the new Office of Economic Engagement that will begin operations July 1 at the University of South Carolina. The new entity will facilitate business development statewide, and work through USC&'s seven regional campuses.

John Carey, a former state representative, was appointed by Gov. John Kasich as the chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents.

Nancy Bryan will be welcomed as the new president & CEO of BioFlorida at their 10th Annual Celebration of Biotechnology on May 9.

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean has created a new Office of Innovation to make government services more efficient and transparent, and to help with economic development. The city has hired Kristine LaLonde and Yiaway Yeh as co-chief innovation officers.

President Obama nominated Ernest Moniz as the next secretary of Energy, Gina McCarthy as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Sylvia Mathews Burwell as director of the Office of Management and Budget. The nominations require confirmation by the Senate.

Draper Triangle Ventures is opening a Columbus, OH, office. Will Indest, formerly of TechColumbus, has been named managing director.

Jim Stefansic has been named commercialization director of Launch Tennessee. The position previously was held by James Stover, who stepped down from his full-time role in 2011 but served as a consultant to LaunchTN in the interim.

Jasper Welch has been named president & CEO of the National Business Incubation Association.

The fourth installment of SSTI's Tech Talkin' Govs series includes excerpts from speeches delivered in Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Tennessee and Texas. Our first three installments were in the Jan. 9, Jan. 16 and Jan. 23 issues of the Digest.

MarylandGov. Martin O'Malley, State of the State Address, Jan. 30, 2013“Creating jobs through innovation is not just the responsibility of the private sector. There are things we can do together ”“ through the common platform of our government ”“ to accelerate innovation and improve the business climate ... expanding our successful job creation tax credits for biotech, and research and development. And, by creating a new cyber security tax credit. ...

While Washington remains in political gridlock and the national economy continues sluggish growth, one key trend for political and economic success is apparent: U.S. metro regions experiencing high economic growth have invested federal, state, and private funds in high-speed broadband access.

In a recent NY Times Op-Ed, Thomas Friedman illustrates the impact of local investment in high-speed infrastructure that has contributed to an economic resurgence in Chattanooga, TN. Since installing a city-wide fiber network and smart meters, major global companies including Amazon and Volkswagen have moved operations to the city. The result is that corporate relocations, along with community-based tech-startups, have created over 3,700 new jobs in the past 3 years.

The Obama administration announced winners of the Advanced Manufacturing Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge on Tuesday. The challenge — publicized earlier this year — is one of the key initiatives of the interagency Taskforce for the Advancement of Regional Innovation Clusters and is sponsored by a partnership between the U.S. Department of Commerce, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Departments of Energy and Labor, and the Small Business Administration. Winners include programs in AZ, CA, MI, OK, TN, NY, PA, and a WA and OR bi-state partnership, each receiving approximately $2 million in grants. See the complete list of challenge winners and their reward amounts here. This is the third in a series of multiagency Jobs and Innovation Accelerator challenges administered since 2011. Learn more...

New efforts to step up technology transfer at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and the University of Tennessee (UT) have resulted in a record number of invention disclosures over the last year. In both cases, much of the achievement is attributed to faulty involvement, including new outreach efforts by the universities and more aggressive and ambitious goals set for the institutions.

In New Mexico, UNM's technology transfer office, the Science and Technology Corp., reported a record number of new technologies disclosed by faculty, including a 50 percent increase in biomedical or life science breakthroughs, reports the Albuquerque Journal. Aggressive efforts to recruit entrepreneurs to develop and market the technology led to 46 marketing licenses acquired by investors in 2012 and seven new startups were formed based on UNM inventions, the article states.

Established last year to help entrepreneurs develop business plans and launch companies, Tennessee's nine regional accelerators also will play a key role in the state's new five-year strategic plan through partnerships to create and expand angel capital networks and mentoring for new startups. The LaunchTN initiative was unveiled last week by Gov. Bill Haslam, who charged the Tennessee Technology Development Corporation (TTDC) with implementing the plan and serving as the lead advocate for the state's innovation agenda.

TTDC's Board of Directors outlined four focus areas for the plan, including entrepreneurship, commercialization, capital, and outreach. The regional accelerators play a pivotal role in three of those areas, which include:

The fourth installment of SSTI's Tech Talkin' Govs' series includes excerpts from speeches delivered in Illinois, New Hampshire, Tennessee, and Rhode Island. The first three installments are available in the Jan. 11, Jan. 18 and Jan. 25 editions of the Digest. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, State of the State Address, Feb. 1, 2012 "Today, I'm announcing a $2.3 million dollar investment in '1871,' a new technology center at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago to foster and launch digital start-ups. "Today, I'm also announcing a $6 million dollar statewide competition to build ultra-high speed broadband in neighborhoods across Illinois. "Through this challenge, we want our neighborhoods to become Gigabit communities with Internet connections more than 100 times faster than today! Our goal is to build smart communities that will foster the job engines of the future." New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, State of the State Address, Jan. 31, 2012 "There are tax reductions that can spur job growth here in New Hampshire. Innovative companies create jobs and lay the foundation for a stronger future for our state.

Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, Bill Hagerty announced the state will commit up to $2.25 million for the Jobs4TN Regional Entrepreneurial Accelerators program. The grants will award up to $250,000 to a regional entrepreneurial accelerator in each of the state's nine economic development regions. The Jobs4TN Regional Entrepreneurial Accelerators were announced in June as a part of Governor Bill Haslam's INCITE plan. Read the press release...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced that it will award $74 million total for the creation of four interdisciplinary research and education centers as part of the third generation of NSF Engineering Research Centers. In addition to their primary focus on commercialization and education, these centers will emphasize innovation, entrepreneurship, small business collaboration, and international partnerships. For the first time, two of the ERCs will be co-funded by the Department of Energy. One, led by Arizona State University, will investigate quantum energy and sustainable solar technologies. A second at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville will develop more reliable and efficient electricity transmission networks. The other two ERCs will focus on research into urban water infrastructure and mind-machine interface at Stanford University and the University of Washington, respectively.

As the cost of a college education continues to rise and good paying jobs are seemingly scarcer than ever before, many Americans are questioning the value of a college degree. A recent survey from the Pew Research Center found 57 percent of Americans believe the U.S. fails to provide good value for the money students and their families spend, and about four in ten college presidents say the system is headed in the wrong direction. At the same time, however, studies find the lifetime earnings of college graduates to be much higher than those of high school graduates. Further, students majoring in engineering, computers and mathematics can expect to make more money than any other undergraduate major.

Much of the recent economic recovery plans coming from governors across the country have focused on growing and nurturing existing businesses through a regional approach to economic development. The idea is that by identifying and defining the unique needs of a region, policymakers and practitioners can then provide the necessary tools and resources to grow industries likely to succeed within a given region, thus improving the overall economic landscape of the state. This approach is happening both in states and at the local level.