SSTI Digest

Toucan Capital announced the appointment of Dr. Phillip Singerman as a new Venture Partner.

SSTI continues this year's "Tech Talkin' Govs" series. The first installment of this 2006 review of governors' legislative priorities concerning tech-based economic development is available through the Digest online: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/digest.htm

Maine

Gov. John Baldacci, State-of-the-State Address, Jan. 18, 2006

Like many low-population states that cannot benefit from tax revenues from oil and gas exploitation such as Wyoming and Alaska, Rhode Island must leverage its existing university and industry research capabilities more fully and encourage more private investment activity, according to the five initial recommendations of the Rhode Island Science & Technology Advisory Council (STAC).

The council, created by Gov. Don Carcieri in April 2005, is comprised of leaders from the business, academic and government sectors of the state's economy. The group's first recommendation is to encourage greater collaboration in more focused or concentrated methods through the creation of a Rhode Island Collaborative Research Alliance.

One of the biggest obstacles for products drawing on alternative energy is finding a market big enough to bring the cost down of their new technologies to attract the larger more risk-adverse population of consumers. Californians are stepping up to the challenge after committing to invest nearly $3 billion over the next 10 years to aid in the shift to cleaner power.

The California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is investing $2.9 billion in solar energy to help bring down the cost of electricity for consumers. The PUC approved the California Solar Initiative earlier this month by a vote of 3 to 1, reports the Los Angeles Times. The 10-year program is designed to help the state move toward a cleaner energy future through reliance on solar energy. According to PUC, the goal is increase the amount of installed solar capacity on rooftops in the state by 3,000 megawatts by 2017.

The University of California (UC) is demonstrating success in several key areas under a compact designed to facilitate timely graduation. Findings of the first annual report reveal the university is achieving success in degree production in high priority areas for the state, effective community college transfer, and transfer of research innovations to the marketplace, according to the UC press office.

The university submitted its report last month in accordance to a compact made with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in May 2004. Under the compact, UC is to "continue its efforts to achieve improved student and institutional outcomes and place a high priority on providing needed classes so that students are able to graduate in four years or less." The report identifies performance measures during the academic year 2004-05. Some of the key findings include:

SSTI has compiled a table of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards in total dollars and state rankings from fiscal years 2000-2004. The states are ranked by percent change over the five-year period. The greatest gains were posted in North Dakota (202.51 percent), Alaska (200.98 percent), Idaho (157.48 percent), Montana (144.72 percent), Virginia (120.85 percent), and Hawaii (107.06 percent). Although award dollar totals in these states more than doubled over the five-year period, they showed some of the lowest increases from FY 2003. Idaho experienced the lowest dollar increase from FY03, $57,634.

Publisher's Note Since 1999, SSTI has reviewed each of the governor's State of the States and inaugural and budget addresses for references involving tech-based economic development. Since 2001, we've provided relevant excerpts as part of the SSTI Weekly Digest. This year's coverage begins with this issue, and as you'll see, it's clear that innovation and workforce are playing a major role in this year's speeches. Our coverage will continue over the next several weeks.

We've been alerted by a number of states to expect major announcements in the coming weeks, and as these excerpts indicate, 2006 is likely to be an active year for those that are concerned about innovation. As we report in our second article, American voters, if not all opinion leaders, are recognizing the importance of innovation to the country's future.

Americans increasingly recognize the nation's status as the world's economic superpower is threatened, based on research findings released by the Business Roundtable last Thursday. After four months of focus groups, interviews with opinion leaders and three national voter polls, the roundtable concluded there is widespread public recognition of the growing competitiveness crisis in this country and strong national support for policies designed to strengthen America’s capabilities in mathematics and science.

Whether Congress and the Bush Administration will address the concerns remains to be seen, roundtable leaders suggest.

A new report from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) places North America at the top, in terms of participation in high-expectation entrepreneurial activity. The report looks at the prevalence of high-expectation activity internationally and analyzes bivariate relationships between high-expectation prevalence rates and entrepreneurial framework conditions.

High-expectation is used to emphasize the fact that the GEM operationalization is based on expected rather than realized job creation, the report states. Some of the key findings include:

The challenge for industry, academic leaders and policymakers in Massachusetts over the next few years is to translate the competitive strengths of the state's economy into new companies and new jobs, the ninth annual Index of the Massachusetts Innovation Economy indicates.

While many competitor states and countries have been working through public-private collaborations to develop long-term strategic plans for future investments, Massachusetts has not had a recent collaborative effort, the report notes. Now is the time, it argues for industry and academic leaders to join with policymakers in identifying, planning and investing in the state's competitive assets for the Commonwealth's future economic vitality. Findings of the 2005 index include:

The Department of Economic and Workforce Development at the University of Southern Mississippi is seeking someone to fill a tenure-track assistant professor position. Specialization in regional workforce development is preferred; however, other areas of specialization, such as disaster recovery, entrepreneurship, rural development, technology transfer, or low-income communities, will be strongly considered. The candidate will teach and mentor students in the department’s on-campus and executive format masters and doctoral programs and take a leading part in the growth and development of these programs. A doctorate degree is required. A full job description is available through the SSTI Job Corner at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.

David Archer is the new managing director for Nevada's Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology.

Robert Chernow was appointed to the newly created position of vice provost for entrepreneurship at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The Greensboro, N.C.-based Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship has a new president, Michael Hentschel.

Sandy Johnson was promoted to CEO of the Mid-America Manufacturing Technology Center.