SSTI Digest

President Bush has nominated Santanu Baruah to be Assistant Secretary for Economic Development for the U.S. Department of Commerce. Mr. Baruah's responsibilities include oversight of the Economic Development Administration.

John Gardner has been named the first vice president for research and economic development for the University of Missouri system.

David Goodrich announced he will leave his position as CEO of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership at the end of the year.

Mike Kazmierski is the new president of the Greater Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp.

Sue Strommer has joined the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds as Chief Executive Officer (NASVF) as CEO. Charlie Spies, the former president and CEO, will remain as president of NASVF.

Only 13 days left to register early for SSTI's 9th Annual Conference!

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With the passage of the state's biennial budget, North Carolina's small businesses are now eligible for follow-on support from the state for research projects funded under the federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.

A provision in the budget creates the One North Carolina Small Business Fund, a special revenue fund of up to $3 million to be used for the North Carolina SBIR/STTR Incentive Program and the North Carolina SBIR/STTR Matching Funds Program. Both programs will be administered by the North Carolina Board of Science and Technology.

Two initiatives aimed at closing the digital divide, particularly among low-income Americans, were announced earlier this month.

Maine Free Internet Angus King, former governor of Maine, provided the leadership to get several innovative programs for the state. As governor, King implemented a $37 million laptop program, the Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) in 2000, which provides all seventh and eighth-graders with laptops to ensure they had the computer skills required of the global economy. According to an impact evaluation report by the Maine Education Policy Research Institute, teachers and students view the program an overall success (see the April 19 issue of the Digest).

The bottom line for all regional economic development initiatives should be improving the quality of life for the area's residents. A new report from the Census Bureau — revealing the increased percentage of the U.S. population living in poverty and median household income remaining flat again, after two years of decline — provides a not-too-subtle reminder for the technology-based economic development (TBED) field.

Also released on Tuesday, the Southern Growth Policies Board's new index provides a useful tool for southern communities to track quality of life measures as part of their regional economic development strategies.

Ban on Outside Consulting with Industry Remains in Force Last week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced final regulations regarding reporting of certain financial interests, stock divestiture, outside activities, and awards. The announcement came following a careful review of all comments about the interim ethics regulation submitted by NIH staff, the public, and scientific organizations. The changes, considered sweeping by most media reports and policy analysts, were first proposed in early February (see the Feb. 7, 2005 issue of the Digest.).

Three principles guided the crafting of the rules:

Many of the readers are new to the Digest since last year's conference, so we're getting questions about how SSTI's upcoming 9th annual conference, to be held in Atlanta on Oct. 19-21, differs from other events.

The easiest way to answer that is to let the conference speak for itself — through the comments we received from past participants:

"The most relevant conference I’ve attended in the last five years. Great mix of people — connected to others with similar interest that will give me a resource base."

“Outstanding organization and right on target topically. The value you deliver attracts an audience that is such a great balance of academics and practitioners in TBED.”

"I emerged from this session with eagerness to get back to work on linking research to regional economic development!”

Following the 1998 Master Tobacco Settlement Agreement, states across the country set out to dedicate significant amounts of funding from their share of the settlement to support research and other TBED programs.