SSTI Digest

Russel Hancock is the new president and CEO of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley.

The U.S. Department of Commerce is promoting Chris Israel to serve as coordinator for international intellectual property enforcement. The new position will coordinate interagency protection efforts to combat international IP piracy.

William "Bill" Mahoney is the new president and CEO of the South Carolina Research Authority.

Joan Myers, president and CEO of Raleigh-based N.C. Technology Association, is the 2005-2007 president for the Council of Regional Information Technology Associations (CRITA).

Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski appointed Bill Noll as commissioner of the Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development. Noll has been serving as the governor's communications director.

Jack Pfunder is the new executive director of the Manufacturers Resource Center in Bethlehem, Pa.

Pat Snider, the first CEO for BioGenerator in St. Louis, announced her departure from the two-year-old organization by the end of the year.

The new director of the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship at Purdue University will be Jerry Woodall.

President Bush is nominating John Young Jr. to serve as director of Defense Research & Engineering. Young is currently Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition.

SSTI is pleased to give regular Digest readers the first peek at a PDF version of the brochure for SSTI's 9th annual conference, Investing in a Brighter Future: Building Tech-based Economies, to be held in Atlanta on October 19-21, 2005.

A quick glance at the 28-page brochure reveals why the event is the premier professional development experience of the year for the tech-based economic development (TBED) community. The brochure includes:

Expressing concern over the nation's ability to sustain its scientific and technological superiority throughout the 21st Century, 15 leading business organizations have released an action plan that aims to double the number of science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates by 2015.

The report, Tapping America's Potential: The Education for Innovation Initiative, identifies several troubling indicators that the U.S. is losing its innovative edge. For example, the percentage of students planning to pursue engineering degrees declined by one-third between 1992-2002, and funding for basic research in the physical sciences as a percentage of the gross domestic product has declined by half since 1970.

Following defeat at the polls two years ago, Ohio's state legislature has agreed nearly unanimously to again have voters decide on whether or not the state can issue bonds in support of the final component of Gov. Bob Taft's tech-based economic development strategy -- Ohio's Third Frontier Initiative.