SSTI Digest

The Piedmont Triad Entrepreneurial Network recently selected Lisa Blakely, a former Bank of America executive, as its CEO.

Earlier this month, Gov. Ernie Fletcher announced Darrell Brock and Jim Host as new co-chairmen of ConnectKentucky. Brock, commissioner of the governor's Office for Local Development, and Commerce Cabinet Secretary Host joined existing chairman John Hall, retired chairman and CEO of Ashland Inc.

The Alaska MEP, a new nonprofit entity formed by the Alaska Native Arts Foundation and the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation, has named Robert Pope as the first Interim Director.

Earlier this month, Gov. Ernie Fletcher announced Darrell Brock and Jim Host as new co-chairmen of ConnectKentucky. Brock, commissioner of the governor's Office for Local Development, and Commerce Cabinet Secretary Host joined existing chairman John Hall, retired chairman and CEO of Ashland Inc.

The Alaska MEP, a new nonprofit entity formed by the Alaska Native Arts Foundation and the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation, has named Robert Pope as the first Interim Director.

The Metropolitan Development Association, of Syracuse and Central New York, also recently named a new chairman, John Zawadzki, of its Regional Development Alliance.

The Piedmont Triad Entrepreneurial Network recently selected Lisa Blakely, a former Bank of America executive, as its CEO.

Both the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) and the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) would see budget increases in FY 2005 if the version of the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations Bill that passed the Senate Appropriations Committee last week survives what is expected to be a contentious conference with the House on an mega-omnibus appropriations bill sometime after the election.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved $112 million for MEP, $6 million more than the House approved and nearly $73 million more than was requested by the Bush Administration. Opposition from the White House to at least the House figures is likely to be muted as President Bush's opponent, Sen. John Kerry, has made doubling the federal funds available to MEP part of his presidential campaign platform.

More than half since recession "officially" ended There is little comforting news in a new statistical report for workers in the U.S. information and communication technologies (ICT) sector. Researchers from the University of Illinois-Chicago found the sector lost 403,300 jobs between March 2001 and April 2004.

A staggering 200,000 of the high-wage jobs were lost since the recession was officially declared over in November 2001, making the notion of a jobless recovery a significant understatement for the sector.

The resilience of the regional ICT sectors and the overall economies of the seven profiled metropolitan areas are being tested with the incredible losses suffered since the bubble burst in March 2001. The following list presents the percentage change in total ICT employment between March 2001 and April 2004 for the seven primary metropolitan statistical areas (PMSA):

While it appears that federal programs in the U.S. have succeeded in efforts to increase enrollment in higher education, the nation has fallen behind in retaining college graduates, according to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Education at a Glance 2004 is a comprehensive report on education systems within the organization’s 30 member countries. Statistics in the report provide a basis for policy debate and decisions, according to OECD, and this year’s report highlights factors affecting the future supply of qualified people and the relationship between educational attainment, employment and earnings.

U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige said the report confirms that in every country, education and earnings are strongly linked and the benefits are not limited to individuals, but include increased workforce productivity and technological progress.

During the recent past, heavy loss of manufacturing jobs has created considerable economic upheaval in several states, particularly the industrial heartland of the country where manufacturing represents more of a state's private payrolls than the national average. Michigan, alone, lost 18 percent of its manufacturing-related jobs from 2000 to 2003, a staggering 163,000 mostly high-wage jobs. Still, the manufacturing sector comprises 17 percent of the total jobs in the Great Lakes state.

Stemming the loss of manufacturing operations across the U.S. through improved technological competitiveness and leaner production processes is a goal of many state and federal tax credits, policies and programs, such as the successful NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership and its network of 400 state and regional affiliate centers.

Seekers for evidence of the increasingly global nature of competition on the research and innovation levels need look no further than some recent announcements stemming from Malaysia. As part of its 2005 budget plan, the Malaysian government aims to create a new matching grant program for private R&D in January, triple financial support for its Small and Medium-sized Industry Fund, encourage government-linked companies to investment up to 10 percent of profits into research efforts over the next five years, and increase government support for research through the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations.

The economic development component of the Ninth Malaysian Plan, introduced by Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Sept. 10, outlines several significant investments and initiatives. Highlights include:

The role community colleges play in building tech economies has grown substantially during the past decade beyond important, yet traditional, worker training programs. A new compendium from the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE) provides several examples of efforts by its 14-member community colleges and technical schools to foster entrepreneurship. Highlighted programs include:

The presentations from last week's conference, Knowledge Clusters and Entrepreneurship in Regional Economic Development, now available online, provide a good introduction to many of the topics and issues to be discussed at SSTI's annual conference, Building Tech-based Economies: Preparing for Tomorrow's Challenges, in Philadelphia, Oct. 13-15.

Organized by the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, the Clusters conference included case studies on U.S. and Irish clusters and entrepreneurship as well as: