SSTI Digest

The National Center for Small Communities (NCSC) is offering a new toolkit to help small communities establish more competitive positions in the knowledge economy through aggressive information technology adoption strategies. Following in the footsteps of NCSC's first (1999) Internet guide, Getting Online 2.0: a small-town guide to creating 21st-century communities moves small communities further along the information-technology path by providing updated and more in-depth information and resources. The guide helps small community leaders to: promote public access to computers and the Internet; foster e-commerce among local businesses and non-profits; assess and aggregate demand for high-speed telecommunications services; collaborate with high-speed providers; acquire computer hardware and software; protect security and privacy; launch effective local government Web sites; and much more. Included in the 74-page book's appendices is a summary of the CSPP Readiness Guide, a self-assessment tool that helps communities determine their telecommunications…

Factors such as globalization, trade liberalization and consumer preferences have changed the way agricultural research is conducted, and advances in biotechnology and genomics, ecosystem science and social science have altered the overall agricultural landscape. However, the United States' leading agricultural research service is not quite ready to adapt to this changing environment with its traditional organizational structure, states a new report published by the National Academies. Frontiers in Agricultural Research, conducted for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is the result of the National Academies' efforts to review USDA's Research, Education, and Economics (REE) mission area and offer suggestions for the future of agriculture in the U.S. The report positions REE as the nation's principal driver of publicly funded agricultural research – one which oversees nearly $2 billion in federal research each year – that executes its mission through four member agencies. To continue the gains put forth by agriculture over the last century, a National Academies committee…

A technically-skilled workforce is one of the elements required for a tech-based economy, so the issue of stopping the brain drain is of critical importance to some regions and states.  The choice for some states, it has been observed, is to turn into retirement homes or to retain their college graduates; in short, to avoid losing their minds.  Maine, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are just a few of the states that have been looking at the issue. A recent study of Maine graduates in 1998, Where They Go and Why: Finding Maine’s Future Workforce, reveals that while half of the Maine's high school graduates leave the state to attend college, many transfer back to Maine colleges and universities to complete their degrees. Additionally, more than half of Maine's best and brightest college graduates in 1998 chose to stay in-state or return to Maine to earn their degree. The study defines the "best and brightest" as those students who earned A's or B's in high school and whose mothers have earned at least a bachelor's degree. Three out of every four of Maine's best and brightest students,…

A recent study by the Council for Education Policy, Research and Improvement finds that State University System Centers and Institutes (C&Is) in Florida are cost-effective and creative settings for scientific discovery, technological innovation, policy development, teaching and instruction and public outreach activities. Public Postsecondary Centers and Institutes, a 175-page comprehensive review of C&Is in the state of Florida, also finds that the economic benefits of C&Is extend broadly throughout Florida affecting job creation, gross regional product, personal income, state taxes, and other direct financial benefits. According to the report, approximately 50 percent of all time spent by C&Is in FY 2000-01 was spent on research activities, 30 percent on instructional activities and 20 percent was devoted to service to the community and professional organizations. By utilizing expenditure data and transforming this information into an input-output table, the council uses the REMI model to conduct an economic impact analysis of C&Is in the state of Florida. The REMI…

Correction: In last week's People column, Tom Walker's new title was incorrect. Mr Walker is executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Oklahoma Technology Commercialization Center. Richard Greene, director of the Arlington Technology Incubator and former mayor of Arlington Texas, has been appointed regional administrator of the U.S. EPA. Doris Freedman has announced she is leaving the National Commission on Entrepreneurship effective March 31. Colorado Governor Bill Owens has appointed Paul Ray as the state's first director of biosciences. Peter Slate will preside as chief executive officer over the Arizona Technology Enterprises, the newly created limited liability company formed by spinning off Arizona State University's technology transfer office.

Correction: In last week's People column, Tom Walker's new title was incorrect. Mr Walker is executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Oklahoma Technology Commercialization Center.

Richard Greene, director of the Arlington Technology Incubator and former mayor of Arlington Texas, has been appointed regional administrator of the U.S. EPA.

Doris Freedman has announced she is leaving the National Commission on Entrepreneurship effective March 31.

Colorado Governor Bill Owens has appointed Paul Ray as the state's first director of biosciences.

Peter Slate will preside as chief executive officer over the Arizona Technology Enterprises, the newly created limited liability company formed by spinning off Arizona State University's technology transfer office.

U.S. Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, has called on the Senate’s top appropriators to help reverse budget elimination of two key programs designed to strengthen the technological competitiveness of small businesses. Snowe and a bipartisan group of 14 other senators released a letter calling on Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Ranking Member Robert Byrd (D-WV) to help identify new sources of funding “to alleviate the severe impact” of FY 2003 cuts in the Federal and State Technical Partnership (FAST) and Rural Outreach Programs (ROP) administered by the Small Business Administration. Both federal programs provide matching grants to state initiatives to help small businesses with technology development and commercialization. A total of $3.5 million in combined funding for FAST and ROP were cut from the Conference Report on the Omnibus Appropriations Act, which was signed into law by the President on February 20. The Bush Administration had requested $3 million in FY03 for the SBIR FAST program and $500,000…

A bi-partisan group of Senators have cosponsored the "New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act" to help renew the promise of the original Homestead Act to attract new residents and businesses to rural areas suffering from high out-migration. Introduced by Senator Bryon Dorgan (D-ND) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) this week, the bill provides incentive tools including a $3 billion venture capital fund. S. 602 calls for a federal injection of $200 million annually between 2004-2013 into the New Homestead Venture Capital Fund, after $100 million in investments have been made each year from private and nonfederal sources. The purpose of the fund would be to strengthen the economies of qualifying counties – those which have seen a net outmigration exceeding 10 percent over the past 20 years – by: providing equity funding for existing and startup rural businesses with high potential for job creation that are or will be located in qualifying counties; supporting technical and other similar assistance to rural businesses; and, providing incentives to greater participation by authorized private…