SSTI Digest

Greater Philadelphia First (GPF) and the Science Center, a consortium of 34 regional academic and scientific institutions, have established a major new joint initiative designed to make it easier for science and technology entrepreneurs to start, grow and expand their businesses. Modeled on UCSD CONNECT in San Diego, CONNECT Greater Philadelphia will assist entrepreneurs by linking them with needed business, academic and other resources.

GPF, the region's business and civic leadership organization, is an association of chief executives of Philadelphia-area companies and nonprofit organizations. The new initiative will be housed within the Science Center.

With heightened public interest in the state of the economy, the National Commission on Entrepreneurship (NCOE) has released Entrepreneurship: A Candidate’s Guide — Creating Good Jobs in Your Community, a first-of-its-kind publication on how policymakers can help stimulate the creation and growth of new businesses in their local areas.

Fast-growth new companies can have a profound effect on local economies. The NCOE guide offers a prescription for developing successful entrepreneurial-friendly environments to foster new companies and fuel jobs.

Whether it's oil, gas, mining, lumber, fishing or farming, economies dominated by natural resource exploitation are subject to periods of boom and bust. In order for the four provinces of Canada's Atlantic region to shield themselves from such market swings and scarcity problems, it is necessary to build R&D partnerships and to collaborate more than ever, concludes a report released by Dr. Alan Cornford of GPT Management Ltd., Marin Consultants, Inc. and Gardner Pinfold Consultants Ltd.

Innovation and Commercialization in Atlantic Canada, released in March, aims to assist the Atlantic Provinces in identifying ways to improve the area's economy through R&D, innovation and  commercialization programs. The key for the region, the authors say, is to encourage more private R&D investment and activity.

Most technology-based economic development programs recognize the need to have more people in their states or communities who have received bachelor degrees or higher. Bringing low-income populations into a knowledge-based economy is particularly difficult because of the two significant obstacles low-income students face for college access: insufficient financial aid and inadequate academic preparation.

According to a report released last week by the Lumina Foundation for Education, the Twenty-first Century Scholars Program, Indiana's state financial assistance initiative, helps low-income Indiana residents overcome those obstacles. The program also may help address "brain drain" concerns when a state experiences a net outmigration of college graduates.

Do personal income tax cuts encourage entrepreneurship? Conventional wisdom and many politicians may suggest that if people have more cash on hand, they may be inclined to launch or start their own businesses. A working paper released earlier this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) concludes just the opposite: lowering personal tax rates in most cases appears to discourage entrepreneurial activity.

H. Day Chapin has been selected as the first Director for the new Northwest Energy Technology Collaborative.

Maxine Lunn is leaving her position as Vice President for Technology Programs at Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology to work in international development.

The Illinois Biotechnology Industry Organization has appointed David Miller to serve as president, effective September 3.

John Wik, director of Delaware's economic development office, is resigning in September to pursue interests in the private sector.

Gary Woodbury, president and CEO of the Small Business Association of Michigan for the past 15 years, has announced he will retire in June 2003.