SSTI Digest

Last week, Governor Don Siegelman signed Executive Order Number 71, which establishes the Alabama Research Alliance, a partnership among Alabama’s research universities, the business community and state government. The mission of the research alliance is to foster economic development in Alabama by investing in existing and new research initiatives at Alabama’s research universities.

The research alliance will focus on investing in and promoting research in areas including, but not limited to: space, science, technology and defense; automotive manufacturing and production design; agriculture; biomedicine and cancer research; and aviation computer electronics.

The new Executive Order amends a 1999 Executive Order by Gov. Seigelman by changing the name from the Alabama Research Institute (ARI) to the Alabama Research Alliance and by expanding the Board of Directors.

The Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) is facilitating the expansion of VentureLab at the state’s research universities. Piloted at the Georgia Institute of Technology, VentureLab is a strategy for enhancing and accelerating the process of spinning new technology-based enterprises out of university research.

GRA President C. Michael Cassidy defined the goals of VentureLab as providing earlier and increased awareness by the business and investment community of university commercialization opportunities and providing an easier and more efficient process for turning these technologies into new companies or new markets for established companies.

The California Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency (TTCA) has released A County Level Analysis of California's R&D Activity 1993-1999, which, for the first time, offers California state and regional policymakers a county-by-county, instead of statewide or national, analysis of research and development trends.

The Analysis identifies $50.24 billion that California institutions secured in federal research support between the years 1993-99 (the latest data available). The Analysis includes unclassified research funding from 17 federal agencies on a county-by-county basis and details who performs the research including individual business, public and private educational institutions, federal government, nonprofit institutions, and state or local government.

The AEA's sixth annual survey of employment in the electronics and information technology sectors revealed 20 states experienced more IT job losses than creations in 2001. Texas led the way with more than 3,000 job losses while South Dakota experienced the greatest percentage loss of its IT workforce at 14 percent.

Nationally, only 80,000 jobs were added in the year, compared with 440,000 in 2000.

On the positive side, California, Kansas, Virginia, Oregon and New Jersey added the greatest number of technology jobs during 2001.

Cyberstates 2002: A State-by-State Overview of the High-Technology Industry is available for $195 through http://www.aeanet.org. Press releases on the individual findings for many states are available for free download on the site.

Of Arizona's 664,454 businesses, 98 percent qualify as small businesses with fewer than 100 employees, according to a study released by the Arizona Department of Commerce and the Arizona State University's Center for the Advancement of Small Business. The study was conducted by the Masters Consulting Group (MCG), an MBA student organization at ASU's College of Business.

The number of Arizona's small businesses, estimated at 651,317 by the MCG report, includes 281,022 home-based businesses. For comparison, Arizona had 329,031 small firms in 1997, the last year for available U.S. Census data. The 1997 total, however, does not include limited liability partnerships, limited liability companies, not-for-profit corporations, and C corporations.

Virginia is one of the most connected states in the country with 5.19 million access lines, 2.76 million wireless telephone subscribers and 218,808 high-speed lines, according to a report issued by Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology (CIT). State of the Telecommunications Industry in Virginia analyzes the state of the national and local telecom industry and identifies the key drivers of Virginia’s success in attracting telecommunications companies, focusing on the industry during the latter part of 2001 and the first half of 2002.

The report states that, with the national telecommunications industry in turmoil, further consolidation is inevitable. Between March 2000 and February 2002, more than $1 trillion in market value in the telecom industry was lost, and more than 300,000 people in the industry lost their jobs. In addition, the telecom industry recovery will lag the rest of the economy by 18-24 months.

Arizona The Governor's Strategic Partnership for Economic Development (GSPED) has formally recognized the state's 12th industry cluster, E-Learning. The implementing organization for the cluster is the Globalized E-Learning Association, which grew from earlier efforts by the Arizona Telecommunications and Information Council, the telecommunications infrastructure foundation under GSPED. E-Learning is the 12th Arizona cluster recognized by GSPED since its inception in 1992.

SSTI extends a friendly reminder there is still time for readers to complete the 2002 SSTI Weekly Digest survey. As mentioned in a separate e-mail earlier this week, the survey results help us determine the editorial direction and content of future Digest issues.

We recognize demands on your time exceed availability, so the 2002 Digest survey asks only 11 critical questions. Completing the online survey forms should take only a few minutes. Most are multiple choice for further simplification, although your personal comments are very helpful, too.

Every SSTI staff member involved in preparing the SSTI Weekly Digest and Funding Supplements will read every comment or suggestion, and a summary of the results will be submitted to the Economic Development Administration, the source that allows the Digest to be a free publication.

Nominations are being accepted currently for the 2002 Tibbetts Awards to recognize those small firms, projects, organizations and individuals judged to exemplify the very best in Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) achievement.

Named for Roland Tibbetts – acknowledged as the father of the SBIR program – the Tibbetts Award Program is administered by the Small Business Administration (SBA).

All nominations must be received by August 12, 2002, and announcements of awards will be made late August or early September. The national ceremony to recognize recipients of Tibbetts Awards will be held in Washington, D.C. on October 2, 2002. The event will include a specially arranged program of high-level briefings addressing issues of consequence to technology firms and the SBIR community and a luncheon featuring a keynote speaker.

Governor Dirk Kempthorne has announced the creation of TechConnect East, a regional science and technology office to be located at the Idaho State University Incubation Center in Pocatello, Idaho.

Funded with $30,000 from Bechtel, an engineering-construction firm, $25,000 from the Eastern Idaho Economic Development Council (EIEDC), and $15,000 from the state, TechConnect East will support job creation and high-tech business development in southeastern Idaho. Additional office and administrative support will be provided by Idaho State University and the Bannock Development Corporation, an economic development organization in Pocatello.

The nation's metropolitan areas were responsible for "driving the economic performance of the nation as a whole last year," accounting for 98 percent of job growth and 86 percent of national economic growth, according to a new report prepared for the U.S. Conference of Mayors by DRI/WEFA.

The Role of Metro Areas in the U.S. Economy contains data on each of the nation's 319 metro areas, including 2001 gross metropolitan product, as well as growth and employment figures. Economic forecasts are also provided for the 20 largest U.S. metro areas.

As engines of economic growth, job and income creation, metro economies hold the key to the future of the U.S. economy, the report observes. Some of the findings include:

The Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis at Florida State University has completed a New Economy index for Tallahassee, showing how the Florida capital compares with 66 MSAs and, in a second analysis, a comparison of 20 Florida MSAs. Tallahassee ranks 11th among all MSAs assessed, a finding the authors suggest confirms "the city's economy has a number of very strong advantages."

The new index strives to build on the The Metropolitan New Economy Index, a study released by the Progressive Policy Institute in April 2001 that established a framework within which to rank the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas.