SSTI Digest

Mark Lang, CEO of the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania for the past 14 years, has announced his resignation.

Lu Cordova is the new President of the Colorado Technology Incubator.

The Center for Environmental Enterprise (CEE) in South Portland, Maine announced the hiring of a new executive director. John Ferland assumed leadership of CEE in late April.

Due to length considerations, this week's Funding Opportunities Supplement to the SSTI Weekly Digest was sent separately. During the past two weeks, the federal register has announced 15 federally owned inventions that available for licensing from the Army, Navy, National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy. The full text of the announcements, including descriptions of the inventions in many cases, can be found at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/060101t.htm A Special Issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest focusing on the SBIR and STTR programs will be released early next week. The issue will include comments on the SBIR Policy Directive from SSTI and three outside exports and other timely items related to FAST, ROP, and several individual agency programs.

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), in partnership with several public and private organizations, has outlined a plan to address telecommunications infrastructure needs across the state. LinkMichigan, released last week, addresses several telecommunications infrastructure issues or concerns that were increasingly facing the public and private sector, including: Dissatisfaction with broadband or bandwidth availability in the state. Lack of an adequate backbone infrastructure in many regions of the state to carry fast-speed broadband traffic. Little or no information on availability and accessibility of telecommunications infrastructure. Lack of understanding by many communities as to the importance of developing telecommunications infrastructure in their region. Four recommendations are outlined to construct a state-of-the-art telecommunications infrastructure throughout the state, including: “Leverage Statewide Public Demand to Create a High-Speed Backbone: The Michigan Department of Management and Budget is being asked to…

With so much attention given to increasing private seed and venture capital activity as a means of growing tech-based economies, one might expect that encouraging and attracting community development venture capital (CDVC) – that is, equity investments and entrepreneurial assistance to meet both profit targets and community development goals – would be a common element of a state or local community’s portfolio of economic development tools. Increasingly it is, according to the first in-depth research on the state of the CDVC industry, released recently by the Community Development Venture Capital Alliance (CDVCA). In fact, the study, prepared by Harvard Ph.D candidate Julia Sass Rubin, found more than 50 CDVC providers actively investing or in formation at the beginning of 2000 – up from a mere handful only five years ago. The combined capitalization of these providers at the end of 1999 was $300 million. Community development venture capital providers make equity investments in businesses in distressed rural and urban areas. CDVC…

San Jose, Austin, and San Francisco received top honors in the 3rd Annual Forbes-Milken Institute Best Places Ranking. San Jose and San Francisco raced to the top of the list from 29th and 42th place respectively in 1999. Completing the top ten metro areas in 2000 are: Boulder, CO; Dallas, TX; Santa Rosa, CA; Boise City, ID; San Diego, CA; Phoenix-Mesa, AZ; and Oakland, CA. The top metro area east of the Mississippi River, Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC, came in 13th. The Forbes-Milken Institute project ranked the top 200 large metro areas based on a weighted scoring of the eight data categories listed below. Relative Wage & Salary Growth Indexed to1994 (1999 Value) Relative Wage & Salary Growth Indexed to 1998 (1999 Value) Relative Job Growth Indexed to 1995 (2000 Value) Relative Job Growth Indexed to 1999 (2000 Value) High-Tech Location Quotient (2000 Value) Relative High-Tech Real Output Growth Indexed to 1995 (2000 Value) Relative High-Tech Real Output Growth Indexed to 1999 (2000 Value) Number of High-Tech Real Output Location…

Colorado The Governor’s Office of Innovation and Technology and the state’s Science and Technology Commission have teamed up to create the Colorado Technology Alliance to provide tech business recruitment information and assistance. According to a recent Pueblo Chieftain article, the Alliance will prepare a clearinghouse website and a 120-page resource magazine. Local and regional information for the website will be administered and maintained by local tech-based economic development officials. Covington, Kentucky The Cincinnati Enquirer reports the Madison Avenue Launch Team, a Covington non-profit organization, has signed a five-year lease to create a 21,000 sq. ft. technology accelerator to provide office space for up to 12 firms, mentoring services, and business assistance. So far, $200,000 in funding for the accelerator has been secured from the city of Covington, the Tricounty Economic Development Corp., and private investors. Additional funding is sought from the Kentucky Innovations Commission. More information about the accelerator and…

With an overall positive review, the Office of the Inspector General within the National Science Foundation (NSF) has made several recommendations for improving the performance of NSF's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). EPSCoR plays an important and strategic role in many states’ efforts to build a stronger research enterprise and tech-based economy. In FY 2000, the NSF EPSCoR program distributed $51.7 million to 19 states and Puerto Rico. The FY 2001 budget is $74.8 million. Created in 1978, the NSF EPSCoR program has served as a model for other agencies’ efforts to increase the research culture of states that have historically received a small share of federal research dollars. In addition to the EPSCoR program administration, the Inspector General’s office reviewed the EPSCoR programs in Maine and Mississippi. The two states were selected for attention because “they had undergone significant recent changes that were of particular interest to NSF program managers and because the states were substantially different in…

The Small Business Administration has extended the deadline for states to submit proposals in response to program announcement no. FAST-01-R-001 for the Federal and State Technology Partnership (FAST). FAST will support state efforts to foster economic development among small high technology businesses through federally funded innovation and research and development programs. According to the website for the SBA Office of Science & Technology, the deadline for proposals has been extended to June 28, 2001. See http://www.sba.gov/sbir/fastextension.html

Ever wonder how many SSTI Weekly Digest articles have covered tax credits? (Answer is 47) strategic plans? (35), biotechnology? (80), workforce issues?(92), indicators? (14), telecommunications? (77), math & science? (50), capital, both seed and venture? (150) To help make your research efforts easier, SSTI has restored the search feature for our website: http://ssti.org.master.com  Feedback from users would be appreciated. Return to the top of this page

With an eye toward helping to make Kansas City a leading center for biomedical research, James Stower Jr., founder of American Century mutual funds, and his wife are donating $1.114 billion to the Stowers Institute of Medical Research. The donation is considered one of the five largest philanthropic gifts in history. The Institute, opened last November after completion of the $200 million campus, is engaged in basic research toward long-term solutions for gene-based diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Already employing four molecular biologists recruited from California, Utah, Texas and London, England, and their staff, the Stowers Institute plans to have more than 50 independent research programs when fully operational. The success of the Stowers Institute plays heavily in the plans of local efforts to transform Kansas City into a national biomedical center. Building a strong local research capacity and presence in academic and nonprofit research institutions as well as private companies is widely recognized as a critical element to building tech-based…