Search

Tuesday, July 1 | 3:00 p.m. EST

Whether your region is just beginning to address market failures in risk capital availability and performance for innovation-centered companies or your current efforts could use a refreshing check-in among peers, please plan to join us for the kick-off of our Innovation Finance Community of Practice Series. 

On June 3, SSTI will host a webinar exclusively for Innovation Advocacy Council members to receive an in-depth update on many of the confusing factors in play in the federal policy and budget environments—the key factors influencing the future of your state, regional and university TBED strategies. IAC partners at Van Scoyoc & Associates will be on hand to provide the latest news from the Hill and answer questions to help make sense of any new developments.

The list of technology-based economic development initiatives within the newly created Technology and Innovation Office of the New Mexico Economic Development Department covers the spectrum of critical policy aspects required for a strong state innovation economy: increasing R&D, business incubation, targeted emerging technologies and strong existing assets, startup capital, venture development, and innovation talent development and recruitment.

If you’re leading a knowledge work[1] organization and considering introducing generative artificial intelligence into your workflow, it likely would be helpful to know how its use may impact the day-to-day aspects of your team’s work, and the potential risks involved. 

The SSTI Board of Trustees has appointed Kristy Campbell, president & chief operations officer at Rev1 Ventures, and John Fernandez, chief executive officer at The Mill, as members of the board.  “I look forward to working with Kristy and John as new board members,” Dan Berglund, SSTI’s president, said with their appointments. “Both are proven, inspiring leaders, have been long time friends of SSTI, and demonstrated strong commitments to advancing the TBED community.”

The United States faces intense competition in global markets for advanced technology industries.

SSTI has recently expanded its staff to include Aaron Hagar as their vice president for innovation finance. Hagar brings over twenty years of experience spanning biomedical research, heath care, public policy, and technology-based economic development to share with SSTI's members. He has significant experience building partnerships, creating innovative solutions, shaping public policy, and developing data-driven strategies.

America's Seed Fund returns to the J.W. Marriott in Austin, Texas, for the SBIR/STTR Spring Innovation Conference from June 9 -11.  SSTI Weekly Digest readers may use these discount codes to reduce their cost for attending:

The AI market is projected to reach $4.8 trillion by 2023—a 25x increase in just 10 years, according to the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 2025 Technology and Innovation report. The technology will be leap-frogging other “frontier tech markets,” including the Internet of Things, which currently dominates 36% of the market for emerging platform technologies. The super-charged AI market will impact up to 40% of global jobs, both positively and negatively.

Most countries have dramatically increased their investments in R&D over the past two decades, with OECD nation spending reaching a record high nearly $1,600 of gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) per person in 2023 (PPP[1] converted), approximately triple the value recorded in 2000. Although the U.S.

SSTI’s recent webinar for its EDA-funded TBED Community of Practice work explored the emerging trend of creating centralized tech transfer offices (TTOs) serving multiple institutions. Centralized approaches are intended to more efficiently help develop and commercialize inventions from smaller or regional colleges and universities.

May 20, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. ET | Zoom 

A recent working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Self-reinforcing Glass Ceilings by Carlos F. Avenancio-León, Alessio Piccolo, and Leslie Sheng Shen delves into the complexities of the gender pay gap, even after it has narrowed. The authors challenge the conventional understanding that a shrinking gender pay gap automatically leads to greater gender equality.

Regional cooperation economic development is believed to stimulate growth in various ways, including increased trade, enhanced movement of technologies from lab to market, and improved resource allocation. Federal support for innovation-driven growth has increasingly forced applicants to take integrated regional approaches. However, empirical evidence on the specific impacts of such cooperation is scant.

In the last twenty years, there has been a critical shift in the technology transfer landscape that calls for a fundamental overhaul of university Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) from focusing on passive IP management to active startup development, according to a recent SSRN article.

A recent Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City working paper explores the relationship between inter-state mobility, earnings gains, and initial wealth of young college graduates over time, highlighting the impact of debt. The paper Should I Stay or Should I Go? Inter-state Mobility and Earnings Gains of Young College Graduates by Andrew Glover and José Mustre-del-Río proposes a model to explain the decline in mobility.

The same April 23 executive order as mentioned above requires Labor, Commerce and Education to work together and prepare by the end of August, a plan “to reach and surpass 1 million new active apprentices.” Apprenticeships were a preferred skill development program during President Trump’s first term in office as well. 

One of the top perennial concerns of America’s manufacturing and business communities relates to the workforce. The main issues may vary year to year; examples include too few workers available, skill mismatch, poor work habits or preparedness because of non-work issues such as basic education attainment, drug use, prison records or lack of work ethic.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) recently released a report on the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) program with data through December 31, 2024. As of the end of 2024, Treasury has disbursed nearly $4 billion of the $10 billion set aside for the program in the 2021 American Rescue Plan of Act.