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Washington State remains poised to capture more benefits from its technology-driven economy, according to the Index of Innovation and Technology released last month by the Washington Technology Center (WTC). As the state's lead organization to support science and technology, WTC publishes the Index to provide the state's decision makers with annual benchmarks for setting policy and  public investments to promote technology-based economic development.

The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) recently held its 18th International Conference in Atlanta, honoring excellence in business incubation programs, graduates and client companies. NBIA, a nonprofit organization, works to advance incubation and entrepreneurship. This year’s recipients include:

Cleveland Fed: "Innovation, Growth, and Economic Policy in an Environment of Change,"

At a time when manufacturing jobs are relenting to the pressures of an expanded service sector, foreign competition and productivity growth, the idea of economic prosperity has a renewed urgency with innovation as the greatest strength and flexibility the greatest asset, argues a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

The Department of Commerce is accepting nominations for the 2005 National Medal of Technology awards, the nation’s highest honor awarded by the President to America's leading technological innovators.

2004 S&E Indicators includes chapter of state-level metrics

The U.S. remains the world's leading producer and net exporter of high-technology products, ranking among the global leaders in research and development (R&D) spending. However, ongoing economic and workforce changes make the outlook for the future uncertain, according to Science and Engineering (S&E) Indicators 2004, a biennial report of the National Science Board (NSB) to the President.

Venture capital (VC) kept up a steady pace in the first three months of 2004, according to the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers/Thomson Venture Economics/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree™ Survey. Investments in the first quarter of 2004 totaled $4.6 billion going into 618 companies, the data show. The figure is below the $5.2 billion invested in the fourth quarter of 2003, but above the first quarter total of a year ago, $4.2 billion.

Amid criticism from taxpayers, legislators in Hawaii agreed to renew the widely debated bill that extends high-technology tax credit for another five years, without a provision requiring the disclosure of companies that receive the credits, the Honolulu Advertiser recently reported.

Competition for state, federal and industrial funding to support university research is increasingly fierce in the U.S. Growing interest in developing academic research capacity, eroding state support for higher education and federal R&D budgets barely keeping pace with inflation, let alone absorbing the growing percentage dedicated to Congressional earmarks, are some of the reasons.

Offering an assessment of the progress made by the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas toward becoming high-tech communities as well as providing policy recommendations to help cultivate and encourage New Economy businesses, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) and Case Western Reserve University's Center for Regional Economic Issues yesterday released The Metropolitan New Economy Index: Benchmarking Economic Transformation in the Nation's Metropolitan Areas.

On Wednesday, South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges announced the appointment of a 38-member Steering Committee of the Technology Transition Team. The group, chaired by the president of the South Carolina operations of BellSouth, consists of business leaders, technology entrepreneurs, financial executives, research university leaders, and government representatives. Technology Transition Team responsibilities include:

Ben Franklin Technology Partners. Pittsburgh Technology Council. Industrial Resource Centers. Tech 21. Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse.

Due to a number of requests from SSTI Weekly Digest readers, we have prepared the accompanying table presenting the 1998 "R&D Intensity" rankings for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. R&D Intensity is considered a state's total R&D performance as a percentage of the Gross State Product.

The Best Practices program in the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which for the past five years has highlighted and honored hundreds of varied and effective approaches to community development, has been discontinued. The program publications, website and annual conference provided state and local economic development efforts easy access to information and contacts for successful practices worthy of emulation.

Joe Alviani has resigned as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative to accept a position in the private sector. MTC Executive Vice President Philip Holahan is serving as Interim Executive Director.

Joe Alviani has resigned as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative to accept a position in the private sector. MTC Executive Vice President Philip Holahan is serving as Interim Executive Director.