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With more than 20 new governors and hundreds of newly elected state legislators, mayors and city council members across the country, many states and communities are seeing fresh faces in key positions that will influence the shape and direction of tech-based economic development policy, funding and program implementation. SSTI encourages its readership to get issues of the SSTI Weekly Digest in their hands to help bring your new partners into the larger tech-based ED community as soon as possible.

Drawing expertise from 53 speakers and panelists from 19 states, SSTI's 9th annual conference - to be held Oct. 19-21 in Atlanta - promises to provide its attendees unparalleled opportunity to learn about the latest and best thinking to encourage state and regional growth through tech-based economic development. Want proof?

Keeping with most years in recent memory, the new federal fiscal year began Oct. 1 without Congress approving a budget for nearly all of the national government. With Hurricane Katrina relief and aftermath putting unprecedented demands on the Treasury and Congress, legislators quickly passed a Continuing Resolution last Thursday and Friday to keep the government open through Nov. 18.

To support innovation and technology with increased accessibility for small-and medium-sized firms, Canada's Minister of Industry, David Emerson, announced a new program that will replace Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC).

Designed to ease the transaction burden on university technology transfer offices and encourage more open and efficient access to research, the Kauffman Foundation recently unveiled iBridge, a web-based platform under the Kauffman Innovation Network.

Representing a substantial federal commitment, the number of tax credits, deductions and exemptions - collectively referred to as "tax expenditures" - has more than doubled since 1974 and needs to be re-examined to evaluate efficiency, effectiveness, and equitability, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle today unveiled the plan that will guide his Administration's legislative agenda for the next 12 months. Grow Wisconsin: The 2005 Agenda focuses on three areas: investing in business, investing in people, and fostering a competitive business climate.

Information, telecommunications and electricity provide the basic building blocks for all tech-based economic development - regardless of industry sector, research field or location. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the technology infrastructure for many of the state's emerging tech-firms has been dismantled. How do you restore efforts to build a tech-based economy when the fundamentals are destroyed overnight?

One of the latest big-ticket investments targeting stem cell research came from Ann Arbor last week as the University of Michigan committed $10.5 million of its internal resources to establish an interdisciplinary center for stem cell research. The announcement is one of dozens from around the country since California voters approved Proposition 71 in 2004, borrowing $3 billion over 10 years for stem cell research.

Between 1996 and 2004, an average 0.36 percent of the U.S. population created a new business each month, representing approximately 500,000 new businesses per month, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.

Not too surprising. Put the premier professional development opportunity for the tech-based economic development community in a great city and you'll draw hundreds of participants from at least 45 states and several other countries. Offer conference attendees five-star accommodations at prices well below market and we've ended up with the largest room block yet for an SSTI annual conference.

Limited Seating Remaining in Three Preconference Sessions

In 2003, academic institutions across the U.S. reported having a total of $23.76 billion in R&D expenditures for research related to the life sciences, according to the National Science Foundation's Survey of Research and Development Expenditures at Universities and Colleges, FY 2003.

The Economic Development Administration (EDA) has announced it is accepting nominations for the Excellence in Economic Development Awards 2003. The awards will be presented in Washington, D.C. at EDA's National Conference Engines of Economic Growth for the 21st Century May 7-9, 2003.

Nominations for the awards will be accepted across seven categories:

Public-private partnerships involving cooperative research and development activities among industry, universities and government laboratories can play a key role in speeding new technology from the concept stage to the marketplace, argues a new report conducted by the National Research Council (NRC).

State and local governments are starting to develop entrepreneurship programs, but the past decade's progress could be threatened by the looming fiscal crisis facing the states, according to a new study released by the National Commission on Entrepreneurship (NCOE) and the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness (CREC).

During the past two years, efforts have been launched in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex to boost its capacity for building a technology-based economy. The efforts have been directed toward increasing public-private cooperation, especially across organizations and jurisdictions that traditionally have thought of themselves as competitors, and conducting a critical review of the area's strengths and weaknesses.

The steady decline of venture capital abated in the fourth quarter of 2002 with total investments of $4.2 billion, essentially flat from the prior quarter of $4.5 billion, according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers/Venture Economics/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree Survey. A total of 692 companies received funding in the fourth quarter compared to 671 companies in the third quarter.

W. Glenn Cornell has been named commissioner of the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has appointed Julie Curry as deputy chief of staff for economic development and labor.

Andrew Kim is the new policy director for Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen.

W. Glenn Cornell has been named commissioner of the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has appointed Julie Curry as deputy chief of staff for economic development and labor.

Andrew Kim is the new policy director for Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen.

Dr. Donald Smith has been named interim chief executive officer of the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse.

The TBED community owes a huge debt of gratitude to Thomas Friedman for his 2005 book, The World is Flat. Friedman has helped elevate the issue of innovation, competitiveness, and the U.S. standing therein to the New York Times bestseller list, the Sunday talk shows, and scads of press coverage. Friedman has helped convince pundits and policymakers that the world is flat and the challenges to the U.S. are more serious than ever and are only increasing.

The early bird registration and hotel room block for Investing in a Brighter Future: Building Tech-based Economies, SSTI's Ninth Annual Conference, ends on Tuesday, September 20.  To register for the conference, which is October 20 and 21, you can visit the conference website at http://www.ssti.org/conference05.htm and select the registration form.