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."
Today's online issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education reports Microsoft Corporation is contributing $750 million to China to support computer science education, basic research, software training, and business growth.
A new report assessing Maine's seven targeted technology sectors represents the first systematic attempt to analyze the growth of the state's industry clusters. The report, Assessing Maine's Technology Clusters, was prepared for the Maine Science and Technology Foundation (MSTF) by the University of Southern Maine's Muskie School.
The state technology-based economic development community is losing one of its most dynamic and longest-serving leaders by the end of the year. Jamie Kenworthy, executive director of the Alaska Science & Technology Foundation (ASTF), has announced his retirement effective December 1.
In honor of Independence Day, no SSTI Weekly Digest will be published July 5.
While tight state budgets have slowed the number of tech-based economic development programs being created by states, Kentucky and Oregon have both approved new laws designed to encourage the growth of technology companies.
Publisher's Note: While more than 40 states are working to encourage the creation and growth of biotechnology companies, as we have said over the years, the U.S. is competing in a global economy. This is just as true in technology as in textiles. The fact that the recently concluded BIO annual conference was held in Toronto only underscores the point. Over the years, the SSTI Weekly Digest has featured selected international initiatives as a gentle reminder to policymakers that the U.S.
A study released by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University in Boston is one of the more recent efforts to examine all aspects of U.S. states and their economies. Entitled State Competitiveness Report 2001, the study defines competitiveness as the ability to ensure and sustain a high level of per capita income and its continued growth.
One of the most widely used barometers of states' relative positions in technology-based economies has been updated and expanded. The 2002 State New Economy Index: Benchmarking Economic Transformation in the States, published by the Progressive Policy Institute's Technology and New Economy Project (PPI) and released online this week, offers an innovation-oriented public policy framework for the states to foster success in the New Economy.
To help business incubator managers match start-up businesses with private investors through an Internet-based network, the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) has partnered with LocalFund, Inc., a network service provider based in Billings, Mont.
Michigan Governor John Engler on Thursday unveiled NextEnergy— a comprehensive economic development plan to make Michigan a leader in the research, development, commercialization and manufacture of alternative energy technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells.
Preparing an index or report card is often a useful tool for tech-based economic development efforts to assess a geographic area's relative performance across selected statistics or indicators. The outcomes measured, if considered temporally, can help decision makers identify and shift policy and investment priorities for their community, region or state.
Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (MBCI) Tribal Chief Phillip Martin and Mississippi Technology Alliance President and Chief Executive Officer Angie Dvorak recently announced a partnership to help foster science-based economic development for the state of Mississippi. The alliance's partnership with a tribal government is possibly the first of its kind in the U.S.
More than 60 presentations on patterns, or solutions to problems in a given context, figure to be the highlight of CPSR's 8th biannual Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing (DIAC) symposium, "Shaping the Network Society: Patterns for Participation, Action, and Change," being held May 16-19 in Seattle.
The SSTI Weekly Digest will be taking a brief spring break and will resume publication on Friday, May 3.
New York Governor George Pataki recently announced a multimillion plan to transform the aging 300-acre W. Averell Harriman State Office Building Campus in Albany, N.Y., into a world-class research and development technology park.
Ten rural communities and the technologies being used within them are the focus of Networking the Land: Rural America in the Information Age, the latest report released by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the Department of Commerce.
Economic development leaders within the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Technology Corridor have joined other areas of the U.S. in marketing the area as one unified region. Elected representatives from 10 cities and two counties located in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Technology Corridor recently signed a joint proclamation as a statement of support for the Corridor’s targeted industry cluster development regional efforts.
In Perfectly Competitive Innovation, a March 2002 research department staff report for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine address whether current copyright, licensing and patent laws which grant monopolist rights to inventors beneficial or harmful to the innovation process. The authors suggest the latter in certain markets.
Want to expand broadband in your state or community? Looking to launch a biotech initiative? Getting into commercializing university research? Are tight budgets leading to more rigorous program evaluation? Or do you simply want to help your community understand the importance of technology?
On Wednesday, Pennsylvania Governor Mark Schweiker officially launched Pennsylvania's Life Sciences Greenhouse, an historic initiative to be spread among three regions of the state — Southeast, Southwest and Central Pennsylvania.
[Note: SSTI defines a technology council as a regional entity that is membership-based and independently funded with science and technology-based economic development as one of its primary goals. National trade associations and government-created technology councils which serve in an advisory or policy role are excluded from this discussion.]
More Funding Sought For Pell Grants
The Institute for Government Innovation at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government recently announced open competition for its 2002 annual awards program.