Early registration for SSTI's 5th Annual Conference, Creating Opportunity: Tools for Building Tech-based Economies ends on Wednesday, September 5. To lock in the discounted rate, submit your registration by the end of September 5 by fax to 614.901.1696 or online at https://www.ssti.org/registration01.htm Those paying by check are encouraged to submit their registration form by fax or online as well and post the check by regular mail.
With the emphasis many state and local tech-based economic development organizations have placed on biotechnology over the past 12-18 months, few are far enough along in implementing their strategies to point to more than a handful of successes or new construction projects. The recent explosion in public investment of resources and policies toward developing local biotech capacity is largely based on the promise of anticipated economic gains in the near or not-so-near future.
While technological advancements occur every day, truly revolutionary technologies over the past three hundred years — those that promise so many diverse applications that they result in disruption and restructuring of several different industries — can be counted on one hand. The field of nanotechnology, with major implications for nearly every industrial sector, appears to be one of those once-in-a-lifetime breakthroughs.
The President has nominated Arden Bement, Jr. to be Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology at the Department of Commerce. Bement has been at Purdue University since 1993, where he is the head of the School of Nuclear Engineering. Bement is Chairman of the Advanced Technology Program's Advisory Committee, has served on the National Science Board, and was active with the Cleveland Advanced Manufacturing Program (CAMP), an Edison Technology Center.
With the completion of the 2001 edition of the Maryland Innovation and Technology Index, the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) is able to show state policymakers and tech community leaders graphically and statistically the state’s progress since the first Index was prepared two years ago.
The Air Force Dual Use Science & Technology (AF DUS&T) Program is part of a congressionally mandated, tri-service program to cost-share research projects with industry for the development of a technology that has both military utility and sufficient commercial potential to support a viable industrial base.
What impact do state taxes have on entrepreneurship?
As a national security laboratory operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by the Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin company, Sandia’s science and technology competencies are leveraged to support several missions that are synergistic to its primary mission — to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile in the absence of underground testing, indefinitely.
The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the National Business Incubation Association are sponsoring a conference Oct. 21–23 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to focus on the importance of business incubation to rural economic development and to share best practices by successful incubators across the nation.
As with last year's conference, registration has been brisk for SSTI's 5th annual conference, Creating Opportunity: Tools for Building Tech-based Economies. To make sure the event is the quality and caliber expected of an SSTI event, we anticipate once again the event will sell out — possibly before the September 5 deadline for early registration. SSTI encourages interested parties to complete the registration form on their brochure or on the website at their earliest convenience.
There are less than 100 of our readers - now approaching a total of 100,000 - that may be able to look into their electronic mailboxes and even eight-year-old paper files to see that this issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest is our 400th. What began in March 1996 as a two-page weekly fax to key science and technology leaders in most states has evolved into the one of the most widely read e-news sources for the tech-based economic development community in the U.S.
If you consider North America's public investment to encourage economic growth through science and technology at the state or provincial government level, Ontario should be in your top 10. And the recent injection of $63 million for technology commercialization might have bumped the province of 12 million residents up a place or two.
Science Spending to Rise £1B Over Next 3 Years Alone
"..because we want Britain to be the most attractive location in the world for science and innovation, we are setting a new and ambitious target of increasing UK R&D investment as a proportion of national income from its current level of 1.9 percent to 2.5 percent by 2014 over the next decade."
One Goal would see Science Share of GDP Surpassing US before 2010.
Innovation policy approaches need to address specific challenges, problems and opportunities found in different types of regions, according to a new research paper from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. The paper, One Size Fits All? Towards a Differentiated Policy Approach With Respect to Regional Innovation Systems, was presented at the recent German Institute of Economic Research conference.
Economic development in Oregon recently has been given new life, thanks to the approval of $222 million in bills by Governor John Kitzhaber. The legislation, including $72 million for high-tech infrastructure and research over the next two years, is expected to increase public investment in biotechnology, engineering and other research.
The Greater Cincinnati Regional Technology Initiative has released revving up the tech engine, a strategic plan with more than 30 recommendations to improve Cincinnati's position in a tech-based economy. Giving themselves just 100 days to complete the plan when they started in Spring, the project was developed through six "Accelerator Teams" involving more than 200 volunteers from the three-state metro area.
The Advanced Technology Program (ATP) bridges the gap between the research lab and the marketplace, stimulating prosperity through innovation. Through partnerships with the private sector, ATP's early stage investment is accelerating the development of innovative technologies that promise significant commercial payoffs. ATP exhibits four primary strengths:
No matter which source one uses, venture capital investments continued their decline during the second quarter of 2001. The Moneytree™ survey, released this week by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Venture One, Inc., found a 21 percent decline from the previous quarter. Second quarter investments fell to $8.2 billion from $10.4 billion in the first three months of the year. Only 669 companies received funding, down 11 percent from the 752 firms funded during the first quarter.
What are you doing to protect your state or local economy from technological advances that will completely overturn an industry 10, 20, 30 years from now?
With the prospect of someday losing 27,000 high-paying tech jobs at 15 automotive engine and powertrain plants, Michigan has unveiled a plan to position the state as a leader when automotive applications of fuel cell technology make the internal combustion engine obsolete.
Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau released the Census 2000 Supplementary Survey Data (C2SS), compiled from 700,000 test households prior to the full census. C2SS provides a preliminary look at data similar to those that will be available next year from the Census 2000 long form.
Is the current concentration of effort toward the identification and licensing of intellectual property (IP) the best method to stimulate innovation? In a period seeing increased pressures on public research universities to identify alternate sources of funding, IP opponents may find economic considerations obfuscating the innovation argument:
The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) is the nationwide network of federal laboratories that provides the forum to develop strategies and opportunities for linking the laboratory mission technologies and expertise with the marketplace. More than 700 major federal laboratories and centers and their parent departments and agencies are FLC members.
The pace for new advances in science and technology has quickened significantly over the past 10 years -- so much so that companies are challenged to stay current with the latest innovations. Entire new fields such as nanotechnology are being created while products introduced this week may be obsolete before the year is out.
One of the recurring issues in many states for financing centers as part of their tech-based economic development portfolio is whether or not the organizations resulting from the multi-year, multimillion grants should become financially self sufficient at the end of the grant term.