Several U.S. states have introduced plans in attempts to take the early lead in the country's emerging biofuels industry. For example, in 2006, the Washington legislature approved the initial components of the state's Bioenergy Program. Tennessee Gov.
A $295 million three-part bond referendum package passed by the Maine State Legislature last week includes a number of components central to the state’s TBED strategy, including funds to support continued development of the state’s research enterprise, expanded broadband access and increased rural/economic development financing.
One of the most vexing problems facing states, outside of a few well known success stories, is a persistent lack of attention from the venture capital industry. In 2006, almost 60 percent of venture capital investment was concentrated in California and Massachusetts. The other 48 states have had to devise their own strategies to compete with Silicon Valley, Route 128 and each other to gain the attention of potential investors.
The U.S. as a whole showed an increase of 5.41 percent in per capita personal income from fiscal year 2005, according to second quarter 2006 estimates of state personal income data released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).
The Georgia Biomedical Partnership named Charles Craig as its new president.
E. Dana Dickens announced he will step down from the Suffolk City Council (Va.) to become president of the Hampton Roads Partnership, a group promoting economic development in the region.
The Georgia Biomedical Partnership named Charles Craig as its new president.
E. Dana Dickens announced he will step down from the Suffolk City Council (Va.) to become president of the Hampton Roads Partnership, a group promoting economic development in the region.
Ohio Department of Development Director Bruce Johnson has been sworn in as the state's lieutenant governor. Johnson is expected to serve both positions for the balance of Gov. Bob Taft's term.
Jafar Karim is the new director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development in South Dakota.
David Harmer, executive director of the Utah Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED), announced his retirement. Chris Roybal, senior advisor to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. for economic development, will take on many of Harmer's responsibilities.
It is an unfortunate and annoying consequence of politics that sometimes, with the change of gubernatorial administrations even within parties, excellent people with enviable records of delivering results for tech-based economic development programs lose their positions. SSTI has learned that Rod Linton and Michael Keene were among 33 "at-will" economic development staff at the Utah DCED fired en masse last Thursday. Gov. Huntsman, who began his term of office on Jan.
Approximately $60 million is expected to be available under a new Advanced Technology Program (ATP) competition to support high-risk industrial R&D projects, the program announced today.
With the close of its 2007 regular session, the New Mexico State Legislature wrapped up "one of the most productive sessions in state history." Those were the words of Gov. Bill Richardson, following the legislature's adjournment last month. The governor had outlined a number of economic development and energy initiatives in his 2007 State of the State Address that he hoped would be brought to bear (see the Jan. 15, 2007 issue of the Digest).
Incentive packages to attract companies are nothing new in economic development. In recent years, though, incentives have been used to recruit technology companies, and these incentive packages are growing in scope and complexity, with some in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Two recent reports that take a close look at experiences in North Carolina and Iowa may be of interest to communities and states using incentive packages to recruit companies to their area.
North Carolina
The Department of Education is beginning to implement the first wave of initiatives based on the recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Department Secretary Margaret Spellings recently met with national leaders to discuss the recommendations of the commission's report, released in September 2006. Secretary Spellings emphasized the federal government's commitment to cooperating with states in order to create an educational system tailored to the 21st century economy and the needs of students.
Elaborating on last week's "Useful Stats" article (see the March 26, 2007 issue of the Digest), SSTI has created a table of federal R&D obligations standardized by state population for each of the five years from 2000 to 2004 and ranked by five-year percent change.
SSTI is partnering with other organizations to sponsor two conferences that will be of interest to the TBED community: the Regional Workforce Education & Training Best Practices Conference put on by the ASME Center for Engineering Entrepreneurship & Innovation and the Internationalization of Regional Innovation organized by the European-based Technopolicy Network.
A little money has gone a long way, when you consider the initial size of venture capital investments each year, the $2.1 trillion in revenues captured in 2005, and the nearly 23,000 venture-backed companies that have received investments. In fact, 16.6 percent of the 2005 U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) was directly attributable to the $2.1 trillion in revenues received by venture-backed U.S. companies, while the $23 billion of VC invested in 2005 only equaled 0.2 percent of GDP.
As renewable energy and environmental technologies emerge as some of the promising industries for high-tech economic development, more cities are seeking new ways to boost clean technology research and businesses. Austin, San Jose, Berkeley, Pasadena and Boston have been singled out for their efforts to promote cleantech industries by SustainLane Government, a nonprofit Internet-based organization that provides current practices and news about municipal sustainability.
Browsing the business section of a bookstore may yield dozens of titles purporting to explain the process of innovation. This newsletter and most others serving the nation’s policymakers and science and technology communities have covered reports calling for a national innovation strategy. Unfortunately, most meetings on the subject have to begin by developing a working definition of the term innovation that most can accept.
Information technology (IT) permeates almost all aspects of the economy and is what really drives economic growth, according to a report released this month by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). The report’s authors, Robert Atkinson and Andrew McKay, believe the diffusion of information technology increases worker productivity 3-5 times more than non-IT capital.
The federal government distributed $23.8 billion in R&D obligations to universities and colleges in fiscal year 2004 — a 4.4 percent increase from the FY 2003 total of $22.8 billion, according to new National Science Foundation (NSF) data. In its report, Federal Science and Engineering Support to Universities, Colleges, and Nonprofit Institutions: Fiscal Year 2004, NSF details all categories of direct federal science and engineering support to institutions of higher education in the U.S.
The Board of Directors of BioCrossroads, Indiana's life sciences initiative, announced David Johnson would succeed Charles Schalliol as CEO.
Real estate developer Robert Klein II was selected as chairman of California's stem cell oversight committee.
John Merrill will serve as executive director for the Greensboro Center for Innovative Development, a joint millennium campus and research park between University of North Carolina Greensboro and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.