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The first director for the new Indiana Venture Center will be Steve Beck.

Buddy Buckingham, director of regional planning at Murray State University, will serve as interim director of the new MSU Innovations and Commercialization Center. Buckingham also currently serves in the Kentucky General Assembly.

The Chronicle of Higher Education annually provides in its Almanac an accessible state-by-state snapshot of a variety of statistics useful in measuring the magnitude and health of higher education. The 2002-2003 Almanac of Higher Education, released recently in print and online, is no exception.

Yes, only 10 open seats remain for SSTI’s 7th Annual Conference, Building Tech-based Economies: From Policy to Practice. With nearly three weeks remaining before the October 21-22 event in Seattle, SSTI anticipates it will have to close registration in the coming days based on the phenomenal response to this year’s great slate of 24 breakout sessions, great plenary sessions and wonderful location. If you are planning to attend, we encourage you to register as soon as possible.

Within the last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a slew of awards – 128 in all – for rural tech-based economic development initiatives. Collectively, the awards total $53.7 million, including:

New Jersey is launching a new program to stimulate new investment, business growth and job creation in the biotechnology and life sciences industries through a special fund to be established through the Business Employment Incentive Program (BEIP).

To transform the nation’s medical research capabilities and speed the movement of research discoveries from the bench to the bedside, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) laid out on Monday a series of initiatives collectively known as the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research.

Secures State as Pilot Site for FastTrac™

Coming soon to an island near you — business development services. That could be the sales pitch for a new development within the High Technology Development Corporation (HTDC), Hawaii's lead tech-based economic development agency.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius made public on Wednesday the details of a statewide economic revitalization plan designed to stimulate and strengthen the Kansas economy. Included in the plan are several items that could help boost tech-based economic development (TBED) in the state:

Policy measures aimed at the development of clusters must take into account which development stage the cluster is currently in. One of the central processes involved in cluster development is that of firm foundings, states Co-Development of Firm Foundings and Regional Clusters, a working paper written by Dirk Fornahl and Max-Peter Menzel.

The on/off binary fundamental of information and communication technology (ICT) could just as well describe the U.S. position in the field. For the third time in five years, the U.S. leads all nations on the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) contained in the World Economic Forum's Global Information Technology Report 2005-2006.

African-American and Hispanic students begin college interested in majoring in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields at rates similar to those of white and Asian-American students and persist in these fields through their third year of study, but do not earn their bachelor’s degrees at the same rate as their peers, according to a new analysis conducted by the American Council on Education (ACE).

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne recently received some good news about his future when President Bush nominated him to serve as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior. The news was not as rosy on the home front for Idaho's economic future, however, as the state legislature in late March rejected the governor's plans for Idaho to take a more proactive role toward building a tech-based economy.

Just as bread won't rise without yeast, the key knowledge-building ingredients for many state tech-based economic development strategies - increasing investments in university-based research, emphasizing workforce development and science and math education, and identifying clusters of co-located firms in related industry sectors - won't lead to the spillovers of knowledge critical to sustaining growth without an active reagent.

Appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have emerged out of the conference committee for consideration and final approval by Congress — one of three budget bills likely to be passed before the fiscal year ends next Tuesday.

The President wants $87 billion for the war in Iraq. Congress is looking at a month-long continuing resolution for the budget since final approval on most appropriation bills is at least that far in the future. Meanwhile, the persistence of the recession, the restructuring of U.S. manufacturing due in part to globalization, and the continued hemorrhaging of tax revenues has led several governors, state legislatures and community leaders to begin rethinking their economic development strategies.

Study Hints at Why TBED Is Good National Investment

More than 700 of America's institutions of higher education couldn't claim to be vegetarian based on the record amount of pork they ate from the 2003 federal budget, according to the cover story of this week's Chronicle of Higher Education. The dollar value of college earmarks reached a record $2.013 billion in the current fiscal year's budget, 10 percent more than the previous high mark of $1.837 billion captured in FY 2002.

Sloan Foundation exec says no

At several intervals during the past 50 years, various reports have argued that the U.S. was or would soon be confronted with a shortage of scientists and engineers in various fields. If a crisis did arise, it could play havoc on local and state technology-based economic development efforts dependent on a technologically skilled workforce for innovation and growth. But is there a real risk?

SSTI's 7th Annual Conference, to be held in Seattle on Oct. 21-22, is now less than one month away. If you are planning to join 300 of your colleagues from more than 40 states at Building Tech-based Economies: From Policy to Practice, here are a few tips to save your organization a little money:

The Association of American Universities (AAU) seeks qualified candidates to fill the position of director of federal relations.

Scott Doron has been promoted to director for the Southern Technology Council, the advisory council on innovation and technology policy issues for the Southern Growth Policies Board.

Tony Jeff is the new executive director of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Mississippi.

Scott Doron has been promoted to director for the Southern Technology Council, the advisory council on innovation and technology policy issues for the Southern Growth Policies Board.

Tony Jeff is the new executive director of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Mississippi.

Robert McMahan has been named North Carolina's Science Advisor. In addition to advising the Governor on science and technology matters, McMahan will oversee the support staff for the North Carolina Board of Science and Technology. The advisor position will report to the secretary of the Department of Commerce.