Maine Governor Paul LePage named Phillip Congdon as the new commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development. Cogndon is a licensed professional engineer who spent more than 20 years with Texas Instruments in Dallas. He replaces Acting Commissioner Thaxter Trafton.

The third installment of SSTI's Tech Talkin' Govs' series includes excerpts from speeches delivered in Colorado, Georgia, Nebraska, and South Dakota. The first and second installments are available in the Jan. 5 and Jan. 12 editions of the Digest.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer will convene a special session to focus on job creation proposals centered on her effort to replace the state's Department of Commerce with the public-private partnership she established through executive order last year (see the July 14, 2010 issue of the Digest). Along with legislative approval of the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA), the governor is calling for $25 million to launch the Arizona Competes Fund, providing tax incentives for businesses locating in the state.

Climbing back from a deep recession without over burdening taxpayers is a main focus of this year's legislative session for many states, leaving little room for bold initiatives needed to position state and regional economies for future growth. Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman, however, is asking lawmakers to look beyond the state's current conditions and invest in economic sectors he says are likely to create high-quality jobs and enhance the state's "economic momentum."

The Iowa Innovation Council, a 29-member state advisory board, released a strategic plan focused on entrepreneurship and targeted industries (e.g., advanced manufacturing, biosciences and information technology) to grow the state's innovation economy. The council believes this plan will create high-skilled, high-wage jobs through several new initiatives including:

• A private seed capital investment fund;
• New strategies to accelerate technology transfer and commercialization; and,

In April, University of Hawaii's President M.R.C. Greenwood appointed an eight-member council to develop a strategy that would increase innovation and technology transfers throughout the university system. The council recently announced a drafted of four recommendations that would help the university system to "achieve a high-value economy in Hawaii." The recommendations build and approve upon the system's existing research capacity. The recommendation also focuses heavily on creating an innovation ecosystem built upon entrepreneurship and university-private partnerships.

Minnesota needs additional support for science and technology commercialization, manufacturing and entrepreneurship in order to remain competitive, according to a new strategic plan released by the Minnesota Science and Technology Authority. The plan recommends an initial appropriation of $10 million annually, ramping up over ten years, to invest in the state's R&D capacity, talent development and capital and business development.

Thomson Reuters has updated their 2008 report on the Chinese boom in patenting. In 2006, the 11th Chinese Five-Year Plan for national economic and social development made innovation a priority, with the goal of creating an "innovation-oriented" society by 2020. Over the past few years, China's increase in overseas patent filings has outpaced other leading countries. The report examines the approaches used by the China government to boost patent activity, including increased R&D expenditures, tax deductions for R&D investments and grants to patent registrants.

U.S. real gross domestic domestic product (GDP) and per capita personal income fell in 2009 as the economic crisis spread across the country, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Most states experienced the same declines, particularly in the Great Lakes region. In 2009, real GDP fell in every state, except Alaska, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Dakota, West Virginia. West Virginia was the only state to increase its per capita income (current dollars, unadjusted) in 2009. The 2008 and 2009 crisis ended the period of steady growth in most states since 2001.

The fifth installment of SSTI's Tech Talkin' Govs series includes excerpts from speeches delivered in Maryland, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. The first four installments are available in the Jan. 5, Jan. 12, Jan. 19 and Jan. 26 issues of the Digest.

Following last week's announcement of the Startup America initiative, the National Economic Council, the Council of Economic Advisors and the Office of Science and Technology Policy have released the details of its innovation strategy.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced plans to direct $200 million in existing funds to establish 10 regional economic development councils to allocate funds and provide business assistance programs across the state. At the same time, the governor would consolidate programs supporting high-tech companies currently administered by the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR) with the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) — a move he says will eliminate duplicative functions and save the state $1.9 million in the coming year.

Citing the need to ensure a competitive edge in the weak economic climate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is asking lawmakers to continue investing in the state's economic development tools by providing an additional $15 million for the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (ETF) and retaining funding for the Texas Enterprise Fund in the coming biennium. The governor also is proposing $50 million for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) scholarships and $32 million to increase STEM academies.

Vermont Gov. Pete Shumlin has released a jobs package that includes a number of initiatives that could enhance the state's innovation economy. The jobs bill calls for a new creative economy office that would focus on technology efforts, a mentoring program for entrepreneurs, a statewide internship program, and a tax credit for companies that hire STEM graduates. Gov. Shumlin also has renewed his predecessor's pledge to extend full wireless voice and data coverage across the state.

A revamped version of the $8 billion Universal Service Fund (USF) could be used to expand broadband access in underserved areas. On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed a plan to redirect the portion of the USF that provides incentives to extend phone service to high-cost areas to instead support high-speed data networks. A new program, the Connect America Fund, would consolidate several USF programs, eliminate some of the programs' inefficiencies and increase the availability of affordable broadband service.

Starting in the spring, a new Small Business Association (SBA) loan program — the Community Advantage loan program— will increase the availability of loans (up to $250,000) to: 1) small businesses, 2) firms that are less than two-years old or 3) those owned by veterans. The program specifically will target businesses in low- to moderate-income communities. Currently, small businesses face difficulty receiving loans of this size due to perceived risk involved (historically high default rates).

Sixteen percent of all high-impact, high-tech companies include at least one immigrant, according to a new report by the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings. They survey and consequent case studies found significant trends among immigrant entrepreneurs in the high-tech field. Respondents were found to be heavily rooted in the U.S. — 77 percent of them have become American citizens and almost 75 percent have lived in the U.S. for more than 15 years.

With support from the Greater Cleveland Partnership, NorTech (the Northeast Ohio Technology Coalition) is accepting applications for the two positions below:

Following up on President Barack Obama's State of the Union pledge to focus on American competitiveness and innovation, the White House announced the Startup America initiative, a program to support and celebrate U.S. entrepreneurs. On Monday, a panel of cabinet members, White House officials, executives and economic development leaders provided an outline of the public/private effort, which has already generated $400 million in private commitments.

Focusing on job growth and promoting the state for new business development, Gov. Brian Sandoval announced his plans to reorganize the Commission on Economic Development into a public-private partnership and increase funding for the state's economic development efforts by an additional $2.2 million in general fund appropriations each year. The governor also included in his 2011-13 biennial budget $10 million in FY12 for a proposed Nevada Catalyst Fund designed as a closing fund to bring new businesses to the state.

Deep cuts to higher education and reorganizing economic development efforts are common themes in executive budget proposals across most of the country as governors seek to both reduce spending and create jobs. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad recently introduced legislation to replace the state's existing economic development agency with a public-private partnership. Meanwhile, his budget eliminates the Iowa Power Fund, established by the legislature in 2007 to invest in private sector renewable and alternative energy industries. In Massachusetts, Gov.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) intends to award $20 million in grants to support the construction of new or expanded scientific research facilities. The NIST Construction Grant Program (NCGP) provides competitively awarded, cost-shared grants (non-federal cost sharing of at least 20%) to support construction and expansion projects including laboratories, test facilities, measurement facilities, research computing facilities and observatories.

The Technology Innovation Program (TIP), a program within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), released its Three-Year Plan covering proposed grant competition topics through FY 2014. Future TIP grant competitions may target specific research topics within eight areas of critical national need: civil infrastructure, manufacturing, energy, health care, water resources, complex networks and sustainability.

In March, Canada's Advanced Research and Innovation Network (CANARIE) will begin a pilot program designed to reduce the time and cost of bringing new information and communications technology (ICT) products, services and protocols to market. The Digital Accelerator for Innovation and Research (DAIR), a virtual research and development environment, will enable small and medium-sized ICT firms to create complex, large-scale products and demonstrate them to customers without building a costly, in-house R&D infrastructure.

U.S. venture capitalists invested $21.8 billion in 2010, a 19.4 percent increase over 2009 and the first increase in venture investment since 2007, according to the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers Moneytree Survey. The growth in activity affected nearly every industry, particularly clean energy software and Internet-specific companies. Early stage investments, though not seed stage investments, grew by double-digits as did first-time financings. In addition to the gains in venture dollars, VC deals grew to 3,277, a 12 percent increase over 2009.