With the general election less than one month away, SSTI has reviewed the 120 state ballot initiatives throughout the country for innovation-related issues. Education, gig workers, redistricting and issues surrounding elections and state budgets are scattered across the country and can affect the future of innovation through funding, talent and political will. Read below for coverage on the initiatives that could have an impact on different segments of the economy and the future of innovation.

[Update Oct. 1] Editor’s note: On Sept. 23, the Biden campaign announced a “Small Business and Entrepreneurship Advisory Council.” A description has been added to the “Small Business” section of this article.

As the global economy continues to struggle through the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has released an interactive online tool for discovering success stories of small business innovation and entrepreneurship. Showcasing several of the businesses that have successfully leveraged NIH small business funding — totaling more than $1 billion annually — to develop healthcare products and services, NIH’s Small Business Education and Entrepreneurial Development (SEED) office hopes that the tool will inspire others to start businesses and develop their technologies.

Six organizations — including SSTI members Catalyst Connection and the Ohio Development Services Agency — have been designated to lead the new defense manufacturing community consortia. The Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA) has announce that these organizations are now eligible to enter the next phase of development and submit their requests for technical assistance, grants, and other support services. The Defense Manufacturing Community Support Program (DMCSP) was authorized in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act as a new program offered by OEA.

Improved prospects for economic development, as opposed to concerns about government efficiency, can play an important role in building support for local government consolidation efforts. The importance of economic opportunities in government consolidation was a key conclusion within Ball State University’s recently published policy brief, Indiana’s Government Modernization Act & Local Government Consolidation Experiences: Process and Politics.

The innovation community has been on the front lines in responding to the current pandemic, and one area that has stepped up is the community makerspace. A new report from the Urban Manufacturing Alliance (UMA) highlights several of those efforts. As UMA points out, COVID-19 brought a renewed need for manufacturing capabilities, and makerspaces stepped into new roles.

A new Community College Growth Engine Fund is being launched by Education Design Lab to help mitigate the growing skills gap and strengthen community colleges as drivers of innovation between education and employment. Education Design Lab is a national nonprofit that designs, implements and scales new learning models for higher education and the future of work.

The depth of the recession is coming into clearer view with the recent release of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data for the second quarter of 2020. A press release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) shows that real GDP decreased by double digits in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.; ranging from a 42.2 percent drop in Hawaii and Nevada to a 20.4 percent drop in the District of Columbia.

"Finders," those who connect potential investors with issuers (e.g., startups seeking funding) within private markets, would not be required to register as brokers under recently proposed Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) exemptions. Currently, individuals who work to connect investors and issuers — including simply providing issuers with a contact list and regardless of whether any advice is provided or whether the connection is made on behalf of one of the parties to any investment — may be required to register with the SEC as a broker.

In the largest single gift in the history of Missouri higher education, $300 million has been donated to support Missouri S&T that will enable the university to establish a new school of innovation and entrepreneurship, among other things. The benefactors are St. Louis businessman Fred Kummer, a graduate of the school who credited the education he received there with his success, and his wife.

As the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) prepares to enter its third decade, it is seeking public input on what that future should look like. NNI is drafting its 2021 strategic plan and has several big changes under consideration, including a reorganization and shifts in research and commercialization priorities.

The Economic Development Administration’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIE) has announced $25 million for the Scaling Pandemic Resilience through Innovation and Technology (SPRINT) Challenge utilizing funding from the CARES Act.

The venture capital (VC) market appears to be another part of the American economy experiencing a "K-shaped" recovery, with some participants achieving new highs as others are ignored altogether.

With the continuing development of efficient technologies, energy consumption may drop 60 percent by 2050 while continuing to provide decent living standards, according to a new study. Research by the University of Leeds, published as Providing Decent Living with Minimum Energy: A Global Scenario in Global Environmental Change, developed a roadmap for lowering worldwide energy usage.

Utah and Maryland have climbed the ranks and moved into third and fourth place behind two long-standing leaders in the Information Technology and Information Foundation’s (ITIF) State New Economy Index. The index measures states’ structural capacity for successfully navigating a global economy that is increasingly driven by technological innovation.

In a recently revised working paper from the Center for International Development at Harvard University, the contemporary rise of populism is explained in a new light, that of unfair economic outcomes, often in the form of low social mobility.

In Washington and Brussels, lawmakers are increasingly vocal about expanding the application of antitrust rules within the tech sector.

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) announced $43.3 million for 51 projects in the region’s coal-impacted communities. More than half of the awards will support recovery-to-work efforts or broadband initiatives. To date, ARC has awarded over $238 million and supported 293 projects.

In 2018, 5.8 million students at colleges and universities within the United States were either the children of first-generation immigrants or were immigrants themselves, which accounted for 28 percent of the total student population and was a noticeable increase from the 2.9 million enrolled in 2000. This data serves as the foundation of a new report from the Migration Policy Institute, Immigrant-Origin Students in U.S.

First-time beginning students looking to pursue post-secondary education tumbled this fall, showing a 16.1 percent decrease nationally when compared with last year’s figures, according to recently released data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. That decline was even worse at community colleges, down 22.7 percent compared to a 1.4 percent increase the previous year.

New analysis from the World Economic Forum (WEF) forecasts an 85 million global loss in jobs by the year 2025 due to pandemic-induced increase in technology adoption. While social distancing measures such as remote work have already brought many white collar workers into the “future of work,” the quickened pace of technology adoption and automation across all sectors will create greater employment challenges for lower paid and lower skilled workers.

In an effort to help Alabamians advance into higher-paying careers and understand how higher income from new careers can establish a path toward self-sufficiency, the state of Alabama and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta have partnered to launch a new career tool.

Apprenticeships, which will be celebrated during National Apprenticeship Week beginning Nov. 8, are receiving renewed attention and being highlighted as an avenue of economic mobility. Two recent reports highlight the opportunities of apprenticeships, the promise they hold for economic mobility, their expanding reach and a new effort in California to reach 500,000 apprenticeships by the year 2029.

Nearly half of voters within battleground states have a deep level of trust in scientists, according to a recent study conducted by Third Way.