Two community colleges in Florida became the winners of the 2019 Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, which recognizes high achievement and performance among America’s community colleges. Winners were Indian River State College (IRSC) ($350,000) in Fort Pierce, Florida, and Miami Dade College ($350,000) in Miami; Odessa College and Palo Alto College in Texas and Pierce College in Washington were named as Rising Stars ($100,000 each).

Seven regional innovation cluster (RIC) initiatives have each been awarded $500,000 from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Although the SBA has yet to publish an official press release indicating the release of the 2019 Regional Innovation Cluster awardees, SSTI identified the awardees through other sources, such as USASpending.gov and a review of local news media. Read on for more information on the program’s awardees.

The trend of fewer, larger deals that emerged over the past few years continued through the first quarter of 2019, according to newly released data from PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association. U.S. activity in the quarter included $32.6 billion of capital investment on 1,853 deals, making it the second-highest quarterly capital investment total in the last decade.

This week SSTI wraps up this year’s coverage of innovation-related initiatives covered in governors’ state of the state and budget addresses. This week Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards was the last governor to deliver a state of the state address in 2019, and he used his time to highlight the state’s surplus, a first since he has been in office. The governor is taking advantage of the new financial security to focus on funding for basics such as teacher pay and education among other things.

As the American population ages — by 2035, the country will have more people aged at least 65 than under 18 — so do the country’s business owners.

Concerns over national security have prompted the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) to force international investors to divest from two American tech startups, a move that will affect entrepreneurs and investors alike, according to a recent article by from Jeff Farrah of the National Venture Capital Association.

As the technology behind renewable energy continues to advance, recent research finds that the public sector plays an important role in catalyzing innovation. This can be seen in three main ways: by funding basic research on renewable energy in all 50 states; by partnering with cleantech startups; and by supporting cleantech clusters through networks, commercialization assistance, and access to capital. Taken together, this recent research suggests that public-sector partnerships can complement industry’s role in growing the green economy at the federal, state and local levels.

State funding for higher education has only halfway recovered in the 10 years since the Great Recession, according to a recent State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report. The report also found that while higher education funding is stabilizing, the shift to greater reliance on tuition as a revenue source has leveled off, but remains higher than since before the Great Recession.

The IRS released its long-anticipated second tranche of rules on Wednesday, and the regulations provide some clarity around using Opportunity Zones to invest in businesses. Specific examples include details on defining a business’ operations within a zone and funds’ ability to reinvest proceeds. However, further clarification is needed, including around investors’ treatment of interim sales, and additional changes are forthcoming.

The Federal Communication Commission Chairman Ajit Pai outlined two new initiatives aimed at ensuring U.S. leadership in 5G and continuing efforts to close the digital divide. Pai announced his intent to create the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which he indicated would inject $20.4 billion into high-speed broadband networks in rural American over the next decade.

A recent story from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City examines how hospital closures in rural areas have economic impacts that reverberate throughout the community. The report’s author, Kelly Edmiston, found that rural counties with hospital closures saw meaningfully lower annual growth in employment and aggregate wages three years after the closure than counties without hospital closures. Closings were found to have a larger effect on smaller counties, where the hospital has a higher share of employment and wages relative to the total county employment and wages.

The continuing trend toward automation could widen the disparities between high-growth urban areas and rural counties at a time when workforce mobility is at historic lows, and the current economic health of urban, suburban and rural economies will impact their ability to adapt, according to a new report from the McKinsey Global Institute: The Future

With the Census Bureau’s July 17 release of the 2019 2nd Quarter update, the bureau’s Business Formation Statistics (BFS) changed format.

Ten states from across the country have been selected as part of a unique program designed to grow and strengthen their manufacturers. Over the course of the next year, interdisciplinary state teams will meet together in Washington, D.C., and separately in their home states, to develop and refine strategies impacting manufacturing industries.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced Regional Innovation Strategies awards — i6 Challenge and Seed Fund Support — to 44 organizations. Those awards are worth $23.5 million in federal funding matched by $26 million from a variety of private and public sector sources for nearly $50 million for projects to support entrepreneurship and innovation in 28 states and two territories.

More borrowers are utilizing the rapidly growing fintech lending industry to garner record numbers of unsecured personal loans.  American have “sharply increased their use of unsecured personal loans because of the growing presence of fintech lenders,” according to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The number of women-owned business has increased significantly in recent years, but more needs to be done to level the playing field to increase the revenue and employee counts of these businesses, according to two recent studies. More venture capital is needed, as well as mentoring, training and opportunities for women of color.

A new scorecard from the nonprofit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) reveals that while U.S. cities are ramping up their clean energy efforts, most cities with climate goals are either not on track to achieve them or are not yet tracking progress. The 2019 City Clean Energy Scorecard ranks 75 cities on more than 50 metrics and this year for the first time, includes policy efforts to advance renewable energy in addition to energy efficiency.

The Angel Resource Institute has released its latest analysis of 2018 angel investing. Characterizing the full year of investments captured in the annual survey – more than 2,500 individual transactions – the report profiles activity by several different factors useful in understanding regional differences in the early stage financing community.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) recently released FY 2019 announcements for the Growth Accelerator Fund Competition and Federal and State Technology Partnership Program (FAST) funding. Accelerators emphasizing underserved entrepreneurs can submit a brief application and slide deck from June 10-20; SBA anticipates as many as 60, $50,000 awards.

As covered in the last Weekly Digest, the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship held a hearing on reauthorizing SBA’s innovation programs. SSTI was invited to add to the hearing’s record, and our letter supporting SBIR/STTR pilot programs, FAST and entrepreneurial development programs is produced, below.

Dear Chairman Rubio and Ranking Member Cardin:

Is your region creating a better future through science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship? Do you want to share your story and have colleagues from across the country come to your region to see your successes firsthand? SSTI has opened our request for proposals to host SSTI’s 2020 Annual Conference. Hosts receive coverage for their regional innovation economies over the course of a year and are featured on-site through the plenary and breakout sessions, exhibit space and more. Submit a compelling proposal by Sept.

At a time when higher education degrees are both under scrutiny and lauded, one county government in Colorado is experimenting with an initiative that has eliminated degree requirements for more than 80 positions. It wasn’t the value of the degree that prompted the move, but the question of equity and wanting to achieve a more inclusive workforce. While such moves are rare, similar efforts may blaze the way to new workforce requirements and advancements and help inclusion.

Emerging over the past five years, novel approaches to supporting early-stage cleantech development have the potential to ease the transition from invention to marketplace, according to new research from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center for the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis. The report provides a comparison of some of the nation’s most notable cleantech incubators and accelerators, finding that each organization fills a unique niche and competition among them is not an issue.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program generates a sizeable financial return on investment for the federal government, according to a recent study by the Michigan-based W.E. Upjohn Institute.