Interest by would-be entrepreneurs to start new businesses declined in 2001 as the economic recession and lingering effects of the dot.com crash dampened enthusiasm for launching new ventures, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2001 National Entrepreneurship Assessment for the United States of America. The trend is expected to continue for the near term with a strong rebound later in the year.

Program expected to yield $15B in new capital for underserved communities

Six national, community-based financial services organizations recently announced the formation of New Markets Advisors to help investors identify opportunities using the New Markets Tax Credit.

Earlier this month, Kansas passed legislation to encourage $40 million in private equity investment. Alabama passed a $100 million bill for CAPCOs. Similar legislation aimed to increase the amount of venture capital available locally has passed at least one chamber in the South Carolina and Ohio state legislatures. Pennsylvania pension funds, after taking a bath in the dot.com crash and current recession are increasing the percentage of their portfolios placed in venture capital.

Generating $48.7 million in tax revenues to local and state governments and 5,949 direct jobs, the 31 tenants of the University of Arizona Science & Technology Park had an estimated direct impact in excess of $1 billion in FY 2000-01, according to a new report from the university's Office of Economic Development.

Lewis Attardo is the first director of the new Sacramento Regional Technology Alliance. Attardo formerly was a Florida-based private business and economic development consultant.

Lewis Attardo is the first director of the new Sacramento Regional Technology Alliance. Attardo formerly was a Florida-based private business and economic development consultant.

Joseph Hornett has been selected to serve as senior vice president and treasurer of the nonprofit Purdue Research Foundation (PRF). Hornett currently is COO for Sport Service, Inc. in Indianapolis. PRF holds more than 130 properties and 10,000 acres of Indiana farmland near Purdue University, including the Purdue Research Park.

Matthew McClorey is the new president and COO for Kansas Innovation Corp., beginning June 3. McClorey currently serves as the vice president of business development and portfolio management for the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corp (KTEC).

Marilyn Carlson Nelson, the chairman and chief executive officer of Carlson Cos. Inc., has been appointed by President Bush to chair the National Women's Business Council. The council serves as an independent source of advice and counsel to the president, Congress and the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The University of Florida is seeking a creative and versatile individual to assist in partnership development and commercialization of technologies for UF and its sponsoring agencies. The primary responsibility for this position will be to serve as Deputy Director for the Environmental Systems Commercial Space Technology Center (ES CSTC), a NASA sponsored environmental research center.

After holding steady in late 2001, the amount of venture capital investment continued its two-year decline in the first quarter of 2002, according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers/Venture Economics/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree™ Survey. Total investments fell to $6.2 billion — a 24 percent decrease from the fourth quarter of 2001. A total of 787 companies received venture backing, or 207 fewer than the prior quarter.

Ohio Proposes to Join Race With the growing need to identify cleaner sources of power, coupled with recent advances in alternative energy technologies, many states are targeting science and technology investments toward fuel cells. California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York all have made investments in fuel cell research demonstration or commercialization projects through energy related research funds.

The Spring 2002 edition of the Isuma, the quarterly Canadian Journal of Policy Research, is dedicated to issues surrounding the New Economy. Many of the 16 papers in the free, online issue will be of interest to readers of SSTI's Weekly Digest, including:

The 2002 Special Session of the Louisiana State Legislature has yielded a series of tax credits that aim to benefit biotechnology companies in Louisiana, promote commercialization of technology, encourage R&D investments, and make the state more competitive in information technology. The tax credits are as follows:

Buffalo

The Buffalo News reports InfoNiagara, a technology council serving 230 IT companies, has signed a reciprocal membership with the Amherst Chamber of Commerce to increase the benefits offered to both organizations' members. The chamber's 2,300 members gain access to InfoNiagara's training and professional development programs, according to the paper, while the tech council is able to offer its members a variety of insurance programs the chamber has in place.

The president of the Buffalo Economic Renaissance Corp, Alan DeLisle, is leaving to become director of the Office of Economic and Employment Development in Durham, N.C.

Larry Kline has resigned as president of the Wisconsin Technology Council to take a position as chief financial officer and vice president for business development with a biotech firm.

The president of the Buffalo Economic Renaissance Corp, Alan DeLisle, is leaving to become director of the Office of Economic and Employment Development in Durham, N.C.

Larry Kline has resigned as president of the Wisconsin Technology Council to take a position as chief financial officer and vice president for business development with a biotech firm.

Jeffrey Skolnick has been named executive director of the new Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics based at the University of Buffalo. In introducing Skolnick, Governor Pataki confirmed the new state budget includes $50 million for the center, according to the May 10 issue of the Buffalo News.

Members of the House Science Committee introduced legislation this week that would place the National Science Foundation (NSF) on a track to double the agency's budget in five years. The bill, H.R. 4664, authorizes a 15 percent increase for NSF for each of the next three years.

SSTI has compiled the 2001 statistics from the ten federal agencies participating in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program to help states gear up for the next round of competition for the Federal and State Technology Partnership and Rural Outreach Programs (FAST and ROP, respectively). SBIR statistics are also used by several states as one measure or indicator for innovation indices and S&T report cards.

Earlier this week, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) and the Michigan Business Roundtable released a benchmarking study that used 140 indicators across seven areas to compare the state's competitiveness with 17 other states.

Savannah, Georgia

With the goal of assembling “a consistent set of state-level data that approximates the ‘technology infrastructure’ of the states,” the Office of Technology Policy (OTP) has released on the web, The Dynamics of Technology-based Economic Development: State Science and Technology Indicators. OTP, part of the Technology Administration of the U.S.

The latest issue of the National Commission on Entrepreneurship's E-News brought our attention to survey results revealing that, despite the media and Wall Street attention given to dot-coms, only 13.1 percent of recent college graduates would like to work for the start-up, Internet-based businesses given a choice. Fortune 500 companies were the preferred choice for 42.2 percent of the survey respondents, while 24.7 percent opted for small businesses (specifically not dot-coms).