South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford announced that his budget for fiscal year 2007-08 will include a request for $2 million to bring high-speed Internet access to rural parts of the state. This allocation from the state’s Capital Reserve Fund would be used to create a Rural Broadband fund to increase broadband penetration in underserved communities and is designed to boost economic development by providing Internet access to students, businesses and entrepreneurs.

 

Business community advocacy for public investments in technology-based economic development (TBED) may make the difference between legislators appropriating programs $1 million or $100 million.

Complete descriptions of the position openings described below are available at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.

For many states, increasing industrial research and development (R&D) within the state's academic research institutions is a priority. Some state tech-based economic development agencies offer financial assistance, such as matching grants to foster greater university-industry research collaboration. Some offer tax credits to companies for research expenditures within the state higher education community.

South Carolina Research Authority president Larry Druffel has announced he will retire next year.

Joe James, director of the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness, has resigned his position with the S.C. Department of Commerce.

SSTI congratulates Tom Persons, president and CEO of the South Carolina Technology Alliance, for receiving the Individual Achievement Award from the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce.

SSTI has compiled a table of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards in total dollars and state rankings from fiscal years 2000-2004. The states are ranked by percent change over the five-year period. The greatest gains were posted in North Dakota (202.51 percent), Alaska (200.98 percent), Idaho (157.48 percent), Montana (144.72 percent), Virginia (120.85 percent), and Hawaii (107.06 percent).

West Virginia University’s plan to develop strong research capabilities in a number of focused areas, creating hundreds of new jobs, may be completed in half the time originally anticipated. Gov. Bob Wise announced last week a $24.4 million funding package to jump-start the implementation of new research facilities and laboratories on the WVU campus.

Implementation of the Global Grid Exchange, a state-sponsored open public computing grid in West Virginia, is underway. Hewlett Packard will provide the infrastructure technology that will power the grid, an initiative of the West Virginia High Technology Consortium (WVHTC) Foundation.

Earlier this week, 22 states and Puerto Rico were named recipients of more than $2.2 million in combined fiscal year 2004 Federal and State Technology Partnership (FAST) and Rural Outreach Program (ROP) awards. All but one of the 21 FAST awards distributed by the Small Business Administration (SBA) were worth $95,000 -- they totaled nearly $1.98 million. Five ROP awards of $49,470 also were made by SBA.

The Metropolitan Development Association, of Syracuse and Central New York, also recently named a new chairman, John Zawadzki, of its Regional Development Alliance.

Measured over a three-year period, minority women-owned businesses had similar survival rates and employment growth compared to all women-owned firms, according to a recent series of federal reports. However, when measured against other minority women-owned firms, African American women-owned businesses showed greater job loss and lower survival rates.

Gary Schneider is the new chairman of the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce (S.C.).

In its second attempt to distribute $225 million across the state to local economic development projects, after a lawsuit successfully challenged the initial selection process, the West Virginia Development office is poised to award nearly $47.5 million to directly benefit several technology-specific initiatives.

The nonprofit Challenger Learning Center of Alaska Board of Directors recently announced the hiring of Sharon Gherman as its new Executive Director. Gherman was the former K-12 program executive for the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation.

South Carolina's three major research universities were awarded a total of $30 million this week to establish the state's first six centers of excellence, according to The State, a Columbia, S.C.-based newspaper.

The South Carolina Women's Business Center has opened its doors and already has 30 customers, the South Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership (SCMEP) recently announced. Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., the Women's Business Center will focus on serving only manufacturing facilities in 2003 but will add services to other types of businesses in 2004.

Wrapping up its 2003 session earlier this month, the West Virginia State Legislature passed three bills designed to help build a technology-based economy.

The jury's still out on the appropriate role or effectiveness of most tax credits to encourage tech-based economic development (TBED), but most politicians and economic development practitioners believe their state is at a competitive disadvantage without at least a few breaks.

The South Carolina Technology Alliance calls it the most significant victory for South Carolina's research universities and tech entrepreneurs in the last 50 years. An idle exaggeration? Probably not.

In last week's Tech Talkin' Govs II article, we inadvertently listed Mark Warner as the Governor of South Carolina. Gov. Warner leads the Commonwealth of Virginia. Mark Sanford is Governor of South Carolina. SSTI regrets the error.

A new energy initiative in West Virginia, Energy Village, aims to help grow the state's small and start-up energy and environmental technology businesses. Gov. Bob Wise announced $125,000 in funding for the initiative on Monday.

Alaska Technology Councils To Merge

The new position of vice president of research and health services at the University of South Carolina will be filled by Harris Pastides.