Two recent studies on Internet usage in Maryland and Maine offer detailed maps of broadband infrastructure. The studies offer some insights on how businesses and, in the case of Maryland, private citizens are accessing the Internet. Specific findings are not presented below; however, each of the studies are available in their entirety via the links that follow the respective summaries.

One of the biggest obstacles many communities and states face to building tech-based economies is convincing traditional businesses, institutions and the general population to embrace change, technological advance, and innovation. A common element of many strategic plans is at least one recommendation or even an entire report dedicated to changing perceptions of the community or state toward being a technology mecca — or at least getting people to think about and recognize the importance of science and technology investments.

Voters in Maine passed a bond issue authorizing the state to borrow $5 million for biomedical and marine research and development by Maine-based nonprofit and state research institutions. 

Nearly every state legislature annually appropriates some level of funding to support research and development activities in the state's nonprofit, university, and industrial research communities. Few, though, have developed long-term, systematic attempts to measure the impact of those investments.

Blythewood, South Carolina 

The headlines of many tech and business publications scream of massive Internet incubator layoffs, closures, and restructuring. The rapid rise and fall of these organizations has left some local tech-based economic development practitioners wondering if encouraging the growth of incubator facilities is a worthwhile strategy to pursue.

In a follow-up to Maine Governor Angus King’s call for every 7th grader to have a laptop computer that they would use in school and could take home, the Task Force on the Maine Learning Technology Endowment has recommended that every student and teacher in the 7th through 12th grades be provided with computers that would be wireless and portable. The computers could be used in the classroom and, pending school district permission, be taken home. 

Editor's Note: This is the fourth installment of excerpts from recent speeches and budget proposals demonstrating the priority governors are placing on tech-based economic development and math & science education.

The Maine Science and Technology Foundation has launched http://www.mainescience.org -- a single website clearinghouse for businesses, researchers, educators, students and the public looking for information on science and technology in Maine. Under the headings of Quest, Brainpower, Happenings, and Commerce, the site:

The Maine Science & Technology Foundation (MSTF) has issued a request for proposals to conduct an "Initial Evaluation of Maine's Public Investments in Research and Development." The study, to be completed by July 1, 2001, will provide baseline data for the first comprehensive evaluation MSTF is required by law to prepare for the state legislature and Governor by July, 2006. Subsequent comprehensive evaluations are to be completed every five years. The effort will:

If the success of its funded companies is revealing, the Maine Technology Institute (MTI) has done well to spur innovative activity in Maine, suggests an independent analysis recently released in the state.

With all of the recent activity from its state legislature, Arkansas will soon possess one of the nation's most comprehensive portfolios of state-supported TBED initiatives. A number of TBED-related acts passed by the Arkansas General Assembly this session have all received Gov. Mike Beebe's signature. The result could be a public injection of up to $140 million for Arkansas's TBED community over the next biennium.

A $295 million three-part bond referendum package passed by the Maine State Legislature last week includes a number of components central to the state’s TBED strategy, including funds to support continued development of the state’s research enterprise, expanded broadband access and increased rural/economic development financing.

 

Describing Maine as making "modest progress" in strengthening its capacity for innovation-driven economic growth, the Maine Science and Technology Foundation (MSTF) released on Tuesday The Maine Innovation Index 2002, a report on Maine's performance in the new economy.

The following is a sampling of the more than 60 events included in the SSTI Calendar of Events webpage: http://www.ssti.org/calendar.htm

Arkansas