Travel and training dollars are limited for most tech-based economic development programs. For many states, these are the first budget items frozen in a cutback. As a result, you need to get the most bang for each dollar spent on professional development for each staff member.

Few of us would consider one piece of a jigsaw puzzle to be sufficient for comprehending the whole picture. Similarly, a state or regional strategy to develop a knowledge-based economy is not complete with just one element of a complete portfolio to nurture science, technology and entrepreneurship.

Florence Mendelson has resigned as president and CEO of Pittsburgh-based Innovation Works. She will remain in her position through the end of the year, helping to identify her successor and implement plans for fiscal year 2005.

One word sums up today's efforts to build tech-based economies: challenging. A restructuring manufacturing base, revolutionary scientific breakthroughs, China and Inda heralding a truly global economy, and tight budgets have left many states and communities simply reacting to change or waiting for better times.

In the coming weeks, many Digest readers will receive the 24-page full color brochure in the mail. If you can't wait until then or want to make sure you get a copy, a PDF version is available for download on our conference website: http://www.ssti.org/conference04.htm [expired]

Slate of 30 breakout sessions SSTI's largest offering yet

The agenda is packed. Packed with great breakout session topics and engaging presenters. With as many as 30 breakout sessions, this year's conference offers something for everyone. The session titles are provided below. Brief descriptions of each topic are presented in the brochure and will be available our conference website:

The larger conference structure allows us to experiment with some of the sessions, adding elements to improve the event's value for most participants.

To get your experience at SSTI's annual conference off on the right foot, the City of Philadelphia proudly invites you to enjoy a private evening at its most beautiful and interesting new cultural center — the National Constitution Center. The evocative museum is the first devoted to one of the most important and innovative documents in world history — the U.S. Constitution.

On October 13, SSTI will offer four exciting options as pre-conference activities: three day-long sessions on topics that will help you prepare for tomorrow's challenges and a tour of one of the world's foremost science parks. The sessions are:

SSTI annual conferences don't come in a box. We don't publish proceedings or post conference materials. Each year's event is designed as an intensive learning experience; it's about the question and answer, the give and take, the push and pull, the dialogue as much as the individual presentations. You have to be present to win, if learning and growing is winning. We think it is.

Need yet another reason why this conference fits your training needs? SSTI’s 8th Annual Conference is recognized by the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) as a professional development event that counts toward the recertification of Certified Economic Developers (CEcDs).

Seattle 2003 Sold Out. Register Early to Ensure a Seat in Philadelphia

We heard from some of you last year about your disappointment and disbelief that you couldn't attend our annual conference in Seattle because it was sold out. It happens with SSTI conferences because our first concern is the quality of the event for our participants.

The Greater Phoenix Economic Council announced Barry Broome will become the new president & CEO beginning in February.

Kelly Lewis, a state legislator in Pennyslvania, will be the new president and CEO of the Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania, beginning Jan. 1.

Led by the Fort Myers-Cape Coral metro area, a burgeoning retirement and tourist destination on the state’s southwest coast, Florida landed seven of the top 15 metros in Milken Institute’s 2004 Best Performing Cities Index released last week. The others are West Palm Beach-Boca Raton (4th), Daytona Beach (5th), Sarasota-Bradenton (6th), Fort Lauderdale (9th), Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater (12th) and Naples (15th).

The National Technology Transfer Center named James Goulka as its new CEO. Goulka formerly was president and CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in Scottsdale, AZ.

Ken Marcus is the new director of the University of Arizona Science and Technology Park.

With the goal of creating new access to venture capital (VC) for area businesses, Arizona and Montana are investing up to $50 million into a “fund of funds” concept. Both states are undertaking this multi-management model with the hopes of luring high-tech start-up companies. Their efforts are described in further detail below.

The number of business establishments in the U.S. grew by 17.4 percent between 1998 and the end of 2003, although a slight net decline occurred in 2003 for the first time in six years, according to data recently released by infoUSA.

An advocate for small businesses in Washington known as “Mr. Small Business,” Milton Stewart died of pneumonia on Nov. 5 in Phoenix.

If you haven't purchased your 2005 wall calendar or updated your computer-based planner yet, you will need to soon, to schedule travel and update budget requests. At the top of many lists will be SSTI's 9th annual conference, Oct. 19-21, 2005 in Atlanta, but how do you conveniently find out about the many other high quality events happening throughout the year?

The Oct. 25 issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest previewed ballot issues in six states that would have implications for their respective state efforts to grow a knowledge-based economy. The unofficial results at press time for each are provided below:

While the presidential election has been dominating the news, voters across the country will be acting on an array of tech-based economic development issues on Election Day next week. The largest is an initiative in California that would provide up to $3 billion for embryonic stem cell research. If approved by California voters, Proposition 71 would have the potential of significantly changing the landscape of where stem cell research is carried out and have significant economic development implications.

Earlier this year, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and the Arizona State Legislature committed $100 million over four years to support Science Foundation Arizona, a nonprofit public-private partnership to coordinate the state’s R&D investments in science and technology. The catch? The law required a dollar-to-dollar match of non-government funding of the annual $25 million allotment before the state could release its funding to Science Foundation Arizona.

 

Several months of debate leading into a special legislative session late last year was not enough to convince lawmakers to approve funding for two of the governor’s major TBED priorities. With the release of the fiscal year 2008-09 budget recommendation, Gov. Ed Rendell is again asserting the importance of the alternative energy legislation and the Jonas Salk Legacy Fund, urging lawmakers to quickly enact the initiatives.