After the tremendous learning and community-building experience at SSTI’s conference last December at the beautiful Sheraton at Wild Horse Pass in Arizona, many people are looking forward to our next gathering. We are too, but have decided to postpone the event until next year with dates to be determined.
If you haven’t already done so, now is the time to register for SSTI’s Annual Conference.
If you haven’t already done so, now is the time to register for SSTI’s Annual Conference. The registration deadline is December 3—that’s less than two weeks away! Register now to ensure your spot as practitioners and policymakers from around the country come together to learn from each other the best way to advance their innovation economy. The agenda contains four plenary sessions with national thought leaders and more than 20 breakout sessions to help plan for 2025 and beyond. Sessions include:
SSTI extends a huge “thank you” to all of the organizations partnering with us to make SSTI’s 2024 Annual Conference a success! Please take a moment now to learn more about our partners here and then be sure to visit them in person this December.
SSTI will continue the conversation about the SSBCI program at the Annual Conference. SSBCI director, Jeff Stout, will provide an update on the program in The latest on Treasury’s $10 billion investment in small businesses. The session will provide insights into Treasury's current thinking and to better understand how SSBCI might be better leveraged as a regional resource. SSBCI outreach team member Karl Fooks will moderate the session, How regions are adapting to trends in equity investment.
We’ve negotiated an extraordinary room rate for this year’s conference: $209 plus nominal taxes and fees at the conference venue, the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass in the Gila River Indian Community within the Phoenix, Arizona Metro Region. But our negotiated rate expires once the room block fills or after Monday, November 18.
Additionally, our registration closes on December 3, so why not check both these items off your to do list and do them now?
The TBED community, similarly to research scientists, faces communication challenges with elected officials, regional stakeholders, and even their friends and family. SSTI has conducted three surveys over the last nine years to uncover problematic jargon, illuminate alternative approaches, and inform our members’ communication strategies. At the SSTI Annual Conference, we'll present the latest results from a focus group and survey that will help the community communicate better with non-TBED audiences.
Since the pandemic, those working on local prosperity through the nexus of science, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship—the four cornerstones of SSTI’s mission—have seen the largest investment yet by the federal government to catalyze and support their work. It awakened teams of organizations across the country in virtually every city, institution of higher education or region to start or improve innovation-centered economic development strategies.
Whether one calls them transformational or disruptive, challenging or exciting, topics like generative AI, Big Tech, climate change, and geopolitical/economic issues will have significant influences on the future focus and efforts of every organization employing readers of this newsletter. There hasn’t been a forum for the field to talk about all of it openly and honestly—until December, that is.
Growing your local or state economy through innovation and technology-based economic development most often feels like a full-sprint ultramarathon. It doesn't help that so many external influences on how you do your job seem to change the rules and landscape thrown at you all the time. Take Nov 5, for example. You need a break! But you also need time to pause, think, and strategize with your teammates for the coming year. There is a way to achieve both simultaneously, and I love it! More...
As a part of the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI)’s Technical Assistance (TA) Program, the Treasury Department has announced 14 Small Business Opportunity Program (SBOP) awards to 12 states and two Tribal governments, each ranging from $1.6 to $10 million, totaling $75 million. SSBCI’s TA program is divided into two major programs: the TA Grant program and SBOP.
Doing this work in our separate regions and states, we can feel at times like we're the only ones doing what we do. SSTI recognizes it is even hard to explain your work to friends and family. What is a tech-based economic development practitioner? An ecosystem builder? A commercialization professional?
Connect. Discover. Refresh with your peers in Arizona this December. Our newly released agenda will guide you to immersing yourself at SSTI's 2024 Annual Conference. We will explore nearly the full scope of tech-based economic development in session formats that facilitate conversation, new ideas, and new collaboration opportunities.
Registration is now open for the SSTI 2024 Annual Conference in Phoenix, December 10-12, at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass, located in the Gila River Indian Community.
Join us to experience thought-provoking keynotes, open forums, and ample discussion so that you can share your perspective with peers and have your questions answered by policymakers and practitioners—all looking to exchange ideas on creating a better future through science, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
SSTI’s 2024 Annual Conference dates & location set: Dec 10-12 in Arizona!
Coming off one of its most successful events ever, SSTI is happy to announce the nation’s largest annual gathering of leading practitioners and policymakers working toward regional innovation and growth through technology-based economic development will be held at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass in the Gila River Indian Community in metro Phoenix on December 9-12, 2024.
SSTI’s 2024 Annual Conference dates & location set: Dec 10-12 in Arizona!
Coming off one of its most successful events ever, SSTI is happy to announce the nation’s largest annual gathering of leading practitioners and policymakers working toward regional innovation and growth through technology-based economic development will be held at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass in the Gila River Indian Community in metro Phoenix on December 9-12, 2024.
A trio of reports from the U.S. Department of Energy showed a continued upward trend in wind energy capacity and employment in 2018, as the cost per megawatt (MW) continued to drop due to larger and more efficient turbines. However, the possible elimination of federal tax incentives could slow the long-term growth of wind power, the report cautioned.
SSTI’s Annual Conference is in Atlanta this Sept. 6-8. The event will feature numerous opportunities to connect with your peers from across the country who are working to strengthen their regional innovation economies through roundtables focused on specific areas of practice and workshops on communications, building stronger organizations, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. The entire conference is available for a registration fee of just $390.
Mark your calendar for Sept. 6-8 to join us in Atlanta for the 2023 SSTI Annual Conference!
Attendees will have the chance to share best practices and problem solve with colleagues who share your passion for innovation. There will be opportunities to explore funding sources to help take your projects to the next level, learn about the latest trends and topics in the innovation economy, and more!
In addition to the information we share through our in-person gatherings, one of the key elements of our conferences has always been the connections we make, both old and new. We always strive to bring you the best possible experience at our Annual Conference, and we know from your feedback that being able to meet in-person and network is something you value as highly as we do. As an organization with science at its core, we've been following where the science leads us throughout the pandemic. With the high level of contagion of the delta variant and the CDC's guidance that vaccinated people wear masks indoors in areas with significant and high spread, we've come to the conclusion that it is best for us to postpone our Annual Conference until spring of 2022.
We are excited to announce that SSTI’s annual conference is back and in-person, Nov. 1-3, in Little Rock, Arkansas. More than ever, now is the time to reconnect with those in the field and make new connections as we revitalize our plans for the innovation economy. Whether you are resetting your agenda, expanding your initiatives, evaluating your success, or searching for new paths to emerge stronger from the pandemic, we will have ideas, sessions and resources for you to explore at SSTI’s 2021 Annual Conference: Focusing on the Future.
Please mark your calendars for Oct. 5-7, 2020, as the new date for SSTI’s Annual Conference. Because our rooms were overbooked for the previous dates, we have moved the conference up a week. The Little Rock Marriott has dropped the room rate to $129 to accommodate any inconvenience this may have caused.
SSTI is excited to announce Little Rock, Arkansas, as the site for our 2020 Annual Conference, Oct. 5-7. The conference is the premier gathering of practitioners and policymakers from across the country who work to create a better future through science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship.
SSTI’s Annual Conference in Providence, Rhode Island, held September 9-11, showcased successful programs, addressed challenges and examined trends and new developments across the innovation economy. We always like to welcome back old friends and are encouraged to see new faces. Said one long-time attendee, “I used to say this is the place to network with the most experienced and sophisticated practitioners.
SSTI is extending its reduced rate for conference registration with no rate increase planned before the start of the conference. It is not too late to register under that special rate! In the more than 20 sessions we have planned, there are leaders in manufacturing succession planning, workforce development, funding, connecting academic departments with industry partners, and more. We hope to see you in Providence, Rhode Island, Sept.
SSTI and conference host Rhode Island Commerce Corporation are pleased to announce Gov. Gina Raimondo is scheduled to deliver welcoming remarks during the opening plenary session and officially kick off SSTI’s Annual Conference in Providence on September 10!
SSTI and conference host Rhode Island Commerce Corporation are pleased to announce Gov. Gina Raimondo is scheduled to deliver welcoming remarks during the opening plenary session and officially kick off SSTI’s Annual Conference in Providence on September 10!
Gov. Raimondo became the state’s first female governor when she was first elected in 2014 and won re-election in 2018 for a second term. Prior to becoming governor, she worked as the General Treasurer of Rhode Island, spearheading landmark pension reform that would help reorder and ensure the state’s fiscal stability.
During her tenure, the governor has made advancements in education, innovation, and economic development a centerpiece of her economic growth plans. She is also working to make the state a national leader on college affordability and installed Rhode Island’s Promise, allowing two years of free college community college to every in-state student. She has worked to kick-start the state’s economy, and her economic development programs have helped lead the largest drop in the unemployment rate in the country. Her programs aim to increase collaboration, better attract entrepreneurs, create jobs, encourage existing businesses to grow, and foster innovation throughout state government.