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Pursuit Of 'The Best Innovation Economy'
by Chloe Albanesius and Kimberly Reeves
Massachusetts leads the pack in science and technology assets, but Rhode Island has made great strides in the past two years, according to a study released Wednesday by the Milken Institute.
"Despite the Internet bubble bursting, the future growth of states and regions is largely dependent on how well they do in the technology area," said Ross DeVol, Milken's director of regional economics and the study's principal author. He stressed, however, that "it's a long-term commitment to [try] and foster" the creation of high-paying jobs.
As a result, Massachusetts is not taking its high ranking for granted, the report concludes. The state legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto at the beginning of its 2004 session to approve $67 million for technology-based economic development. Massachusetts and other top-ranked states like Colorado, California and Maryland "are no more protected than those that are poor performers," the report said.
Lower performers, therefore, should take note. The study points to Virginia, "a geographically Southern state [that rose] to high-tech economic dynamism over recent years" and landed in fifth place on Milken's study. And since Milken's 2002 study, Rhode Island has dramatically increased its risk capital and entrepreneurial infrastructure, while the science and technology workforce stayed much higher in Rhode Island than in other states.
Of the bottom 10 states, only Hawaii was able to move out of that category. "To some extent it's concerning because the states in the bottom 10 probably have the most to fear from global outsourcing to other countries," DeVol said. The outsourcing of U.S. jobs is an issue, he added, but should not be the main focus.
California has deteriorated the most in human capital. "Silicon Valley lost 20 percent of its employment base from peak to trough in this downturn, and a lot of those jobs that were lost were from people who had moved there in the late '90s, so they fled the area when the job market deteriorated that significantly," he said.
"I think it's going to be interesting to see as the tech sector starts to rebound, particularly in states like Texas" that lost a lot of venture-capital funding," DeVol said. Will those states "come back at the same rate or [will] other states pass them by? This is largely a battle between the states to see who can have the best innovation economy."
Texas Offers SEMATECH Millions To Stay Put
Texas Gov. Rick Perry this week announced a $200 million package designed to keep the SEMATECH semiconductor outfit in Austin.
A consortium of nine major chipmakers, SEMATECH has invested $3 billion in Austin over the last 17 years. Texas came close to losing SEMATECH three years ago after New York Gov. George Pataki dangled $200 million in incentives and a state-of-the-art facility in his quest to create the Empire State High-Tech Corridor on the State University of New York at Albany campus. SUNY-Albany eventually lured International SEMATECH's $400 million extreme-ultraviolet lithography laboratory, but SEMATECH stayed in Texas.
The first $40 million in new Texas incentives will come from the Enterprise Fund, which the governor's office oversees to lure jobs to the state. Perry also pledged to raise $160 million in additional private and public funds over the next five years.
In return, SEMATECH will open the Advanced Material Research Center (AMRC) in a partnership with the University of Texas system and possibly other state universities. The deal between SEMATECH and Perry requires SEMATECH's research to create 4,000 high-skill jobs.
"This is a great day for Texas technology and for the economic future of all our citizens," Perry said. "The AMRC will combine the enormous research strengths of Texas universities with SEMATECH's world-class technology development and proven program-management experience."
SEMATECH's research focuses on four areas: the materials for transistors; interconnecting wires on smaller wafers; the patterning transistors on chips; and the measurement of transistors on those chips. At a high-tech conference in San Francisco next month, SEMATECH will discuss its latest research into three-dimensional technology, which interconnects chips vertically and horizontally to increase density and speed.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, meanwhile, announced that he would create a Senate interim committee on economic development and technology. The committee would focus on building public-private consortiums such as SEMATECH and to finance emerging technology. Dewhurst said nanotechnology and biotechnology not only have the ability to change lives but also have the potential to be the new economic driver in world economy.
Texas Hotline Offers Access To Crime Data
Texas crime victims will have 24-hour access to their case information thanks to a telephone hotline announced Tuesday by the state attorney general's office.
Victim Information and Notification Everyday (VINE) will allow crime victims to call the toll-free, anonymous hotline at 1-877-TX4-VINE and receive access to the jail status and court developments related to suspects and offenders in the crimes that involved them. The system is updated every 15 minutes and now works in 45 counties, with 50 additional counties in the process of creating systems.
"Texas VINE gives crime victims another way to stay involved in the judicial process, empowering them to take back the control they so often lose to their attackers," Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Abbott on Wednesday announced that his cyber-crimes unit now has apprehended 100 suspected child predators through contacts in Internet chat rooms. Last week, former firefighter Cliff Neal Mulligan was sentenced to 20 years in prison for trading more than 800 images of children over the Internet.
In other Texas news, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks ruled that an Austin-based company's First Amendment rights were not violated when the University of Texas at Austin blocked the firm from sending thousands of unsolicited e-mails to students and faculty for an online dating site.
White Buffalo Ventures claimed that federal anti-spam legislation allowed it to send the messages, but Sparks ruled that "the act does not preclude a state entity like UT from using technological devices like spam filters to conserve server space and safeguard the time and resources of its employees, students and faculty."
State Officials Named To Security Board
Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski and Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval have been appointed as members of the State and Local Officials Senior Advisory Committee of the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
"I look forward to working with such dedicated leaders and public servants," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in a statement. "Their state and local leadership experience and expertise will bring valuable insights to our work to build a truly national homeland security effort to better secure our nation." Ridge will be in Moon Township, Pa., on Thursday to award a security grant to the Pittsburgh community.
Meanwhile, Michigan public schools will upgrade their emergency-preparedness plans with an $8.2 million grant from the Homeland Security Department. Schools will complete a vulnerability assessment, revise safety-response plans to include preparation for a potential security emergency, and execute emergency-preparedness exercises. And Missouri has received $42,221 in federal security funds for counties. Regions can use the money for training, equipment, exercises or planning.
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