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Week of August 13 - 19, 2007 |
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Increasing America’s Competitiveness
President Bush last week
signed the America COMPETES Act, an overwhelmingly popular piece of
legislation focused on research & development, STEM
(science-technology-engineering-mathematics) education and energy
independence. The bill had passed the House by a vote of 367-57 and
enjoyed unanimous support in the Senate. It addresses educational
challenges by authorizing $33.6 billion over fiscal years 2008-2010 for
STEM education and authorizes grant programs to help educate current and
future teachers in those areas. The Act also supports doubling funding
for basic research in the physical sciences in the hopes of encouraging
scientists to explore areas such as nanotechnology, supercomputing, and
alternative energy sources. It also creates the Advanced Research
Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to engage in high-risk, high-reward
research that can lead to clean energy technologies. In recent testimony
before the House Committee on Science and Technology, Bill Bonvillian,
the MIT Director of Federal Relations, claimed the success of ARPA-E
would require “high performance from outstanding new research entrants,
following the DARPA hybrid model of the best university and firm
researchers.” He also cautioned that new energy technologies will not
occur overnight and that the new entity should maintain a long-term
focus. |
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For all of you researchers,
academics and recreational number crunchers, the latest set of firm-size
data is available. Funded by the SBA Office of Advocacy and produced by
the U.S. Census Bureau, data on births, closures, job creation and job
destruction is available for 2003 to 2004 is available. Advocacy also
released a copy of its Quarterly Indicators: The Economy and Small
Business. The report shows that the economy grew at an annualized 3.4
percent in the second quarter of 2007, and the unemployment rate for the
months of April, May, and June was 4.5 percent. Meanwhile, small
businesses and consumers were more pessimistic about the future than the
previous quarter. Download a copy of Second Quarter 2007: The Economy and Small Business. |
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The State of Small Business in the Northern Midwest and Great Plains
The latest issue of the
Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank’s FedGazette is devoted to the
importance of small business owners and entrepreneurs in Minnesota,
Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The special issue
includes lots of useful data on small business in each of the region’s
five states. In general, business is good. To give two examples: new
business starts in Minnesota are up 35% since 1990 while its population
rose by 18%. In North Dakota, the business start-up rate jumped 5% while
its population declined between 1996 and 2005. In addition to useful
data, articles in this issue examine business survival rates as well as
resources available to budding entrepreneurs. |
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EDA Symposium Scheduled for Kansas City
It seems as though North
Dakota is gaining increasing recognition for its efforts to promote an
entrepreneurial culture throughout the state. Governor John Hoeven will
join Carl Schramm of the Kauffman Foundation as the keynote speakers for
an upcoming event hosted by the U. S. Department of Commerce Economic
Development Administration and Assistant Secretary Sandy Baruah.
Scheduled for September 26 in Kansas City, the event is the last in a
series focused on regional strategies, policies and best practices to
create jobs and economic opportunity. The program will include case
studies of successful regional approaches to economic development, a
session on how innovation and entrepreneurship drive economic growth,
and training related to EDA programs. Previous events were held in
Philadelphia, San Antonio, Long Beach and Atlanta. |
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The National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship is an initiative of the Public Forum Institute made possible by a grant from the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City. Through NDE-news, we bring you short summaries and analyses of various trends driving entrepreneurship around the world. Subscribe now to receive your weekly copy. Archived issues are available online. |
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National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship
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All
stories © 2007 The Public Forum Institute
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