OregonStartups.com News

A Recipe for Weakness

From the Washington Post, getting visas for skilled foreign professionals is still harder than it should be:

Thanks to the nation's dysfunctional immigration system and the dysfunctional Congress that keeps it that way, tens of thousands of promising, intelligent, ambitious and highly skilled foreign professionals, including thousands receiving advanced degrees from American universities this month, will be denied a chance to contribute their expertise and energy to the American economy. Few policies match this one is terms of sheer irrationality, and few will do as much damage to this country's long-term prospects and competitiveness. Yet Congress, mired in a political swamp of its own making when it comes to immigration, seems incapable of extracting itself.

H-1B Visa Limits Frustrate High-Tech Firms

According to the Raleigh News & Observer,

Requests for H-1B visas reached an all-time high this year, with nearly 163,000 applications received in five days, federal officials said Thursday. Because of the volume, Citizenship and Immigration Services will conduct a random lottery to award the 65,000 visas allowed by law for highly educated foreign workers. In addition, another 20,000 will be given to foreign citizens with advanced degrees from American universities, under a special exemption.

The government is continuing to do a fine job of limiting immigration of highly educated workers.

TIP - Technology Innovation Program

On March 26, Marc Stanley, Director of the Technology Innovation Program (TIP -- part of NIST) presented an overview of TIP at OMSI. 

TIP Purpose: assisting US business and institutions of higher education or other organizations, such as national labs and nonprofit research institutions, to support, promote, and accelerate innovation in the US through high-risk, high-reward research in areas of critical national need.

How they will do it: grants to companies, universities, etc.

The TIP organization will ask for proposals addressing one of the following 7.  (They will decide which one by June 2).

7 Topics to be considered for TIP:
Water
      Examples: New sensors, Analytical measurement tools,
      Water process integration; filtration process
      Will come up with specific sub topics through gap analysis

Civil infrastructure
    Examples: transportation infrastructure, Energy (power grid), Sustainability

Personalized medicine
    Examples: Biological systems; genomics; identifying bio-markers;
    Genetic profiles; protecting patient data
    Rapid analysis of the genome; real time detection of proteins;
    Drug/vaccine delivery systems medical devices

Analytical tools for complex networks (probably next year)
    Transportation, financial, defense -- all run by networks

Energy
    Examples: Battery tech; Carbon dioxide generation problem;
    Fuel cels, PV,wind, etc.

Robust communication networks
    Reliable and secure systems.
    Diagnostics; interoperability

Manufacturing
    Examples: Emerging processes and technology
    Free form fabrication; layered manufacturing; rapid manufacturing;
    Enterprise level simulation; net centric manufacturing nano manufacturing

Help with SBIR and STTR - March 31 Deadline!

SBIR and STTR are grant programs for technology companies.  (See these SBA links for more info on the programs.)  If you're going to apply, you'll want to know about the marching program (info from the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department):

Deadline Approaching for Matching Grant Program

The March 31st deadline for the Small Business Matching Grant Program (Phase 0) is quickly approaching. The program was created to increase Oregon's competitiveness in capturing federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants.  These two federal grant programs provide funding to small businesses for research and development of new technologies.

Businesses are encouraged to apply for this program, which provides matching funds on a one-to-one basis for proposal preparation expenses. Attached are the program guidelines and application. Alternatively you can visit http://www.oregon4biz.com/sbir.htm to download these materials.

OTBC in the News

The Oregonian published an article last Thursday on OTBC, the incubator for high-tech startups (full disclosure: OTBC is my day job!)  As per the article, OTBC is helping startups get traction.

The ... 3-year-old high-tech business incubator is showing its first return on an investment of $1.3 million in taxpayer support.  Two businesses have "graduated" from the Open Technology Business Center after attracting about $19 million in capital investment. One of those businesses is bringing 55 new jobs to Beaverton.

National Governors Assoc. weighs in on Angel Investing

According to a report recently released by the National Governors Association:

The benefits of supporting and encouraging angel investment can be great. Angel investors
typically have investment portfolios in excess of $250,000 in multiple companies. The local
businesses in which they invest create high-skill, high-wage jobs and make important
contributions to states and their communities. The presence of angel groups also reduces the
relocation of successful entrepreneurs to the coasts for early-stage financing so that states realize  greater economic impact from entrepreneurial startups. Angels have already started to organize in  many states, and gubernatorial support will magnify the benefits of angel activity. 

Ways States can help:

• Promote seminars on private equity investment for current and potential angel investors;

• Assist entrepreneurs by connecting them with existing entrepreneurship education and
services;   

• Facilitate the formation of statewide angel group networks to organize and empower local
leadership and build investor knowledge;

• Ensure that angel investors are well-represented on state economic development advisory
boards, along with entrepreneurs, universities, and other industry representatives; and

• Identify and collect metrics to monitor the impact on policies to encourage angel
investment.

Download the full report: State Strategies to Promote Angel Investment for Economic Growth.

Economic Strategies for Nurturing Innovation and Job Growth

As reported by the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds, this thoroghly assembled piece, by Nathan Newman in this week's Progressive States Dispatch, is a wealth of information from across the country on capital formation, technology transfer and a wide array of data on transition to the 'New Economy'.

Their conclusion:

Too often, we hear economic development reduced to slashing revenues for critical public services or just offering big firms expensive tax breaks. Instead, we need to focus on the fundamentals of building an economy where home-grown companies can thrive and innovate.

Establishing regional structures that support cooperation is all part of the integrated strategies needed for building innovative economies in our states. Each element, from state investment in startups to encouraging technology transfers to nurturing industrial clusters, highlights the need for intelligent, active government action in the process of building twenty-first century economies that can compete in the global race for innovation.
 

The Fading Lustre of Clusters

In a recent special report, The Economist magazine argued that "the best thing that governments can do to encourage innovation is to get out of the way." Several attempts to reproduce a Silicon-Valley-like cluster effect around the world have resulted in less than spectacular results.

Federal Investment in Research Falling

From SiliconValley.com: Facing their first downturn in decades of federal funding for scientific research, Stanford scientists say they're cutting back projects critical to future innovation.

A Not-so-Innovative Office of Innovation

Science magazine published what read like a eulogy for the Commerce Department's 2-decade-old Technology Administration which was recently eliminated.  It was replaced by a small Technology Council, which is not expected to accomplish much, until a new administration arrives in January of 2009.