GE American Competitiveness: What Works Conference

Panels will be hosted and moderated by a variety of partner organizations including Washington Post Live, the Center for American Progress, National Association of Manufacturers, Bipartisan Policy Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Center for Strategic and International Studies, American Action Network, Ohio State Fisher College of Business, and The Peterson Institute.

Each day will be organized around a theme:
Monday: American Manufacturing Sessions will focus on strengthening American competitiveness, creating an environment that fosters manufacturing growth and growing middle market investment.

Tuesday: Innovation Topics will include leading edge innovation in medical research, transportation infrastructure, energy and the role of innovation in successful businesses and countries.

Wednesday: Global Competitiveness Speakers will focus on the opportunities and challenges in emerging markets and will analyze the policy conditions needed to support a robust global economy. Panelists also will discuss the international trade and export agenda and the global supply chain, and how they can support the domestic economy.

Thursday: Workforce, Veterans and Reservists The final day of the summit will focus on job creation in America and how to best create opportunities for veterans rejoining the civilian workforce.

 

Look for summaries on the presentations in future Know Your Region posts.

Agenda

The Washington Post will be streaming some of the sessions live. Click on the links in the agenda to view the session.

Building Disaster Resilient Economies Webinar

On January 26, 2012, NADO, in collaboration with EDA, IEDC, and the U.S. Chamber’s BCLC, hosted a webinar to provide preliminary guidance on the funding priorities and requirements for EDA’s Fiscal Year 2012 federal appropriations of $200 million for long-term disaster recovery. Communities in counties with major FEMA disaster designations in FY 2011 will be considered eligible under this opportunity.

The webinar also featured three case studies from Denny Coleman, Tish Hass Williams, and Janet Thigpen, and an overview of available post-disaster recovery resources from IEDC and RestoreYourEconomy.org.

Click Here to watch the entire presentation. (Windows Media Player)

Speaker Powerpoints:

• Joshua Barnes, Disaster Recovery Coordinator, EDA  (pdf)
• Denny Coleman, President & CEO, St. Louis County Economic Council (pdf)
• Tish Hass Williams, Executive Director, Hancock County Chamber of Commerce (pdf)
• Janet Thigpen, Flood Mitigation Specialist, Southern Tier Central Planning & Development Board (pdf)
• Carrie Mulcaire, Senior Economic Development Associate, IEDC 

GE Global Innovation Barometer 2012

 

GE commissioned innovation consulting firm StrategyOne to identify drivers and deterrents of innovation and analyze perceptions around innovation opportunities and challenges. Their Global Innovation Barometer 2012 is the result of data collected from nearly 3,000 senior executives in 22 countries. The Barometer explores various dimensions of:

1.  Government’s success at allocating the right policies and resources;

2.  Innovation in the 21st Centurty; Factors that encourage successful innovation;

3.  The current culture of innovation;

4.  People and organizations that are driving innovation; and

5.  How innovation will improve lives in the next 10 years.

These dimensions can be viewed by both geographic region and by country. The barometer is a valuable tool for representing the multi-dimensional nature of modern innovation.

The Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity of the United States

The  U.S. Department of Commerce’s Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity of the United States report addresses a diverse range of topics and policy options, including: tax policy; the general business climate in the U.S.; barriers to setting up new firms; trade policy, including export promotion; the effectiveness of Federal Research and Development policy; intellectual property regimes in the U.S. and abroad; the health of the manufacturing sector; and science and technology education. The report makes three important findings:

• Federal investments in research, education and infrastructure were critical building blocks for American economic competitiveness, business expansion and job creation in the last century;
• Failures to properly invest in, and have comprehensive strategies for, those areas eroded America’s competitive position; and,
• In a constrained budgetary environment, prioritizing support for these pillars are imperative for America’s economic future and provide a strong return on investment for the U.S. taxpayer.

The report can be found at the U.S. Department of Commerce America COMPETES website:http://www.commerce.gov/americacompetes

Or by clicking here!

 

(source: Information Technology & Innovation Foundation)

Economic Gardening Professional Certification Program

The Edward Lowe Foundation in partnership with Chris Gibbons, who pioneered economic gardening in Littleton, Colorado in 1989, and the National Center for Economic Gardening recently launched an Economic Gardening Certification program. The program consists of online learning (6 weeks), a retreat (4 days), and post retreat peer leaning (2-6 months) and can be catered towards economic gardening program administrators, technical assistance team leaders, or GIS, SEO, or market researchers. Those interested can find contacts and more information about the certification program here and can apply for registration for the spring program here.

Accelerating Regional Innovation

Brian Kelsey, Director of Economic Development at the National Association of Development Organizations, presented on Accelerating Regional Innovation  for the USDA Regional Roundtable on Dec. 19, 2010. The presentation slides are below.

USDA Regional Roundtable Presentation

 

 

 

 

New Strategies, Healthier Communities and EDA Manufacturing Grants

Smart Specialization Strategies (S3) Europe Looks Beyond Clusters – S3 strategies use a bottom up approach that is more focused on commercialization and business development than simply investing in R&D. The article lists Ohio’s Jumpstart or San Diego’s CONNECT for U.S. based examples.

Integrating Healthcare into Regional Planning – The Nashua Regional Planning Commission was awarded $50,000 to help implement planning that provides an environment that will help create a healthier community. # HUD Sustainable Communities

EDA Manufacturing Grants – Southwest Virginia’s transportation equipment manufacturing industry has received the second of three rounds of funding to  increase industrial plant efficiency, create new products, or increase R&D efforts.

Governors Turn to “Bottom Up” Economic Development

Governors of states such as Colorado, New York and Tennessee are using “bottom-up” economic development strategies that aim to place their regions at the center of the states economic development planning, service delivery, and execution. The states are hoping that this approach will help unleash each individual region’s dynamism.

Colorado Blue Print – Governor John Hickenloope used 14 county summaries of their local economies visions, strengths and weaknesses and regional economic development plans to develop the state’s economic development strategy.

New York: Open for Business – Governor Andrew Cuomo established 10 economic development councils tasked with developing regional strategic plans focused on leveraging the particular strengths of each region. As an incentive to develop meaningful strategies the best plans were given a higher percentage of the $200 million capital funds and tax incentives.

Jobs4TN – Jobs 4TN is Governor Bill Haslam’s plan to strengthen the state economy by moving to unleash and support the entrepreneurial energies and dynamism of the state’s regions. The goal is to prioritize key industry clusters, establish regional “jobs base camps” to support regional coordination, and invest in innovation through the INCITE initiative.

 

(Article: ‘Bottom Up’ Economic Development Gains Traction)

(Source: The New Republic)

 

 

Clusters: A Product of Place

Industry Clusters: Importance of Place still Relevant to Business Success – Cluster development in Brevard, Florida, Sacramento, California and South Carolina is highlighted.  States and local communities have realized the importance of clusters in the current political and economic landscape and have been working to build on existing clusters and foster new cluster development.

Oregon, Montana, Utah and Colorado Share GIS Data in the Cloud

Oregon, Montana, Utah and Colorado Share GIS Data in the Cloud – “The initiative is led by Montana, which released a request for information (RFI) in December 2010 asking vendors for input on how to best store GIS data from multiple states in the cloud. Along with Oregon, two other states — Utah and Colorado — have joined the effort, which has been dubbed the Multi-State GIS Cloud Services Assessment Team.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Article by: Hilton Collins