Accelerating Innovation

Innovation Zones Designated in Washington State

Regional innovation action accelerates as Washington State Governor Chris Gregoire announced the designation of 11 Innovation Partnership Zones, geographic areas that will promote and develop the state’s regional economies. Innovation Partnership Zones hope to borrow and build on the success of “research parks,” such as the Research Triangle in North Carolina and Torrey Pines in California and bring together research and higher education opportunities, innovation and economic activity to be a strong engine for regional economies. “We’ve seen what can happen when we bring together research, training and commerce, put them in a beaker and shake – Innovation Partnership Zones will be powerful economic engines to support our regional economies,” said Governor Gregoire. Areas designated as Innovation Partnership Zones receive special access to state funding and resources.

Five designees will receive grants totaling $4,275,000 in the 2007-2009 capital budget.

· Bellingham Innovation Zone, Port of Bellingham – For low-wake, fast ferry vessel prototypes, hydroscience and engineering and design, wake wash energy studies, advanced composite and aluminum alloy techniques.

· Grays Harbor Sustainable Industries Innovation Partnership Zone, Port of Grays Harbor – For research and development of bioenergy, bio-based product manufacturing, particularly high-value byproducts from bio-based energy production.

· Pullman Innovation Partnership Zone, Port of Whitman County – For clean information technology and datacenter technologies, such as energy efficient technologies, and power and cooling infrastructure.

· Spokane University District Innovation Partnership Zone, Greater Spokane Inc. – For biomedical research such as computational biology, bioinformatics, systems biology, epigenetics, genomics, chromosomal biology, and drug discovery.

· Walla Walla Valley Innovation Partnership Zone, City of Walla Walla – For agricultural innovation with a focus on enology/viticulture and water/environmental studies.

Applicants receiving the Innovation Partnership Zone designation are:

· Aerospace Convergence Zone, Workforce Development Council Snohomish County – For research in new materials and processes for aircraft production.

· Battelle, Sequim Marine Research Operations, Clallam Economic Development Council – For marine biotechnology, coastal assessment and restoration, forecasting stressors on marine and estuarine systems.

· Bothell Biomedical Manufacturing Corridor, City of Bothell – For the establishment of a University of Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Technology Institute, principally to support medical device/ultra-sound manufacturing.

· Discovery Corridor Innovation Zone/Steinmueller Innovation Park, Columbia River Economic Development Council – For semiconductor and micro-device design, IC manufacturing and processing, display technology and multimedia.

· South Lake Union Life Science Innovation Partnership Zone, City of Seattle, Office of Economic Development – For bioscience and biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, cardiovascular and regenerative biology, cancer research, infectious disease research.

· Tri-Cities Innovation Zone, Port of Benton – For research in sustainable development, with focus on integrated electrical-thermal production, solar dish generating systems, and commercial-scale fuel cells.

To qualify for designation, applicants must partner research, workforce training and a globally competitive company in close geographic proximity for a cooperative, research-based effort that will lead to new commercially viable products and jobs. The Zone Administrator must be an economic development council, port, workforce development council, city or county. Designations last for four years and then a designee must reapply.

Link to Washington Next: Download the_next_washington_report.pdf

Seven States to Address Innovation and Cluster Promotion. Are Theory and Best Practice Aligned?

The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) selected seven states—Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oregon and West Virginia—to participate in a new policy academy entitled State Strategies for Promoting Innovative Clusters and Regional Economies. State leaders will work with nationally recognized experts and peers from others states to apply contemporary cluster analysis and innovation-based economic development strategies in their states. Working with NGA Center staff and other experts, state teams will plan strategies to orient state investments, workforce development, and education initiatives around potential clusters. LINK: NGA Center's report Cluster-Based Strategies for Growing State Economies or visit www.nga.org/center/sewp.

"In the face of intensifying international competition, governors recognize innovation-based economic development is critical to states’ participation in the global marketplace," said Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, who heads NGA's Innovation America initiative. The study aims to:

· Provide states a deeper understanding of their competitive clusters and fast-growing business sectors through a unique empirical analysis;

· Conduct a scan of the major policy challenges and opportunities in the regions;

· Develop a plan for strengthening major industry clusters and improving the general environment for innovation; and

· Align state research and development investments, workforce development and education systems with the current and future needs of the state’s most promising clusters.

The State Science & Technology Institute SSTI (www.ssti.org ) asks what are the main factors that influence the growth of successful clusters within regions? Andreas Eisingerlich and Leslie Boehm peer into this question in a recent article in Business Insight, a series produced this year by the Wall Street Journal in cooperation with M.I.T. Sloan Management Review. After looking at different clusters on three continents, the authors identified four key factors determining the growth potential and competitiveness of a cluster. They found the most successful clusters:

1) Are anchored by an academic entity or research institution and supported by private or government-sponsored agencies;

2) Contain research centers and companies that value innovation and venture into new markets;

3) Have a network of service providers that perform non-core activities, which allows firms to concentrate on more essential tasks; and,

4) Encourage collaboration and competition, at both global and local levels.

Practitioners who want to establish clusters in their states and regions may need to have a much deeper understanding of the varied dynamics of cluster development as they attempt to create technology-based clusters. The continually changing aspect of clusters is the subject of some recent research by Anne L. J. ter Wal and Ron Boschman. In their paper, Co-Evolution of Firms, Industries, and Networks in Space, the authors contend existing cluster literature suffers from a handful of shortcomings. Their first assertion is that most cluster studies do not incorporate the large diversity of firms’ actions, capabilities and strategies within a cluster. Each firm is different and performs differently in the economy. Treating all firms similarly within a cluster located in a certain region ignores the specific features of individual firms that may account for their performance.

They  identify a second shortcoming in that most studies overestimate the importance of geographical proximity and underestimate the importance of networks. The performance of firms may be strongly related to the networks to which they belong, and these networks may not have a spatial component. Finally, they feel the active development of clusters does not receive much attention in the literature. The authors claim the origins and evolution of cluster development deserves more attention.

With these shortcomings in mind, the authors combine existing cluster research with other concepts from the fields of network dynamics and evolutionary economics. Their analysis connects the evolution of clusters with the evolution of individual firms, their industry, and their networks of interaction. For example, as new technologies are introduced, there are a low number of firms in an industry based on this technology, and there are a large variety of firms. At this introductory stage, the network is unstable and clustering does not really exist. As the technology progresses, the number of firms and the diversity of firms increase and clusters begin to form. By time the technology reaches maturity, the clusters are firmly established and the variety of firms decreases. With maturation, a number of firms begin to compete on terms of price and cost reduction, instead of product innovation.

What can this research tell us? That without continuing innovation and new technologies, even clustered industries will begin to decline. Clusters have life cycles, as do technologies and industries. Besides attempting to co-locate similar firms to a state or region by growth or attraction, practitioners might attempt to ensure that individual firms within a cluster are flourishing if they want to have a vibrant local cluster that drives innovation.

Co-Evolution of Firms, Industries, and Networks in Space by Anne L. J. ter Wal and Ron Boschman can be downloaded at http://ideas.repec.org/p/egu/wpaper/0707.html

Eisingerlich and Boehm’s article in Business Insight can be accessed here: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118841858437012520.html

GM and China Accelerate R&D Collaboration on Alternative Energy and Automotive Technology

GM has announced plans to build a state-of-the-art $250 million research center focusing on alternative energy and the environment. The Center for Advance Science and Research will be located at GM’s corporate campus in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area. GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner said that joint R&D will be focused on three main areas:

1) Alternative Fuels –exploring various bio-fuel options, including the development of non-food cellulosic ethanol technologies.

2) Advanced Alternative Energy Propulsion Systems –development of lightweight materials designed to reduce the mass and improve the energy efficiency of motor vehicles……accelerating development of electrically driven vehicles, beyond what it has already committed to with its fuel cell and hybrid programs. “We see China as being among the first markets and production sites for alternative propulsion systems, including the new flexible fuel, plug-in type of electric vehicles currently under development by GM. This flexible vehicle, which can accommodate a variety of propulsion systems and fuels, is the perfect platform for illustrating the range and diversity of projects this new center will undertake,” Wagoner said.

3) Manufacturing and Supplier Energy Efficiency –reducing energy consumption and increasing the recyclability of materials, reducing emissions and eliminating plant waste throughout the manufacturing chain.

A related GM initiative is the establishment of the China Automotive Energy Research Center in collaboration with GM, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. Group (SAIC) and Beijing's Tsinghua University. The center will work with the Chinese government, universities and industry partners to develop a comprehensive and integrated automotive energy strategy aimed at reducing China’s reliance on petroleum-based fuel. China is now the world's second-largest auto market, behind the US, with a sales forecast of 8.5 million vehicles this year.

The GM investment is a boost for China in pursuing its clean tech objectives. It helps position China as a source of creativity in the design of alternative energy systems and environment friendly motor vehicles. There are now over 950 R&D centers in China, many supported and financed by US companies. We need to wonder where are the big R&D collaborations and investments to ensure America’s competitiveness, high value jobs and quality of life. After all we are the innovation center of the world, aren’t we? Or perhaps by remaining complacent, the next generation of automobiles will be “Designed in China, Made in America.”

GM Press LINK: http://media.gm.com/servlet/GatewayServlet?target=http://image.emerald.gm.com/gmnews/viewmonthlyreleasedetail.do?domain=74&docid=40734

World's Largest Solar Manufacturing Complex To Be Built In Singapore

Green tech is attracting an avalanche of interest from investors, manufacturers, entrepreneurs, universities and governments and here is another example. The Norwegian company Renewable Energy Corporation (REC) is planning to build the world’s largest solar production complex in Singapore. The investment is 6.3 billion Singapore dollars (US$4.3 billion). According to various media reports the manufacturing complex will be developed in stages, to incorporate wafer, cell and module production facilities capable of producing products that can generate up to 1.5 gigawatts (Gw) of energy annually. Egils Milbergs, president of the Center for Accelerating Innovation, says the project will put Singapore on the world innovation ecosystem map in clean energy.

"The project will be a 'queen bee' to attract a hive of solar activities to Singapore - big companies and young start-ups engaged in research and development, manufacturing and innovation, as well as the supplier ecosystem,'" said Ko Kheng Hwa, managing director of the Economic Development Board (EDB), which signed the deal with REC on October 25, 2007. REC president and chief executive officer Erik Thorsen said the decision on Singapore was made after a comprehensive 9 months' process involving screening of more than 200 possible locations, followed by due diligence of close to 20 of them and finally negotiations with a handful of sites. Mr. Thorsen says: "We will offer training programs and we are going to collaborate with very dedicated Singapore institutions and universities in order to be able to bring this business and opportunities alive." About 3,000 jobs, including 2,000 for skilled staff, will be created at the plant.The green field site for this new manufacturing complex is located in Tuas View, approximately 30 minutes from the city centre in the western part of Singapore.

Compete with Confidence Says Commerce Secretary

Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez told the Council on Competitiveness annual meeting attendees that the “way to stay competitive in the 21st century is to compete with confidence.” The Secretary outlined a number of principles key to securing America’s competitiveness, including comprehensive immigration reform, encouraging and creating an environment for innovation and further opening global markets through free trade agreements and the successful completion of the Doha round of world trade talks. He gave  emphasis to  pending free trade agreements, particularly with Columbia. He also announced an EDA grant to the Council on Competitiveness to prepare a feasibility plan for the development of a new National Center on Regional Leadership. LINK: (Remarks) Ironically, the Commerce Department Technology Administration was closed down last month and is being replaced by a committee.

Second Life Will Revolutionize New Product Development and Engineering

Matthew Traum of Design News has an interesting article on how the virtual world of Second Life may dramatically impact new product development and engineering design. Excerpts: “First there was the drafting table and the pencil. Then there was 2-D CAD; next came 3-D drafting utilities like SolidWorks and ProEngineer. Now, San Francisco-based Linden Lab has evolved computer-aided design to its next plateau, offering free access to a computer-generated alternative universe called Second Life (SL) where users can build anything. Ironically, the SL developers did not intend to design a solid modeling tool. SL was just another massive multiplayer online experience until users spontaneously began utilizing it for engineering design.

“It as serious development tool,” says Assistant Professor Chang Liu (a.k.a. Chang Tuxing in SL) of the Virtual Immersive Technologies and Arts for Learning (VITAL) Lab. at Ohio University. “Second Life is just emerging into the mainstream and a lot of engineers are not there yet,” says Pam Broviak, PE, (a.k.a. Pam Renoir in SL) public works director and city engineer for La Salle, IL. “When I show engineers Second Life, their initial reaction is ‘it is just a game’ because it looks like a game. They have to get beyond that.”…..

Using her SL identity, “Pam Renoir,” Broviak manages the Second Life Public Works Resource Center, one of the first destinations in the metaverse focused on applying SL to real-world engineering. The Center serves as a clearing house for information related to engineering and public works in SL. Broviak has also been using SL in her engineering practice to design plumbing systems. …..Unlike real world piping, Broviak’s plumbing system now exists in cyber space, where it can be used as a kind of 3-D wiki. Engineers, plumbers and homeowners can use Broviak’s design as a template, modifying it for their own applications. Broviak imagines that eventually an entire 3-D library of plumbing solutions could be accessible to engineers visiting Second Life….. “What takes it further than conventional 3-D drafting tools is the level of interaction,” Broviak says. “Once you build something, you can pick it up or walk through it; its immersive, like the object is really there. You can’t do that with CAD.”

Ohio University has used SL to create a complete virtual engineering college, including a building slated for future construction. At this SL campus, engineering and computer science courses are taught in parallel with real-world counterparts. “One of our buildings won’t exist for another year, but my students already had a class in it,” Liu says. “First we tried to replicate buildings exactly, but then we learned it was better to modify them from the original to make them more functional in Second Life.”

For now, Broviak and Liu are engineering pioneers within SL; among the first to embrace this immersive alternate reality as a serious tool for real-world engineering design. Nonetheless, they share a vision for how SL may soon be used once its capabilities and scope are discovered and exploited by engineers.

“I see Second Life being used as the first step in the planning process for many future engineering design projects,” Broviak says. “Building something in there does not take a lot of time. Companies will soon discover that much of their initial design work can be accomplished in-world where everyone has a chance to use it and comment on it before anything is actually built.”

Broviak also foresees manufacturers and suppliers setting up virtual storefronts in SL where engineers can browse and specify parts for their projects. Potential buyers will interact with 3-D computer-generated components instead of thumbing through a 2-D catalogue or Web browser. Companies could even build large versions of their products embedded with interactive scripts to enable customers to walk through and see how the internal components function. Liu sees SL as a pathway to reduce production cycle time and increase user input earlier in the development process.

“Normally what designers are doing is not accessible to users,” he says. “But, Second Life is different in the sense that products are built in-world, which totally changes the dynamic. Creation is no longer the work of a developer.”

Link to full article:  http://www.designnews.com/index.asp?layout=article...

Chicagoland Innovation Summit. John Kao, Author of Innovation Nation, To Keynote

The 2nd Annual Chicagoland Innovation Summit will be held on October 25 at Navy Pier in Chicago. The Summit is bringing together innovation experts, business executives, academics and government leaders to accelerate Chicagoland's development as a globally recognized center for innovation. "Our ultimate goal is to make Chicagoland the number one knowledge economy in the U.S. through greater innovation. The Summit is a focal point for those efforts," according to Dr. Lance Pressl, president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce Foundation, which is again hosting the summit along with World Business Chicago and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

John Kao, author of the recently published book Innovation Nation, How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, And What We Can Do To Get It Back will be a keynote speaker. I very much enjoyed a discussion with him at a World Affairs Council meeting in Washington DC last week. His message is no surprise to those familiar with the Gathering Storm and Innovate America reports. I liked his "silent Sputnik" metaphor.  The US is sitting on its thumbs while the rest of the world embraces innovation as a strategic priority. The challenge, however, is much more complex than getting to the moon (no blue red constituencies up there).  Energy independence, health care, transportation congestion, environment, problem based learning, smart grids, nano, bio, HPCC, broadband, entrepreneurship and so on are fuzzy, complex challenges and distributed across many stakeholders. No single government agency or interagency Cabinet level council working with inexperienced staff and on government time can succeed on these kinds of “wicked problems."  Innovation is an ecosystem (increasingly global) and we need to think deeply about the appropriate public-private relationships, business models and innovation metrics.  As one who has served in government and championed innovation and competitiveness for years the organizational silos, bureaucratic ethos and political barriers to change are quite formidable.  Kao and others have suggested setting up new government coordinating mechanisms and structures. This could take months if not years to begin to have an impact. Look at the difficulties of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11.

More critical is leadership and an Innovation President. We should take time now to work in a post-partisan manner to frame an innovation policy that can be embraced by the next administration and by the private sector, state and local government, research and education community and the public. This requires setting priorities (once again) on the critical issues and policy levers that matter for innovation.  We should look beyond science to a holistic end to end framework:  not just supply inputs. More R&D and more spending on education do not equal innovation. We need to think about the demand side by providing the right business environment, management practices, networks, market aggregation and value creation. John Kao presents an important synthesis of our current global situation and a version 1.0 set of ideas worthy of consideration at the Chicagoland Innovation Summit. The Summit web site: www.innovatenow.us

Transforming the Michigan Economy

Presidents of the three universities that make up the University Research Corridor (URC) consortium put some big brains together to fix Michigan’s economy. The URC presidents: U-M President Mary Sue Coleman, Wayne State University President Irvin D. Reid and MSU President Lou Anna Simon.

On October 15-16 they hosted a conference called "The Role of Engaged Universities in Economic Transformation,” which gathered  leaders from academia, business, government and think tanks to explore ways they can best work together to transform and revitalize the state and devise the next steps they can take to speed of the development of Michigan's knowledge-based economy. Below are links to the conference home page and noteworthy presentations that have been posted.

Role of Engaged Universities in Economic Transformation

Stephen R. Forrest, Vice President for Research, University of Michigan
Talk: "Transforming from a Manufacturing to a Knowledge Economy"

Charles W. Vest, President, National Academy of Engineering
Talk: "Rising Above the Gathering Storm of Global Competition - Building an Agenda for America and Michigan"

Vivek Wadhwa, Wertheim Fellow, Harvard Law School; Executive in Residence, Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University
Talk: "Globalization: Are we fixing the right problems?"

Global Competitiveness Conference in Portland

Portland, Oregon is the site for the 2007 TCI Global Competitiveness Conference; jointly hosted by the states of Oregon and Washington, and the city of Portland. The theme for 2007 is "Collaboration, Innovation and Sustainability." The five-day event begins October 8 with cluster tours planned for both Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The Academic Summit and "Introduction to Clusters" program is October 9, with additional cluster tours in Portland, and the opening plenary session is Wednesday, October 10.

Five breakout tracks are scheduled:
• Innovation
• Rural Cluster Development
• Sustainability & Collaboration
• Global Promise
• Cluster Implementation

Egils Milbergs will facilitate a panel discussion Thursday, October 11 on “Competitiveness Indices.”

How can you measure your region's competitiveness? What should you measure? The results of several efforts to inventory the qualities of cities and states in the U.S. and regions in Russian will be presented. Includes a presentation of "City Vitals," "Russian Regional Competitiveness Survey and Index" and "State Innovation Index." Scheduled presenters are:

Facilitator: Egils Milbergs
Alexi Prazdnitchnykh
Vinod Jain
Joe Cortright
Dr. Amit Kapoor

Link to conference site: http://clusters2007.com/index.html