EDA's Fernandez on regionalism and innovation clusters

Here's an article from Stateline that covers much of the substance of Clear Innovation Partners' focus on regionalism, cluster development, etc.

Regional innovation and clusters

Here are a couple of interesting Brookings Institute issuances: one, a presentation by Mark Muro assessing the federal government's innovation/clusters push. The other, also by Mark Muro, is a New Republic article, which reflects a narrative speaking to much the same topic. Both undercore the direction of the federal government in relation to clusters.

Nanocomp and the President

Nanocomp Technologies is a company in which I am a director, having led the Series A financing in 2006 in my role as President of CEI Community Ventures. In this year's President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) report to the President, Nanocomp is featured as one of only three companies profiled--the other two are Baxter ($34.5B market cap) and A123 ($1.5B market cap). Check out page 34 and also look at 53. The President was presented the report last week and was reported to be "quite impressed" with the company's carbon based materials.

My latest Mainebiz article looks at Karen Mills, one year later

Federal Cloud Computing Initiative

This is the fed gov'ts cloud computing deck...will provide the framework for the Regional Innovation Network project I'm leading (see )

Federal Cloud Computing Initiative

View more presentations from Kevin Jackson.

Mills' fingerprints on the Obama FY11 budget vis-a-vis clusters

In February last year, I wrote in Mainebiz that SBA Adminstrator Karen Mills would be pushing for greater cross agency support for industry clusters--no predictive genius here...just paying attention to Mills' recommendations from her Brookings report. Brookings' Mark Muro notes in today's New Republic that this appears to be exactly what's happening in Obama's FY11 budget. EDA, SBA, USDA and DOL all have innovation/clusters initaitives.

Karen Mills is increasingly talking clusters

In 2006, I invited Karen Mills to join the board of a venture capital fund I manage. She agreed to join and then left in 2008 to join the Obama transition team; in April 2008, Karen was named as Administrator of the SBA. Karen has been a longtime advocate of regional industry/innovation clusters and has begun to speak more and more about her interest in the context of her new role. She's spent much of her first year dealing with TARP and working to reactivate credit markets. I've noted an increasing trend in her referencing industry/innovation clusters in that context. Here's a recent piece from thestreet.com.