Reposted from the Washington Examiner.

Fairfax County makes push for biotechnology space

February 7, 2013 | 8:00 pm

Taylor Holland
Staff writerThe Washington Examiner

Fairfax County officials are hoping to lure scientists to the west side of the Potomac with state-of-the-art labs and a new focus on biotechnology.

With the looming threat of sequestration -- $1 trillion in spending cuts and the cascading effect that shrinking federal budgets would have on government employees and contractors -- the county is looking to invest in a sector less reliant on government spending and says biotech is its answer.

So officials are beginning to establish plans to build more wet labs, areas where chemicals and other materials are tested in fluids, to attract private companies and scientists to the county.

"We have the information technology component," said Supervisor Pat Herrity, R-Springfield. "What we need is a little more of the biotech component. But you can't get that without wet lab space."

But their push to build labs may not be good news for Montgomery County, where officials' focus on biotech has consistently attracted some of the nation's top science industries to Maryland.

The main campus of the National Institutes of Health calls Montgomery County home, as does the headquarters of the Food and Drug Administration. The county also has plans in place for construction of the Great Seneca Science Corridor, a massive center dedicated to various science industries, and hopes to continue to attract biotech businesses to Maryland.

"We see [biotech] as the future of Montgomery County," said Councilwoman Nancy Floreen, D-at large. "Not only that, but it's an area Montgomery County is totally committed to."

Gerald Gordon, president and CEO of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, said he expects only a little competition between the neighboring counties as Northern Virginia begins to shift its focus to studying microorganisms.

"Maryland probably needs a little IT support, and Virginia needs a bit more wet lab space," he said.

Fairfax has "a real interest" in creating labs and expects their development to create high-paying jobs in the county, Gordon said. The shift also will fill open office space and diversify the county's economy by lessening its reliance on federal contractors.

Herrity said the county "needs to take advantage" of the opportunity to create more lab space while the opportunity exists.

"Biotech and high tech are converging," Herrity said, "but we need lab space to take advantage of that convergence."

tholland@washingtonexaminer.com

DC Region for Startups

from MEDCITY

Actually, Washington, D.C. does have a vibrant startup scene

February 2, 2013 10:10 am by Aberman, Jonathan | 0 Comments

A few days ago I was minding my own business, enjoying my morning Chocolate Cheerios, when I came across a guest blog post in Venture Beat asking “Is there Hope for D.C,’s Startup Scene?”  Yeesh.  Not a great way to start a day.

Not one to let a good breakfast be ruined without fighting back, I wrote my own blog poststanding up for D.C.’s tech scene, and subsequently had some really great interactions with VentureBeat and others in the D.C. tech community about it. I will give VentureBeat full credit for taking my and others’ reactions to heart and recalibrating their headline. The retitled post now asks, “Does DC know startups?” Reading the retitled post, it raises two important questions for D.C. tech: Can you find tech leadership in Washington? And what is the proper role of government in fostering technology?

There is no doubt that when I wrote my original blog, it was to stand up for the place where Amplifier Ventures and I make our home, and where every day I see entrepreneurs and government working hard to make things happen.  D.C. has a tech scene.  It is vibrant and frankly much more diverse and established than tech scenes in many other parts of the nation.  And, the government has a role — a large role in fact — in the tech world both locally and nationally. As someone who has been part of the D.C. tech community since the 1990s as an investor, and has worked in policy areas with both federal and local government officials, I have a firsthand view of the broad aspects of D.C. tech. I also have spent a great deal of time in Silicon Valley over the years, and think it is a terrific place. It has a vibrancy that is essential to our national economy, and is an extremely valuable resource for our future. I believe that D.C. tech has a similarly important role, and understanding its importance will allow all of us to benefit from its contributions and potential.

D.C. startups: Diversity and dynamism

Entrepreneurs follow opportunity (or as we VCs like to say, “entrepreneurs follow the money”).  The D.C. tech scene has a very distinct composition when compared to other regions.  Like Boston, New York, and the Valley, D.C. has a vibrant software startup scene.  We have accelerators, incubators, nationally recognized VC firms, and local government agencies that are committed to fostering further development of this scene.  Perhaps our light software development ecosystem is not as deep as some other regions, but if you aggregate all of the D.C. region’s entrepreneurial activity it is comparable to, and in some ways more dynamic than, Silicon Valley’s. What is not appreciated by many outside our region is that a substantial portion of local tech entrepreneurship is engaged in creating complex software and other technologies and providing it to serve national security and the government.  And, this portion of our tech community has been extremely successful and productive for the last 25 years.

This kind of technology entrepreneurship might not be as blog-worthy as the newest way to share photos of cats, but it has created wealth and entrepreneurial rewards for many people in our region.  Moreover, there is a large technology work force here: There are as many software engineers in the D.C. region as in as the Valley, for example.

Technology M&A is also comparable. Last year I published a report about our region’s M&A activity. I looked at every M&A deal in the D.C. region and the Valley from 2005 to 2011.  M&A in Silicon Valley is concentrated in what it does best: consumer Internet and semiconductors.  Tech M&A in the D.C. region is more diverse.  Overall activity by number of deals was very comparable.  Entrepreneurship in the D.C. region is very symbiotic with the federal government.  That has been its biggest strength, and creates its biggest opportunity.  When you combine that with a healthy light software innovation ecosystem the picture is more nuanced and much more exciting.

If entrepreneurship is measured against its overall success rate, rather than its success against a particular type of innovative activity, the D.C. region has as many, if not more, opportunities for entrepreneurs to come up with a business idea and work it through to a rewarding exit than anywhere in the U.S.  It may not be sexy enough to be part of the tech blog echo chamber, but it’s a fact supported by data and my anecdotal experiences every day working with serial entrepreneurs in the D.C. region through FounderCorps and Amplifier Ventures.

The importance of the federal government

The second question I want to address in this post is the role of the federal government in technology entrepreneurship. Specifically, many in the Valley (and elsewhere) seem to share  a concept that “government doesn’t matter for entrepreneurship — it should just get out of the way.”

I have a problem with that as a broad statement. One of the unappreciated facts about our economy is that there is an almost direct correlation between government spending on R&D (and government regulatory choices) and every successful industrial cycle that that the U.S. has benefitted from, since building the nation’s railroads.  The relationship between basic science, application, national security and subsequent commercialization denotes a highly symbiotic connection between government and investors.

For example, the venture industry and entrepreneurs have benefitted mightily from the Internet, but the basic research to create it happened through U.S. government spending and policy choices.  The venture capital industry does not create industries, it finances incremental innovations in industrial waves.  That’s not a criticism, it’s a fact: Creating industries takes time and many blind alleys.  The VC industry needs rapid growth and returns.  It needs industrial waves to succeed for it to generate returns.

I would argue that the current challenge in the venture industry (which is related to its inability to generate extraordinary returns) is a direct reflection of the maturing of the most recent industrial wave and its monopolization and concentration.  This is why you currently find two types of venture funds succeeding: funds that can make big bets and withstand monopolistic market power from the Five Horsemen of Technology, and funds (and angels) that grow quick acqui-hires for these same monopolies.  But, they are not funding new industrial waves.

The big question to be answered is: Where do the next industrial waves come from?  Casting one’s eyes towards life extension, material science, artificial intelligence, man/machine interface, alternative energy, conservation, robotics and space, as just some examples, you see a large role being played by government R&D spending and policy in shaping these nascent industrial waves.  To say that government should just stay out of these things is to completely miss the point. In a world of hedge fund-driven financial investing and public company constraints, just about the only source of long-term R&D capital for emerging technology in our economy is the federal government.

There is certainly a large ideological battle being played out in our society about the role and expense of government.  It is playing out in the grinding fight over tax rates and government spending.  Heck, when golfers complain about their tax rates (thanks, Phil Mickelson, for crying about your 62 percent tax rate and demonstrating that you have the worst accountant on the PGA tour) we clearly have reached a point of saturation.  But, balancing a budget without recognizing the importance to our economy of government funded tech R&D and consumption is just silly.  It is like burning your furniture to stay warm.  At some point you are going to need someplace to sit.

Over the last 18 months I have worked with extremely committed people in DOD, DARPA and elsewhere in our federal government to figure out how to get the next generation of technologies matched with entrepreneurs and into the commercial world. This is a big effort and one that is of crucial importance to national and economic security. I expect that many of these technologies will get developed and industries will get established in Boston, New York, Silicon Valley, and the D.C. region, as our entrepreneurial communities innovate. But, make no mistake, the role of D.C., both in its entrepreneurs and in the government, will be an important part of our next industrial waves.

My message therefore is pretty simple.  Either on the level of the entrepreneur, or on the level of being a source of industrial waves, the DC region is highly relevant and important to our national economy.  To my friends in the Valley I say hello, and invite them to come spend some time with me here in DC.  It might open your eyes — and, as is often the case for entrepreneurs — some of you might move here.  After all, entrepreneurs follow the money.

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Jonathan Aberman is the Founder of Amplifier Ventures, an investor in government related technology driven companies. He is also Chair of FounderCorps, a regional not-for-profit focused on mentorship and entrepreneurial development in the Washington, DC region, and an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. He is the co-host of the nationally broadcast politics and business program Leftjab Radio on SiriumXM. Follow him at @jaberman.

Read more: http://medcitynews.com/2013/02/actually-washington-d-c-does-have-a-vibrant-startup-scene/#ixzz2K8F07MuN

White House Looking for Coding Innovators

From the White House Blog:

Throw Your Hat in the Ring for Round 2 of the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program

Todd Park and Steven VanRoekel,  February 05, 2013   09:00 AM EST

We are happy to announce that applications are now being accepted for Round 2 of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program!  You can apply here.

Launched last year, the Presidential Innovation Fellows program recruits top innovators and entrepreneurs from the private sector for 6-12 month “tours of duty” in government to help develop innovative solutions in areas of national significance. Our 18 inaugural Fellows arrived last August, teamed up with top government innovators, and have been doing extraordinary work on five projects:

• Open Data Initiatives have unleashed data from the vaults of the government as fuel for entrepreneurs and innovators to create new apps, products, and services that benefit the American people in myriad ways and contribute to job growth.
• RFP-EZ has created a new online marketplace and built tools that make it easier for innovative small tech businesses to bid on government contracts, while also making it easier for government contracting officers to identify the bids that offer the best value for taxpayers.
• Blue Button for America has moved personal health records ahead significantly by giving millions of veterans and other Americans massively improved, secure access to their own health information. 
• Better Than Cash is working with an array of foreign and non-governmental partners to transition “the last mile” of international development assistance payments from cash to electronic mobile money, resulting in increased funding transparency and more impact for American taxpayer dollars.
• MyUSA (formerly MyGov) has reimagined how citizens can interact with government, developing a prototype of an online system that allows people to more easily find and access the information and services that are right for them from across government.   

Throughout the Federal Government, in every agency where Fellows have been working, we’ve been thrilled to see the exciting advances they’ve been achieving in concert with their government teammates. So we are excited to announce that the program is extending and expanding—and that we are ready to welcome applications for our next round of Presidential Innovation Fellows. 

In addition to seeking applicants to work on the next phases of the Open Data Initiatives, MyData Initiatives (including Blue Button for America), RFP-EZ, and MyUSA projects, we are also inviting applications from those who would like to help launch the following new projects:

• Disaster Response and Recovery will collaboratively build and “pre-position” critical tech tools ahead of future emergencies or natural disasters in order to mitigate economic damage and save lives.
• Cyber-Physical Systems will work with government and industry to create standards for a new generation of inter operable, dynamic, and efficient “smart systems”—an “industrial Internet”—that combines distributed sensing, control, and data analytics to help grow the economy and new high-value American jobs.
• 21^st Century Financial Systems will work to move the financial accounting systems of Federal agencies out of the era of large-scale, agency-specific implementations to one that favors more nimble, modular, scalable, and cost-effective approaches.
• Innovation Toolkit will develop a suite of tools that empowers our Federal workforce to respond to national priorities more quickly and more efficiently.
• Development Innovation Ventures will help enable the US government to identify, test, and scale breakthrough solutions to the world’s toughest problems.

We are looking for incredibly talented, entrepreneurial people from a diverse array of backgrounds and with a wide range of experiences. Many of the Fellowship roles require coding and other tech skills, but not all do. We are also looking for gifted and accomplished change agents with skills in user experience design, product management, project management, business development, operations reengineering, and more.  In a nutshell, we are looking for people who can help make big things happen rapidly to advance the public good.        

So please throw your hat in the ring and apply to be a Round 2 Presidential Innovation Fellow! This is an opportunity to take a journey that will allow you to make an impact on a massive scale. The first step is to apply here.

To learn more about the Presidential Innovation Fellows program and apply to be a Fellow, please visit: WhiteHouse.gov/InnovationFellows

Todd Park is the US Chief Technology Officer and Steven VanRoekel is the US Chief Information Officer.

Job or Skills Crisis?

A jobs crisis? No, it’s a skills crisis 

A partnership at a Brooklyn high school is preparing students for tech fields that will drive our economy in the 21st century

BY STANLEY S. LITOW / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2013, 4:23 AM

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TONY AVELAR/BLOOMBERG

The IBM Almaden Research Center campus in Silicon Valley.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/jobs-crisis-skills-crisis-article-1.1240688#ixzz2IGtsbfrw


As each month’s unemployment figures show only modest declines, some may As each month’s unemployment figures show only modest declines, some may mistakenly believe that the United States has a “jobs crisis.” But a closer analysis of the data reveals that our fundamental challenge is a lack of skills, not jobs.  I made this observation at the recent STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Summit convened by the Daily News. But don’t take my word for it. Look at the January 2013 New York City Real Time Jobs Report, which lists local employers that posted the most new ads in the past 90 days and the number of opportunities available.
The current edition of this report documents the existence of more than 300,000 unfilled jobs in the city.

My company, IBM, ranked sixth on the list with nearly 1,000 unfilled jobs in New York City alone. JPMorgan Chase led the way with more than 2,000 unfilled positions, and AT&T and Citigroup together had more than 2,000 careers in search of qualified personnel. A deeper look at the jobs report numbers indicates that 30% of the vacancies — the largest single category — were in the professional, scientific and technical services sector. This is conclusive proof that a focus on preparing our young people for careers in these fields is the crucial economic challenge of our time.

At the summit, we discussed how to address the city’s — and our nation’s — skills crisis. We agreed that one possible solution could be found in the report of Gov. Cuomo’s education reform commission.  Among many other recommendations, that commission called for statewide expansion of the remarkably successful program in operation on one floor of the Paul Robeson High School in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

The program, Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) — a collaboration between the city Education Department, the City University of New York and IBM — offers a combined high school and community college curriculum that is augmented by instruction and mentoring in workplace skills. The rigorous six-year program leads to both a high school diploma and an associate’s degree in applied computer science. Most important, P-TECH grads will be first in line for jobs at IBM.  Recent reports of P-TECH students’ academic success are worth noting. At this juncture, nearly half of the program’s 10th-graders (members of the school’s inaugural class) are already taking and passing college courses, overachieving on the Preliminary SAT and showing additional, quantifiable evidence of progress. This year’s new ninth-graders are doing very well, too.

This new educational model has been replicated in Chicago, where a group of schools modeled on P-TECH opened last fall. They are also excelling.  And U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who recently visited P-TECH, has endorsed a blueprint to reform career and technical education across the country based on this model.

What is our lesson from this experience? Plainly, it is that through deeper partnerships between the private sector, higher education and K-12 schools, we can close the gap between education and employment  — and reduce joblessness in a lasting way.

By working together, educators and employers can prepare larger and larger numbers of students to take the good jobs that we know are available in our city.

Litow is the president of the IBM International Foundation and IBM’s vice president for corporate citizenship and corporate affairs. Before joining IBM, he served as deputy chancellor of schools for New York City.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/jobs-crisis-skills-crisis-article-1.1240688#ixzz2IGu8pCo2

Nursing Surplus - Temporary?

For nursing jobs, new grads need not apply

By Annalyn Kurtz @CNNMoney January 14, 2013: 10:33 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Since the recession, health care has been the single biggest sector for job growth, but that doesn't mean it's easy to get hired.

Registered nurses fresh out of school are coming across thousands of job postings with an impossible requirement: "no new grads."

It's a problem well documented by the nursing industry. About 43% of newly licensed RNs still do not have jobs within 18 months after graduation, according to a survey conducted by the American Society of Registered Nurses.

"The process has become more and more discouraging, especially since hospitals want RNs with experience, yet nobody is willing to give us this experience," saidRonak Soliemannjad, 26, who has been searching for a nursing job since she graduated in June.

New grads have taken to posting their frustrations on allnurses.com, a social network for nurses.

"It is a tough market for a new grad RN. A 'year experience required' or 'not considering new grads at this time' is pretty much the norm," wrote one.

"It's like new grads have a disease or something," said another.

How can this be, at a time when health care jobs are booming and a supposed shortage of RNs sent many career seekers running to nursing school?

The recession is to blame, says Peter Buerhaus, a registered nurse and economist who teaches at the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. In a paper he co-authored in theNew England Journal of Medicine last year, he shows an interesting phenomenon happens in the demographics of the nursing workforce when the economy is weak.

About 90% of nurses are women, 60% are married, and roughly a quarter are over 50 years old. It's typical for many nurses to take time off to raise children in their 30s, and given the long days spent working on their feet, many often retire in their late 50s.

Prior to the recession, about 73,000 nurses left the profession each year due to childbearing, retirement, burning out or death.

But when the recession hit, spouses lost jobs, 401(k)s lost money, and facing financial uncertainty, fewer nurses chose to leave work, Buerhaus said.

"Many of those nurses are still in the workforce, and they're not leaving because we don't see a convincing jobs recovery yet," Buerhaus said. "They're clogging the market and making it harder for these new RNs to get a job."

Related: I can't find a nursing job!

At the same time, enrollment in nursing colleges has exploded in recent years. In the 2010-2011 school year, 169,000 people were enrolled in entry-level baccalaureate nursing programs. That's more than double the 78,000 students from a decade earlier, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

There just aren't enough jobs to go around for all these new grads.

Annah Karam heads recruiting for six hospitals in the Daughters of Charity Health System in Los Angeles. Each hospital has a program in place aimed at hiring at least 10 new grads a year, but the competition is fierce. Karam often receives more than 1,000 applications for each post. For other positions, the hospitals prefer experienced nurses.

"We're new grad friendly but with the challenges we face in the hospital world, we often need seasoned nurses," Karam said. "We hire thousands of nurses across the whole system, yet a very small percentage are new grads."

Eventually, nursing grads should have great job prospects.

Demand for health care services is expected to climb as more baby boomers retire and health care reform makes medical care accessible to more people. As older nurses start retiring, economists predict a massive nursing shortage will reemerge in the United States.

"We've been really worried about the future workforce because we've got almost 900,000 nurses over the age of 50 who will probably retire this decade, and we'll have to replace them," Buerhaus said.

But for recent grads like Soliemannjad, that's not particularly encouraging.

"It just seems that when the experts talk about the economy getting better, they're not talking about it improving in two or three months. They're talking about years," she said. "You have new grads with student loans to pay off. We simply can't not work for another year and half."

Did you earn an advanced degree that did not lead to a job? Was it worth the debt? Send your story to annalyn.kurtz@turner.com. 

First Published: January 14, 2013: 5:24 AM ET

STEM Students & STEM Jobs National Report

REGISTER NOW: Official Launch of STEM Students & STEM Jobs National Report

by Brian Jackson on January 16, 2013

On January 30, 2012 at 3:00pm ET, STEMconnector® and My College Options® will officially launch our new report, Where are the STEM Students? What are their Career Interests? Where are the STEM Jobs? Please click here to register and join over 400 people already participating in the event. The webinar will be a live broadcast of our event launch hosted by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) in Washington, DC.  The event will highlight the major findings of the report, its implication for America’s future workforce and educational needs, as well as special guests including Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam. The full report is available for purchase in addition to a free download of the executive summary online. For more information about the report and event, please read our recent press release.

Ballston for the Creative Class

Reposted from ARLnow:

Leonsis: Ballston Could Be a Haven for the ‘Creative Class’

by ARLnow.com | January 14, 2013 at 1:45 pm 

 

 

 

 

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Ted Leonsis, the billionaire owner of the Washington Capitals and Wizards, says Ballston could soon be known as a haven for entrepreneurs and the “creative class.”

Leonsis made the remarks at a launch event Thursday night for the new Ballston Business Improvement District, which has announced a new campaign to brand Ballston as “home to some of the world’s brightest minds and most innovative industries.” The campaign will capitalize on the fact that the community is home to the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, the National Science Foundation, the Virginia Tech Research Center, and various science and technology-related companies.

Leonsis, whose Capitals practice at the Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Ballston, said he’s encouraged to see the BID unifying Ballston’s public agencies, private companies and academia around the theme of innovation.

“The community is really coming together to try to stimulate everything about the creative class,” he said.

As part of the BID’s campaign, Leonsis, a former AOL executive, is helping to conduct and underwrite a business competition for entrepreneurs called the Ballston LaunchPad Challenge. He said the winning business idea may receive funding from the $450 million investment fund he set up with AOL co-founder Steve Case.

“We’re here to help and mentor and to help find the next great companies that will start their businesses here and will create employment for residents in Northern Virginia,” Leonsis said.

“Right now there’s this mythology that the only great companies that can get started happen out in Silicon Valley, and that’s not what we adhere to or we believe,” he continued. “We think that there’s a creative class, that there’s unbelievable gifts, talent and infrastructure in Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. and Maryland — and we want to help stimulate that. We think that there are great young entrepreneurs walking among us.”

Leonsis said the contest, which is just one component of the BID’s overall branding and business improvement effort, will  pay dividends in terms of stimulating economic activity in the area.

“This is a small part of this overall branding and outreach program, but I think it can be a very important part, because jobs are still the number one issue facing our country,” he said. “There’s no more noble, higher calling for an individual to create a company, see your vision come to life, and to employ people. Families get supported, kids get to go to good schools in the community, you start to shop in the mall, you start to eat in the restaurants, and the money stays within the community.”

“This is very strategic not just for Ballston, but for our country,” Leonsis added. ”If we are to make an investment… we want a commitment that you’ll stay in this community that’s treating you and supporting you so well.”

Leonsis said that small business in particular can help ”get young people get back to work” and out of their parents’ homes.

“We should never lose sight of the importance of small business,” he said. “Big companies right now retain earnings and shed jobs. Small businesses are creating all of the new opportunities and all of the innovation that’s keeping us competitive against global competition.”

Leonsis started and ended by addressing a topic that was on the minds of many — one concerning the return of dozens of wealthy individuals to the Ballston area.

“Thank you, and let’s go Caps,” he said, concluding his remarks.