Areas of Focus for the Idaho Technology Council / November, 2009
These four areas of focus for the Idaho Technology Council – Human Capital, Public Policy, Financial Capital and Research & Development -- were identified during ITC’s pre-launch focus group tour across Idaho and the ITC Board of Trustees meeting last week. The summary of the focus group content is presented in bullets below each Focus Area statement in this document.
FOCUS AREA #1: HUMAN CAPITAL
Idaho does not have the human capital ready and available to grow the technology sector. The majority of the roughly 12,000 technology jobs in the state are in lower paying manufacturing jobs according to the latest Idaho Department of Labor statistics. Our lack of a highly educated, highly skilled workforce, particularly in the sought-after sector of software development, can be directly attributable to a deficiency in Science/Technology/Engineering/Math (STEM) programs. In fact, Idaho was recently ranked 47th in education from the CNBC’s 2009 America’s Top States for Business study. Against this backdrop, Idaho is becoming a hotbed for technology start-ups and emerging companies, but needs to attract the level of technical and managerial talent to provide stable growth.
FEEDBACK FROM FOCUS GROUPS AND TRUSTEES
•Specific workforce development programs for software engineering and other high-need expertise are critical.
•We need to graduate more students with STEM and tech-trade skills.
•High-growth technology companies need leaders who will grow the organizations from small to medium and large size.
•Leadership development is a significant need in the technology ecosystem of Idaho. Innovators and founders want to learn from those who have relevant experience.
•Stronger systems need to be crafted for mentoring / networking / peer-to-peer engagement.
•Attracting and retaining top talent is a priority of Idaho tech innovators.
•Idaho’s marketing capabilities need to be strengthened so we can compete successfully in a global market.
•Older Idaho workers lack sufficient knowledge of technology.
•Finding and recruiting the “right talent” is a long-term unsatisfied need.
•The tech sector is “not connected” in Idaho.
FOCUS AREA #2: FINANCIAL CAPITAL
We need to strengthen Idaho’s financial capital structure as evidenced by a recent report from the State Science and Technology Institute (SSTI) and Price Waterhouse Coopers that ranked Idaho 43rd in the nation for venture capital growth over a four year period. Emerging companies have expressed concern over access to sufficient startup, gap funding, or working capital to launch their ideas. These companies need more tools, knowledge, and experience about how to market their ideas and access capital to fully commercialize their products. In addition, there’s an underlying belief that Idaho is not well connected to national and regional investors and forums, and therefore sufficient capital does not flow into the state to grow technology companies.
FEEDBACK FROM FOCUS GROUPS AND TRUSTEES
•There is a lack of capital flowing into Idaho.
•Availability of gap funding will be important in growing good ideas into good jobs.
•We need a deeper angel/VC network.
•Idaho tech companies need greater access to working capital.
•Idaho entrepreneurs lack tools/knowledge/experience about “how to” sell or access capital.
•Idaho tech leaders are not connected to national/regional investors and forums.
FOCUS AREA #3: PUBLIC POLICY
Although Idaho has been mentioned on many business-oriented “top ten lists” for its quality of life, low cost of living, highly skilled workforce, business “friendliness” and presence of major technology employers, the reality is that Idaho is shedding technology jobs at an alarming rate – 4,000 in the past year alone according to the Idaho Department of Labor. Despite state and local efforts to lure technology companies away from surrounding states, there hasn’t been a significant relocation success story in years. In addition, an influx of new start-up companies hasn’t translated into sustainable, medium-sized businesses. There is broad consensus among technology leaders that more needs to be done to coordinate and communicate a significant, integrated approach to growth of the technology sector that is led by an energized private-public policy campaign. This effort will result in a coordinated toolkit of pro-business legislation, streamlined access to funding capital, education and R&D resources, and improved technology infrastructure.
FEEDBACK FROM FOCUS GROUPS AND TRUSTEES
•The industry has not effectively communicated its issues to elected officials.
•Industry and government need to align to jointly create an effective technology growth strategy and agenda.
•“K-U” education needs much greater focus on STEM priorities to deliver greater support to the tech sector.
•Idaho is a leader in agriculture but we’re a lot more than that – a fact that needs to be better communicated externally.
•Idaho needs to deepen understanding of the economic impact of its technology sector.
•Infrastructure – broadband as well as highways – are a constraint to economic development in rural Idaho.
•Idaho’s current economic incentives are not competitive.
•We need to make the case: “Why Idaho?”
•More needs to be done to help grow small tech companies into medium sized companies.
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
While Idaho has made progress with attracting research dollars to the state and in the tech transfer process, we still have significant issues in R&D to address. Idaho ranks 38th in the Milken Institute’s 2008 State Technology and Science Index that measures the ability to attract R&D funding – a drop of eight spots from 2004. The newly established process to prioritize and coordinate R&D efforts among Idaho’s three universities and to connect to the needs of emerging or established companies is encouraging. In addition, although there is an increase in the number technology start-ups, the development of these entities into viable businesses have faltered due to the challenges of commercializing intellectual capital.
FEEDBACK FROM FOCUS GROUPS AND TRUSTEES
•Idaho lacks good data + measurement tools about economic impact from technology.
•The commercialization/tech transfer process is not working well.
•We aren’t attracting enough R&DS funds (public or private) to the state.
•We need to do more to promote R&D.
•New collaborations in R&D among Idaho’s three universities need to be deepened and accelerated.
•We need broader know-how about the commercialization of IP.
•Members of the technology ecosystem need better understanding about the steps and process of IP development.
•Private enterprise needs access to testing resources that exist in the public sector.
•R&D needs are not known or aligned.
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