Welcome & congratulations to Axxun Inc., Control Station, Inc., Core Informatics LLC, Geezeo, PageFad LLC, Retail Optimization Inc., RemoTv Inc., SeeClickFix, SyferLock Technology Corporation Visit Tech Companies to Watch Blog for the full press release
Joint Media Notice from the Connecticut Technology Council &
Technology Councils of North America (TECNA)
Contact: Mike Scricca
860-288-0878 x334, mscricca@ct.org
For Immediate Release
Connecticut Technology Council President Matthew Nemerson Elected
President of North American Trade Association for Technology Organizations
April 9, 2009, East Hartford, Conn — Matthew Nemerson, 53, president & CEO of the Connecticut Technology Council (CTC) was elected president of the Technology Councils of North America (TECNA) at the organization’s semi-annual conference in Baltimore. TECNA represents regional and state technology councils and associations throughout the United States and Canada. Nemerson’s term of office is for two years. Before joining CTC in 2003, Nemerson had managed technology firms, started an incubator with Yale University and redeveloped parts of downtown New Haven.
TECNA has over 40 member associations with approximately 15,000 technology-oriented member companies, the largest of any similar technology trade association.
Nemerson said, “I am proud to have earned the confidence of my peers in a short time and excited to have this opportunity to be involved at a national level in strengthening the technology industry during a critical time for the economy.”
TECNA convenes two major annual conferences for leaders and managers of state and regional technology associations to discuss policy and best practices for councils. It organizes an annual fly-in of technology company CEOs to Washington D.C. to advocate for federal support of regional innovation and technology programs and oversees newsletters, technology social networks and monthly information exchanges for the tech council industry.
TECNA recently began negotiations with the Washington D.C. based advocacy group TechAmerica to jointly develop new programs to simplify and reorganize the representation of technology companies throughout the U.S. from the local to national level. A similar effort with an Ottawa-based group will soon begin in Canada.
Nemerson’s tenure follows the two-year term of Richard Nelson, president of the Utah Technology Council. Nelson will remain as immediate past president. Other newly elected officers include vice president Iain Klugman, president of the Communitech Technology Association (Waterloo Ontario, Canada), treasurer Audrey Russo, president of the Pittsburgh Technology Council and secretary Maxine Ballen, president of the New Jersey Technology Council.
Nemerson noted that given the challenges of the American economy, the future reliance on technology companies to create new jobs would be greater than ever. He mentioned improving communications and sharing best practices between tech organizations, providing specific feedback to the Obama administration and groups such as TechAmerica to refine the Recovery Act, and building new budget initiatives from the viewpoint of entrepreneurs and early stage investors.
About TECNA (www.technologycouncils.org ):
The Technology Councils of North America (TECNA) is the only group specifically oriented to represent and support organizations that speak for technology firms in North American states, regions and provinces. Technology councils exist in almost every U.S. state and Canadian province, with some having more than one. Councils organize diverse types and sizes of technology-based firms in each state or region into cohesive communities, and advocate for state legislation and programs to support the growth of the tech sector. They work with educators to produce more science and engineering literate graduates; inform local political leaders of global and interconnected networks that make regions competitive; help early stage firms find financing; and help established companies stay and grow in their communities.
About Connecticut Technology Council (www.ct.org):
Founded in 1994, the Connecticut Technology Council speaks for a dynamic community of 2,500 firms in the state ranging from large multi-nationals such as GE, UTC and Pitney Bowes, to numerous medium and small businesses and hundreds of early stage start-ups. The Council presents over 60 events a year for thousands of attendees, including UHY LLP Tech Top 40, the Cantor Colburn Innovation Pipeline Awards and the UTC - Boehringer Ingelheim - Day Pitney Women of Innovation Awards Gala. CTC is an advocate for the role of innovation, tech transfer and ample early stage capital in the state. In conjunction with the State of Connecticut and an angel investor network the Council helps hundreds of start-up firms through its Innovation Pipeline Accelerator. Led by a 42-person board, the Council is chaired by Chris Kalish, executive Director of the GE Edgelab at UCONN-Stamford.
CTC was in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 as we met with leaders from other technology councils from across the country. CT business leaders addressed some of the key issues facing the technology industry and met with Senator Lieberman and Representatives Rosa DeLauro and Chris Murphy.
The issues we brought to Washington:
STEM AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
The most lasting stimulus to the economy of the United States will be “stim-novation”—the investment our nation makes in shaping the emerging generation of innovators who will discover, invent, and commercialize new technologies that move our nation and the world into a better future. Recognizing
this, TECNA advocates for:
• Driving comprehensive STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education reforms and innovations from preschool through college via dedicated federal education and workforce development funding sources.
• Establishing a national training program for technology industry jobs to encourage the re-skilling
of incumbent workers and transition emerging workers into the innovation economy.
• Federal funding to support paid internship grants that provide America’s young people with firsthand experience working in and with the technology sector at a paid wage that benefits both the intern and the employer.
• Continue funding and support for rural competitiveness through the U.S. Department of Labor’s
WIRED (Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development) program.
HEALTHCARE IT
Advances in healthcare IT promise to increase the accessibility and affordability of quality healthcare, while also demonstrating innovations that will have worldwide applicability and generate new jobs. To support Healthcare IT development, TechNA advocates for:
• Working with the healthcare and IT industries to create guidelines and best practices for the rapid deployment of $19 billion in stimulus funding for adoption of electronic medical records (EMR).
• Targeted funding for the continued development of Health Information Exchange (HIE) networks at the state and regional levels. Without multi-party HIE partnerships, the benefits of EMR and e-prescribing will not be fully realized.
BROADBAND ACCESS
Universal access to high-bandwidth internet connectivity is an essential component in America’s present and future competitiveness. It is also a critical facet in the long-term success of healthcare IT, since more than 61 million Americans live in rural settings. Even in urban areas, the challenge will be to maintain and enhance bandwidth as the demand for internet applications grows exponentially. TECNA advocates for:
• Federal commitment to ensuring that high-speed internet access reaches all Americans in both
urban and rural areas, through continued funding for rural broadband.
• Funding to address the Exaflood (the exponential growth of the internet through the use of video
and other high-bandwidth applications) so that healthcare providers and other users can transmit
images, video, and other files quickly and easily from any location.
INNOVATION ECONOMICS
In order to encourage innovation, America needs to remain focused on establishing a culture that encourages bold, new thinking and the introduction of new technologies in the marketplace. Innovation economics are the engine for our nation’s future growth. As a result, TecNA advocates for:
• Encouraging innovation and remaining globally competitive. America needs a world-class patent
system. Patent reform should ensure a balanced playing field that fairly compensates all innovators. With much at stake, we encourage Information Technology (IT), Bio/life-sciences and competing interests to negotiate patent reform solutions and to achieve timely passage of patent reform.
• Maintaining our commitment to the recently re-approved Federal Research and Development (R&D) tax credit by making it a permanent fixture in America’s domestic economic policy. Half of all companies who use the R&D tax credit are small businesses who are developing emerging technologies and can generate new wealth for our nation through their efforts
Please comment with your thoughts about these issues here.
The March 12th meeting of the Xcellr8 Innovation Cell featured Chris Fuselier presenting the Progeos go-to-market strategy and was followed by an engaging group discussion offering both suggestions and constructive criticism to improve the offering. Chris has since engaged Eric Knight to help continue to develop the marketplace approach.
About Progeos, Inc.
www.progeos.com
Chris Fuselier, CEO
Progeos is a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Management Information Systems (MIS) technology company that provides:
Municipal governments with integrated and inexpensive methods for storing and processing critical geographic (e.g. property maps) and management information (e.g. property owner records).
Web-based software for land management (GIS based), property management (property look up, abutters’ lists ...), permit management (creation and tracking of permits), code management (code tracking and enforcement) and request management (processing and executing service requests).
All services are fully integrated and can be accessed from any web connected computer.
About the Connecticut Growth Network:
The Connecticut Growth Network is a discussion and action forum of statewide leaders, consisting of small peer-led, local networking groups or cells.
Learn more at: http://ct.org/Growth_Network.asp
About The Xcellr8 Innovation Cell:
Meeting monthly in Tolland, CT at Nerac. Our mission is to stimulate collaboration, innovation and entrepreneurial activity between leaders and executives of the business and education communities. It’s an opportunity to participate and share thoughts and ideas on how we can best work together to stimulate growth, create innovation and spur economic activity. We feel it’s important to challenge the status quo, and construct a solid foundation for future growth by utilizing and developing talent that exists today in our region.
Testimony of Matthew Nemerson, President of the Connecticut Technology Council
Speaking on March 3, 2009 to the Commerce Committee
Raised Bill No. 1067
Distinguished Chairmen and Members of the Committee, I represent a statewide community of over 2,000 technology oriented firms employing over 200,000 individuals whose jobs are related in some way to innovation and technology. We also work with another 500 smaller firms just starting and hoping to plant roots here in Connecticut.
This morning I wish to speak in favor of Raised Bill 1067, an Act Concerning Technology and Economic Growth. The next few years will be difficult ones for all of us and the economic slow down will put tremendous pressure on public leaders such as all of you to make very difficult budget decisions about what is the proper and required role of government.
It is my hope that you and your fellow legislators will support in some small but significant ways the critical responsibility to foster and accelerate the creation of new jobs for the state through high potential fast growing, start-up technology firms.
Bill 1067 would provide for $200,000 for activities that could be the continuation of a very successful program that has been funded through the Department of Community and Economic Development for the past three years through an allocation of Manufacturers Assistance Act funds as part of the larger “cluster programs” allocation.
Across the country states have been working with non-governmental organizations such as technology councils and innovation centers to create a process that can identify, analyze, assist and provide early stage angel investments for the very most promising high growth potential firms.
While it is important to offer some assistance to any entrepreneur who wishes to start a new business, in these times of severe economic hardship it may be even more important to focus some special state resources on those very few firms, perhaps no more than 3 or 4 in one hundred which stand a chance of adding not one or two new jobs to the economy, but hundreds or thousands. These firms and start-ups are out there, any many states now have concerted plans to snag them for own economies.
It has been shown over many years of monitoring the best practices of economic development that high potential tech start-ups need a realistic expert yet outside perspective to be able to move forward for initial funding. They also profit from a rich and dense network of allies who can make connections that will eventually lead to major strategic investments in lieu of having to go through a rare and unlikely initial public offering.
Slow economies are a time when ideas and talented people are often set loose outside of the limitations of large corporations and academic institutions. With more people trying to make their fortunes, the chances that great companies will be created are large. Last year the Council worked with over 250 would be start-ups – more than one a business day – and found $932,000 in matching cash and services to add to the $200,000 it received from the state specifically for the innovation pipeline program to provide services that no other group provides in Connecticut.
Groups like our and programs such as those described in 1067 use skilled mentors – we have about 70 of them working with our high tech start-ups. Most are unpaid, but most represent tremendous talent, that also needs to be engaged in Connecticut. Some are looking for new top jobs, others have been very successful and want to give back, others are in-between jobs. Most important the companies in this program predict that they could create over 10,000 new jobs and create businesses bringing in ¾ of a billion dollars.
Having one place that knows about technology, the latest trends in the market place and has close connections to angel capital networks in the state is critical. We cannot expect the public sector to offer these kinds of services and across the country almost no governments do.
New York City just announced a similar grouping of offerings worth well over many millions of dollars.
Over 25 states have programs similar to what we are proposing.
Let me close by noting that Connecticut thrives on high value added jobs. We are a rich state, we have tremendous productivity, high education levels for our workforce and we want to maintain or increase the tax yield from people who are doing well and earning a lot.
And yet we have little or no population growth and we have created very few jobs through internal growth. Attracting and helping top entrepreneurial ideas, even if they bring new top management into the state with them, must be a very high priority.
In Connecticut Technology Council’s case we stop receiving funding from the state last September, and yet we have continued to fund this program out of our own fund balance. We have not dared suggest to the hundreds of firms we work with that there is any problem or to infer that we all do not think that helping these high potential start-ups is not a top priority.
Thank you for your time and attention on this matter. I urge you to support SB 1067 and to send it on to Appropriations with a joint favorable.
I just spent a week in Washington DC. The majesty of the place and the excitement of the upcoming inaugural, was enough to make me forget the economic malais that we all find ourselves in. Coming face-to-face with the documents, icons and memorials of earlier challenges – the resolve to fight England for our freedom, the horrors of a civil war, the decade-long great depression, the forty years in the nuclear cross-hairs of the cold war – reminded me that our nation’s greatest advances and leaders surfaced when we were pushed to seek extraordinary solutions to overwhelming problems.
The current challenges to global capitalism, to our standard of living and to our governments’ ability to raise sufficient funds to keep the public sector viable may not rise to the level of past American crises, but they will test our leaders.
The Connecticut Technology Council, with our clear-headed ideas about growth and innovation, our unabiding focus on the future of Connecticut and our access to a broad-based membership and to a remarkable board of volunteer directors will be an important player as institutions and individuals struggle to provide leadership in the coming year.
As the group speaking for 2,500+ technology-oriented firms and another 600 early-stage hopefuls, the Council can, and should, approach 2009 with optimism. Capital markets and looming state and town deficits may have us on edge, but still, the global appetite for innovation and making goods better and cheaper is unabated, especially as billions strive to raise their standard of living. Connecticut firms will be in that mix no matter what happens to the state budget come this June.
Today, there are many formal and ad hoc groups looking at what Connecticut should do this year. As your advocate, we are part of many of these efforts. We will be inviting you to contribute to the solutions and approaches that will be explored. Remember, every state will be searching for a unique set of answers to what will bring prosperity back quickly. There is no reason Connecticut cannot do the best job.
In 2009, we will use the web better to get you information and to rally your support while respecting your time and need to concentrate on your businesses. We will be a constant presence in educating government leaders on how to use incentives and build the kind of infrastructure that will grow the economy and create jobs while objecting to actions that will do the opposite. We will continue to celebrate innovation, success and talent where we find it across the state. And we will actively work to attract and help the new firms that have best chance of becoming big successes someday.
Before we stretch and flex in preparation for the 2009 challenges, let’s look back and thank everyone who helped us in 2008.
The Connecticut Technology Council produced over 60 events, recognized hundreds of companies and individuals, advocated for our industry and assisted more than 500 entrepreneurs. Congratulations are due to the exceptional honorees of the Tech Top 40, IPA Awards, and Women of Innovation program. Our partners included the State of Connecticut, and also hundreds of sponsors and members.
Leadership has been abundant from our Board of Directors, growing technology social networks. On behalf of our staff, we thank everyone for supporting the Council and for helping to create the strength that comes from the unique American form of leadership and idea creation that comes from trade associations and the public/private collaborations we produce.
Let not forget that strong, vocal and thoughtful business associations are vital during times of rapid and re-orienting economic change when policies are set by the public sector. Jobs will be created with more early-stage capital and incentives for first round funding sources. Smaller, more productive state and local government bureaucracies will have to emerge from our budget cuts. Funding for world-class infrastructure investments will need to be found.
Together we can find ways to make 2009 a year in which the technology and innovation community’s voice is heard loudly and helps influence the direction of Connecticut.
Matthew Nemerson
President & CEO
Connecticut Technology Council
www.ct.org
Matthew Nemerson was featured in this Connecticut Magazine article in their January 2009 issue
Matthew's segment:
The battle for jobs is not about tax rates, parking lots or more efficient government. It is about Connecticut becoming known as North America’s best location for high potential entrepreneurs.
Start by attracting the special people who are skilled at starting and building firms capable of fast growth. Build a few exceptional programs that answer key needs for workforce, innovation support and global connectedness. Read on...
Innovation Pipeline Accelerator to support Microsoft BizSpark as Network Partner
Microsoft® has an exciting new program specifically designed to provide early stage Startups and Spinouts with software, support, and visibility to help ignite your success. The program, called BizSpark™, provides access to:
Software: Join BizSpark get current, full-featured development tools, plus production licensing
Support: professional technical support from Microsoft and business experts
Visibility: Through BizSpark, you’ll have the opportunity to achieve global visibility to an audience of potential investors, clients and partners.
