The Kaufman Support For Entrepreneurship

Perversely, the current economic crisis could be a fertile ground for Entrepreneurship.

Big institutions are in trouble and you may find it difficult to find a job with an existing company or organization. Where does that leave you? You may find it a good time to become an Entrepreneur, to strike out on your own and take your destiny in your own hands.

Remember the adage about how crisis also presents opportunity.

Certainly, money is tight right now, but yes, there is still money out there. It just takes new approaches and fresh thinking to get it. That's where the spirit of entrepreneurship comes into play.

The Kaufman Foundation is the largest foundation devoted to assisting entrepreneurs, particularly Young Entrepreneurship and the Young Entrepreneur. The Foundation has made a number of grants to large universities to help make this happen.

Click one of these links above to find out more about the Kaufman Foundation and to request the 2009 Thoughtbook, a collection of essays on entrepreneurship and innovation.

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Lack of Technological Innovators Threatens Michigan

A sharp decline in engineering-school enrollments in Michigan will have an adverse effect on the state's economy and also threatens the long-term recovery of the US domestic auto industry.

"In the past six years new engineering enrollments at Michigan universities have plummeted by more than 13 percent compared to a nine percent increase nationally," says Leo Hanifin, dean of the University of Detroit's College of Engineering and Science. "In Michigan, this precipitous drop is clearly linked to layoffs and poor performance within the domestic auto industry."

Hanifin says that the United States is facing a crisis in the development of engineering talent.

"Forty-five percent or more of all Chinese college students currently study engineering compared to just 4.5 percent in the United States," he says. "Nationally, low enrollments at engineering schools are tied to poor high-school preparation and low interest levels, especially among women and minorities."

Speaking at a major automotive conference in Traverse City on Monday, Aug. 11, Hanifin says that studies indicate that 80 percent or more of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) comes from the introduction of new technologies, adding that "engineers are essential for
technological innovation."

He says factors that will contribute to the nation's shrinking pool of engineering talent include:

-- Massive retirements among "baby boomer" engineers,
-- A general drop in the number of college-age students,
-- Fewer foreign engineering students studying in the United States,
-- Fewer foreign students choosing to remain here after graduation, and
-- Increased global competition for technical talent.

"More and better-educated engineers are needed if our nation and its auto industry are to thrive or even survive," he says. "The problem of low engineering enrollments can only be solved by decisive action that includes changes in public policy and national programs, as well as increased collaboration within the educational community, government and the private sector."

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Innovation: More than Science and Technology

As global economic competition intensifies, more countries are deliberately using public policy to shape national systems that allow firms to access innovations that can give them a leg up, according to a special section on global innovation policy in the fall edition of Issues in Science and Technology.

The section focuses on national innovation systems in Mexico, Belgium, India, Korea, Japan, and the United States, and includes articles by R. Chidambaram, the principal scientific adviser to the government of India, Sungchul Chung, president of Korea's Science and Technology Policy
Institute, and Fientje Moerman, vice-minister-president of Flanders and minister for economy, enterprise, science, innovation, and foreign trade.

Managing a national innovation system is a constant challenge -- and struggle, according to Charles Wessner, deputy director of the National Research Council's Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy.

"What works in one context will not necessarily work in another," Wessner writes. "What works in one decade will not necessarily work in the next. And with the global economic system in flux, every country must be ready to reexamine and revise its policies.

"These articles contain no easy answers," Wessner continues. "They offer something much more useful: candid and perceptive discussion of the successes and failures that are slowly leading all of us to a better understanding of how innovation can be tapped and directed to achieve human goals."

In the United States, substantial changes in the national innovation system will be needed, argues Christopher Hill of George Mason University. In his article, The Post-Scientific Society, Hill writes that although science and technology will continue to play a vital role in innovation,
the critical ingredients for continued U.S. economic success are likely to come from other disciplines.

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Information Technology Adds $2 Trillion to U.S. Economy, New Study Finds

Information technology is responsible for nearly all of pickup in economic growth over the lastdecade, adding $2 trillion annual to the economy, according to a new report released by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF). The report, titled Digital Prosperity: Understanding the Economic Benefits of the Information Technology Revolution, finds that the economic transformation resulting from IT was occurring at adoption rates exceeding even the most optimistic forecasts of the late 1990s.

The integration of IT into virtually all aspects of the economy and society is creating a digitally enabled economy that is responsible for generating the lion's share of economic growth and prosperity, here and abroad, including indeveloping nations.

"For the United States alone, what we found was that because of thedigital revolution, GDP is $2 trillion larger today than it would have been had growth in the post-1995 era proceeded at the 1974 to 1995 rate," says Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology &Innovation Foundation. "We need to recognize this phenomenon and adjust our thinking to make IT a centerpiece of our economic policy -- from planning and forecasting to tax policies that incent future growth."

Key highlights from the report include:

• While productivity impacts from IT are among the highest in the United States, most other nations have benefited from the IT revolution as well, including Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Korea, Japan, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Moreover, while its impact is not as large in most developing nations, IT is making a difference, in part because IT expenditures rose twice as fast in developing nations from 1993 to 2001 compared to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average. For example, IT usage in China was responsible for 38 percent of the increase in total factor productivity growth and 21 percent of GDP growth.


• While the emerging digital economy has produced enormous benefits, there is still significant potential growth to be derived from leveraging IT. Policymakers in developed and developing nations must work to ensure that future policies and programs they put in place spur digital transformation so that all their citizens can fully benefit.

"First and foremost, policies to support digital transformation need to become the fourth leg of economic policy alongside fiscal, monetary and investment policy," says Atkinson. "In particular, this means that policymakers must adopt an approach that incorporates IT transformation in all that they do. Accelerating digital transformation is likely to be the most important step policy makers can take to ensure robust economic growth in the future."

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