For a whole host of reasons, including achieving a stronger technology base vis a vis China, it’s critical that the Biden Administration gets the right formula for the “tech hubs” it is trying to create across the United States. From more than 30 years of following the subject, first for Business Week seen here businessweek-hotspots, I know that the heart of the nation’s most successful technology regions are “idea factories,” meaning universities or institutes that carry out cutting edge research and have favorable technology transfer policies. This article in today’s New York Times worries me. Tech hubs cannot be created from scratch, yet it seems the politics of how the Department of Commerce is handing out $504 million dictate that different regions (read: congressional districts) get funding whether they have idea factories or not. Tulsa Innovation Labs is getting funding for drones and Indiana is getting funding for something called Heartland BioWorks to develop biotechnology and biomanufacturing.
Where is the regional infrastructure, the ecosystem, that supports these efforts? Successful tech hubs attract large companies that invest in ideas as well as venture capitalists and angel investors. It it like a snowball rolling downhill. Momentum needs to be created. It’s still way too early to know for sure, but there’s a chance that the administration will give away hundreds of millions of dollars, and please many congress people, but fail in its mission of creating vibrant technology regions.
