Entrepreneurs in the Hudson Valley can find help through academic and government partnerships, but they might have to travel a bit to access the assistance.
That was the message from John MacEnroe, the director of state relations for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, addressing the Nov. 19 monthly breakfast of the Hudson Valley Center for Innovation Inc.
The breakfast also included a brief discussion about the Big Mac Index, a semi-humorous, but useful, comparison of the costs to purchase a Big Mac around the world.
MacEnroe discussed the value of partnership between government, academia and private business interests in referencing the Rensselaer Technology Park, a wholly owned subsidiary of RPI “focused on the interface between industry and education,” as its Web site proclaims.
“It was the first technology park in the nation,” said MacEnroe of the 1,250-acre parcel, of which the central 450 acres is designated for technological and industrial development. Construction began there in 1981 and it now houses 70 tenants from electronics to physics to bio-tech. And students at RPI use the school and the business park to enhance not just their technology skills but as a standard part of the curriculum to learn business skills.
“Our interdisciplinary studies are what allow the school to be so successful,” said MacEnroe.
But other avenues of cooperation exist in New York beyond the success story of RPI, said MacEnroe, citing NYSTAR, the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation. The group”™s goals are to assist new or existing businesses compete using more innovative technologies, by leveraging public and private funding to commercialize technological developments. The group hopes to enhance the strategic partnership of business, academia and government and ensure a skilled work force is available for business in New York.
NYSTAR helped create the CAT network, the fifteen Centers for Advanced Technology that are spread throughout the state. “These are probably the first sites you can interface with,” said MacEnroe, although there are none located any closer to the Hudson Valley than Albany to the north and New York City to the south. The program was started in 1983 to support university research in a variety of endeavors from semiconductor development to advanced ceramic design to imaging and biotechnology.
Les Neumann, the managing director of the Hudson Valley Center for Innovation, noted that the local AeroCity L.L.P. wind power project, that is licensed to market wind turbines sized to fit individual buildings is using a CAT center at Cornell University to “integrate what is happening here with academia,” and to perfect the product, which the company hopes to begin manufacturing next year.
Also germane to breakfast attendees was the Small Business Technology Investment Fund (SBTIF) that is designed to provide startup high-tech companies in New York with capital. It also provides technical and managerial services to assist growth with tech-based business ventures. According to the SBTIF website, to be considered for funding, “companies must have well-protected intellectual property.” The fund has invested in an array of technologies. Among the factors it considers when making investment decisions is a desire to serve areas of the state that are underserved by venture capitalists.
Neumann began the morning presentation by highlighting what he called the McDonald”™s Index, more widely known as the Big Mac Index. The concept, introduced in the The Economist magazine in 1986 is a tongue-in-cheek, but accurate, method of comparing costs across the globe because the ingredients and other costs associated with preparing a Big Mac are essentially the same everywhere. It is a standard “basket of goods” by which economists compare the validity of currency exchange rates.
Thus, according to figures from July 2008 the price of a Big Mac in America was $3.57 while in Britain it was 2.29 pounds, which translates to $4.57, which through the Economist formula, yields an exchange rate of $1.57, compared to the official exchange rate at the time of two dollars to the English pound. Under the Big Mac index, therefore, the pound was overvalued against the dollar by 28 percent.
