Continue reading »]]> Brought to you by the Hampton Roads Partnership since 2008, SmartRegion.org, the blog and its accompanying monthly e-Newsletter, is on hiatus.

Stay informed with essentials for your inbox through our recommended bloggers, bookmarked organizations, the region’s communities and traditional news sources (via the website links provided on the left-hand sidebar).

Regional News:

• Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce
• Virginia Peninsula Chamber of Commerce
• Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance
• Hampton Roads Planning District Commission’s Review
• Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization E-Newsletter 
• Port of Virginia’s blog

And if innovation is on your mind, our favorites:

• Hampton Roads Innovations (the collaboration site)
• Innovate!HamptonRoads (the region’s connection for entrepreneurs, ideas and investment)
• On the Road in Hampton Roads (the entrepreneur’s social media guys)

Questions? Contact@HRP.org.

Need to reach our former editor? She’s on LinkedIn.

Continue reading »]]>

Start Norfolk is a weekend-long event bringing together individuals of different mind and skill sets— entrepreneurs, engineers, developers, designers and business people—with the goal of building a viable startup over a weekend. Last November, Start Norfolk launched at the Innovation Research Park at ODU and planning is on-going for the second edition in Spring 2012.

Start Norfolk 1.0 attendees left saying:

• “I felt like I was the Woodstock of Technology; it was legendary.”
• “Titanic event, #2 is a must.”
• “I don’t want to go back home to Atlanta.” 

And, during the State of the Union address this year, President Obama said, “Most jobs are created by startups.”

With your support, Start Norfolk can continue to grow the entrepreneurial and startup community here in Hampton Roads.

Review Start Norfolk 2.0 information (PDF) and be a part of the future! Official announcement of the event is February 2nd. 

For more information, contact Zack Miller at zack.miller@wearetitans.net.

More on Start Norfolk on SmartRegion.org.

Continue reading »]]> During the State of the Union Address on January 24, 2012, the President referenced this important report…

From the Kauffman Foundation Research Series on Firm Formation and Economic Growth

The oft-quoted American sports slogan, “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing!” could well be attributed to the economic importance of firm formation in creating jobs. A relatively new dataset from the U.S. government called Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS) confirms that startups aren’t everything when it comes to job growth. They’re the only thing.

By now it is well understood that firms large and small are continuously and simultaneously destroying and creating jobs. Even a mild level of this creative destructive churn points to a dynamic economy much different than static economic models can describe. However, beyond the job churn at existing firms, there is a dynamic in firm birth that seems to be very important for understanding job creation— specifically, the unique effect of new firms, or startups. Put simply, this paper shows that without startups, there would be no net job growth in the U.S. economy. This fact is true on average, but also is true for all but seven years for which the United States has data going back to 1977.

The BDS is the first publicly available dataset that incorporates the age of firms in a dynamic format (Haltiwanger, Jarmin, and Miranda, 2008). Figure 1 presents summary data from the BDS,1 showing that firms in their first year of existence add an average of 3 million jobs per year. By construction, the BDS defines an existing firm—age one up to age twenty-six and beyond—such that it can both create and lose jobs. In contrast, a startup, or age zero firm, only creates jobs because it experiences no gross job destruction. We might anticipate that the net job gain also would be positive at existing firms, but that is decisively not the case during most years on record. Notably, the figure shows that, during recessionary years, job creation at startups remains stable, while net job losses at existing firms are highly sensitive to the business cycle.

Download and read the entire Kauffman Foundation report:  The Importance of Startups in Job Creation and Job Destruction

Continue reading »]]> Region executives meet with Obama

By Bill Cresenzo for Inside Business, originally posted on January 20, 2012 

A group of Hampton Roads businesspeople met with President Obama and administration officials at the White House to talk about the federal government’s role in job creation and the policies that affect Hampton Roads businesses.

The White House Business Council and Business Forward, a Washington-based consortium of businesses that works for pro-business polices, hosted the event.

“Since the Norfolk/Hampton Roads area relies so much on defense contracting, and the Department of Defense is anticipating spending cuts, many business leaders are concerned about what to expect regarding the cutbacks,” said Britney Sussman, a Business Forward spokeswoman.

“We believe the area is an important part of the Virginia economy, and deserves to be engaged and give feedback since they rely so heavily on government spending.”

The execs talked about the effect defense spending cuts would have on the local economy, access to capital, infrastructure development, education and workforce readiness, and America’s overall competitiveness, Sussman said.

The group included executives from Tymark Enterprises, Zel Technologies, E.L. Hamm & Associates Inc., Virginia Port Authority, Klett Consulting Group Inc., Vox Optima, Q10 Government Contracting, Virginia Company Bank and Cox Communications Virginia. Also participating were representatives of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, the Virginia Peninsula Chamber of Commerce, Eastern Virginia Medical School, the Hampton Roads Partnership, as well as Hampton Roads entrepreneurs including Allen R. Jones, president of Dominion Physical Therapy and Associates.

“The Obama administration is on the cutting edge with innovative technology and applications and the reduction of health care costs,” Jones said. “They are focused on technology leading us into the 21st century for growth.”

Jones cited a conversation about a test model health care clinic in St. Louis that lets doctors use smartphones to connect with their patients.

“It’s a matter of keeping the patients out of the office and treating them with prevention and wellness,” he said.

Mike Petters, CEO of Huntington Ingalls Industries, spoke about workforce readiness, according to Sussman, saying that the shipbuilder plans to hire 10,000 people over the next five years, and while most of the jobs won’t require college degrees, they do require math skills.

Jack Ezzell, president of Zel Technologies, was impressed.

“I was very upbeat about the administration’s plans to address a broad range of economic issues,” he said. “It was very positive. I thought it was well done. Modeling and simulation, I think, is a key piece for us.”

Continue reading »]]> Inventors and entrepreneurs struggle to launch their ideas.

By Philip Newswanger for Inside Business, originally posted on January 13, 2012

They are flummoxed by a morass of red tape and nervous investors, who, in this weary economic climate, want an immediate return.

Old Dominion University may have an answer, or at least is offering solutions to the problem of transforming ideas into profits.

The idea, according to two ODU officials, is to marry the pursuit of knowledge, a mission of universities, with the management of knowledge, a private sector endeavor.

Tom Osha, president and CEO of Innovation Research Park at ODU, and Jerry Robertson, executive director of the university’s Gateway initiative, recently highlighted this connection between a university and inventors and entrepreneurs in Hampton.

The Jan. 5 event, called “Working with ODU in the Aerospace Center,” was sponsored by Innovate!Hampton Roads, an initiative launched by the Hampton Roads Partnership to drive jobs and the regional economy.

Osha said technology is getting more, not less, expensive, so companies must change how they do business.

ODU has an economic development role, Osha said, but it must become an active instead of passive participant in the economy.

The private sector can leverage the leading research of universities, such as modeling and simulation and oceanography, Osha said.

“But that’s easy to say and hard to do,” he said. “Businesses and universities are like Mars and Venus.”

“I once was in business. I knew who could say yes. In the world of universities, I know who can say no.”

ODU’s Business Gateway is a single entry point and the front door for all of the university’s services, Osha told the audience.

So what are the resources?

Robertson explained.

They are the students, the faculties and the specialized laboratories where experiments and tests, such as materials testing and software development, are conducted.

Robertson listed some examples of companies ODU has helped, such as Rebatt Inc., Solo Manufacturing and Bay Beyond.

Working with ODU, Rebatt reduced its costs by $209,000 over five years due to a redesign of the company’s assembly line to recondition camera batteries.

For Solo, ODU redesigned the assembly of a pump, which saved the company $5 million, boosted its revenues and lowered the high incidence of carpal tunnel syndrome employees were contracting because of the previous assembly operation.

Bay Beyond, a bunch of neighbors who concocted a special spice, needed help to satisfy a contract with Kroger grocery stores.

ODU stepped up.

“Kroger wanted the product,” Robertson said. “The client couldn’t keep up, but they did get national exposure.”

Osha and Robertson addressed the question of who owns the intellectual property, a fear among entrepreneurs.

Osha said ODU has taken some new approaches to the intellectual property rights question, such as the entrepreneur working for hire, since he or she has an idea but no funds.

“We would rather take a little on the front end and then take a payout down the road,” Osha said.

In the fall, the ODU Board of Visitors launched the ODU Innovation Foundation, which creates a safe harbor for entrepreneurs, Osha said, independent of the university and more flexible.

Examples of ventures via the foundation include sweat equity shops or industry “seeded” projects, conducted within the foundation.

ODU is looking at other ways to transform ideas into companies and profits, such as creating an express licensing program for university research to speed research to the commercial marketplace.

North Carolina created one in 2010 through the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which is called the Carolina Express License Agreement.

Virginia doesn’t have one. But state officials at the Secretariat of Commerce and Trade are considering it, Osha said.

He also said they are considering the idea of subsidizing intellectual property and products.

Osha praised the draw of ODU’s Innovation Research Park, saying it creates a sense of place for entrepreneurs.

To bring people together, the park hosts a monthly event called “unWined.”

Continue reading »]]>

The 2012 General Assembly looks a little younger these days. Members taking their seats for the first time also are more likely to be men and less likely to have been born in Virginia.

That’s according to an analysis by the Virginia Public Access Project of how 20 new legislators have changed the overall demographics of each chamber. Get photos, demographic information for each new Delegate and Senator at vpap.org.

Here are some facts about the 2012 General Assembly:

• There are 115 men and 25 women, down from 27 women in the 2011 General Assembly.
• Incoming legislators average 43 years in age, compared to 55 years for the 2011 General Assembly.
• In the Senate, there is a second 20-20 split between native and non-native Virginians. Over in the House, the number of Virginia-born will remain unchanged: 54 native Virginians and 46 members born outside the state.

Visit vpap.org for a closer look at the new faces of the General Assembly.

Continue reading »]]> The “Brain Gain Survey” is an initiative of the Greater Norfolk Corporation which brings over 125 business leaders together to support young professional retention and attraction.

Business leaders have launched a public initiative to make our region a magnet for talented young professionals. The month of January 2012 has been proclaimed by Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim as “Brain Gain Month” in the City of Norfolk. The Brain Gain Task Force of the Greater Norfolk Corporation has worked diligently to produce this survey to interact with the region’s young professionals.

The survey will provide data of what young professionals are looking for in work, lifestyle and amenities to increase the competitiveness of Hampton Roads to engage these coveted individuals that are being courted by other markets.

Please have your young professionals take the survey before the close of January 2012 so Greater Norfolk can remain vibrant and attractive to their needs. SURVEY LINK

More on “Brain Gain”…

Continue reading »]]> Story by Rachel Judy for Regent University, posted January 12, 2012; photo by Alex Perry

As the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)—one of the nation’s top-ranked schools for undergraduate education—Dr. Freeman Hrabowski III understands the importance of innovation and education. Drawing upon his own experiences as a scholar and educator, Hrabowski spoke to a crowd of approximately 400 about this topic at Regent University’s Thursday, Jan. 12, Executive Leadership Series (ELS) luncheon.

Held each month, ELS brings together businessmen and women in Hampton Roads to hear from business and leadership experts such as Hrabowski.

Hrabowski’s remarks centered on the need for American society to encourage education coupled with hard work—the result being innovation and progress. He began with a story about his own mother’s introduction to literature as a teenager and spoke of how it changed her life. “The more she read, the better a reader she became, and the better reader she became, the more she enjoyed it,” he said.

Academically, the United States is up against nations such as China and India—known for producing a significant number of scholars in science and technology, he explained, and it is up to the United States to encourage its students to take their knowledge and education to the next level.

“We must teach [our students] the importance of hard work in addition to creativity,” he said of the United States.

Ultimately, he continued, “whatever it is that is really important to us as individuals, as a society, we will be known by that thing.”

At UMBC, Hrabowski and his faculty want students to be known for their hard work and creativity, and they work tirelessly to encourage them to apply these qualities to the things they’re passionate about. “If a student comes in with an interest in an area, it is our responsibility to help them succeed,” he explained.

When it comes to innovation—both in education and in other areas and industries—Hrabowski believes that it must start with asking questions. “A part of innovation has to do with asking the questions we’ve never asked,” he said. “It is our responsibility to ask good questions.” That, he said, starts with creating an environment that makes people feel comfortable asking questions.

Those questions lead to innovation in teaching and prompt students to stretch themselves and succeed.

As an educator, Hrabowski is convinced that education is important for the future of the United States and it is up to educators to promote it and improve it successfully. Quoting his mother, who herself became a teacher, he said, “I now understand that teachers touch eternity through their students.”

Hrabowski has served as president of UMBC since 1992. His research and publications focus on science and math education with special emphasis on minority participation and performance. In 2011, he received both the TIAA-CREF Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence and the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Academic Leadership Award, recognized by many as the nation’s highest awards among higher education leaders. Also in 2011, he was named one of seven Top American Leaders by The Washington Post and the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership.

In 2009, Time magazine named him one of “America’s 10 Best College Presidents,” and in 2008, he was named one of “America’s Best Leaders” by U.S. News & World Report.

PR/NEWS CONTACT:  Mindy Hughes, Public Relations, contact at (757) 352.4095 or mhughes@regent.edu.

Previous posts about Dr. Hrabowski.

Continue reading »]]> Heard on NPR’s “All Things Considered” on January 5, 2012 –

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I’m Melissa Block.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

And I’m Robert Siegel. Seaports up and down the Atlantic Coast are engaged in a race. In 2014, when expansion of the Panama Canal is complete, a new generation of super large cargo ships will begin calling on the East Coast. Miami, Savannah, New York and other cities are vying for the new business and the race is to deepen their ports and expand their facilities to accommodate these new ships.

But as NPR’s Greg Allen reports from Miami, some of the cities are running into significant challenges.

GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: In Miami, dredging is a hot topic. Plans are underway to deepen the port to 50 feet. Some see it as a great business opportunity. To others, it’s a threat to the environment. The CEO of Miami’s port, Bill Johnson, is one of those who’s excited.

BILL JOHNSON: We are the only port south of Norfolk, Virginia, the only port south of Virginia that has full approval from the U.S. Congress to go to that depth. It is the game changer.

ALLEN: After 2014 when expansion of the Panama Canal is complete, ports on the gulf and the East Coast will see more so-called post-Panamax vessels: ships that carry two or three times the load of standard freighters. Miami expects to be ready if it gets the green light to begin dredging its port, but it recently hit a snag.

Environmental groups concerned about how the dredging would affect Biscayne Bay filed a petition with state regulators that, for now, has put the project on hold.

DAN KIPNIS: We’re going to lose the bait. We won’t survive it.

ALLEN: Dan Kipnis is a former charter boat captain, now an environmental activist who’s long worked on Biscayne Bay. He grew up here on nearby Palm Island and was active in efforts in the ’70s and ’80s to restore the health of the bay. Today, the water is cleaner than in decades past and the bay is a busy place.

Along with the cargo ships, it’s one of the world’s busiest ports for cruise ships. There are also sail boats, kayaks and jet skis and Kipnis says excellent fishing.

KIPNIS: I will catch you groupers that weigh 12 pounds and hog snappers and Spanish mackerel and it’s just amazing the amount of life we’ve got here, forgetting crabs and shrimp and all that.

ALLEN: Kipnis has joined with Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper and the Tropical Audubon Society in asking Florida to make sure the port dredging project won’t damage the bay.

In most ports, dredging means digging and pumping mud, sand and other material from the bottom of a river or a bay, but in Miami, the bottom of Biscayne Bay isn’t mud, but limestone. To make the shipping channel wider and deeper, the Army Corps of Engineers wants to conduct nearly two years of underwater blasting.

Kipnis is worried about the amount of sediment the dredging will put into the bay’s crystal clear water.

KIPNIS: If you lift all the silt up year in and year out for two years and get it in suspension, you’re going to kill the grass beds. When you kill the grass beds, there’s no filtration. There’s nothing to hold the sediment that’s there down any more.

JOHNSON: So we’re not about killing manatees. We’re not about polluting the bay. We’re about doing things that are right and working to ensure that it’s done right.

ALLEN: At a recent port presentation, CEO Bill Johnson said he’s willing to work with environmental groups and make sure the dredging is done in a way that addresses their concerns.

Miami is not the only city where port dredging plans are controversial. In Georgia, a plan to dredge Savannah’s port has riled up both environmentalists and politicians. Environmental groups are concerned about some of the same sediment issues raised in Miami.

Regulators in South Carolina, just across the Savannah River, at first moved to block the dredging, but then South Carolina governor Nikki Haley intervened. In part because of her help, Georgia was able to negotiate a deal with South Carolina regulators that allows the dredging to go forward, but some in the state felt that Haley was unfairly helping the competition.

South Carolina is working to expand Charleston and its other ports to accommodate the new post-Panamax ships. At a news conference, Haley said there will be enough business for ports in both states.

GOVERNOR NIKKI HALEY: Those Panamax ships are coming through Charleston and it is going to be so vibrant and so strong that the overflow is going to go to Jasper and Jasper is going to be a great port. Without question, the ports are the best thing we’ve got going. It’s an opportunity waiting to happen.

ALLEN: That’s the message you can hear in New Orleans, Baltimore and other ports along the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts. So far, only one port, Norfolk, is deep enough to accommodate the new super large ships.

By 2014, a handful of other cities hope to be ready, but there’s a lot of work to be done before then. In New York, the port is deep enough, but there’s another problem. It’s the Bayonne Bridge, which is currently too low to allow the new container-laden ships to pass. To fix that, the Port Authority is planning to raise the bridge by 64 feet, a job that will take more than $1 billion and five years to complete.

Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.

Continue reading »]]> Hampton University Museum, the oldest African American museum in the United States, welcomes two very special free exhibitions in commemoration of the Civil War Sesquicentennial.

Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman Series by Jacob Lawrence, beginning January 27, is a free exhibition highlighting the dramatic biographies of two American abolitionists who lived around the time of the Civil War.  Together, the paintings have an extraordinary conceptual unity and visual eloquence. In the Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman series, Lawrence pursues mythic subjects who both share the will and determination, in the face of all odds, to free their minds and spirits as well as their bodies from bondage.

On February 25, the museum welcomes Civil War Vignette: Paintings and Drawings of Freedom Fighters from the Hampton University Museum Collection, a free exhibition that includes drawings and prints from artists Charles White, Elizabeth Catlett, William H. Johnson, and John Biggers. All excellent artists, they have portrayed Freedom Fighters Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, Sojourner Truth, and Phyllis Wheatley as the true abolitionist and fighters for justice. This exhibition will be on display on the second floor, Hampton History gallery.

Related programming will be held in conjunction with these two dynamic exhibitions. 

For more information on Freedom Fighters: Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman Series by Jacob Lawrence and Civil War Vignette: Paintings and Drawings of Freedom Fighters from the Hampton University Museum Collection, contact Hampton University Museum at (757) 727-5308 or check out http://museum.hamptonu.edu/exhibitions_calendar.cfm

Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman Series by Jacob Lawrence: January 27, 2012-September 8, 2012

War Vignette: Paintings and Drawings of Freedom Fighters from the Hampton University Museum Collection: February 25, 2012 – December 2012

Hampton University Museum, 11 Frissell Avenue, Hampton, VA 23669
Monday – Friday- 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; Saturday Noon- 4:00 p.m.; Closed Sunday, major holidays, campus holidays

Partially bordered by the Hampton Roads harbor and Chesapeake Bay, Hampton, with the 344,000 sq. ft. Hampton Roads Convention Center, is located in the center of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area.  Hampton is the site of America’s first continuous English-speaking settlement and is home to such visitor attractions as the Virginia Air & Space Center and Riverside IMAX ® Theater, Hampton History Museum, harbor tours and cruises, Hampton University Museum, Fort Monroe, award-winning Hampton Coliseum, The American Theatre, among others.