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NEWS FEED
Solving Real Problems With The Internet
We use the internet every day to work, read, watch and play. But for residents of low-income neighborhoods, internet access can be useful for more than solving “first world problems”. It can mean a plan during disasters, better health, safer streets, a stronger community, and economic opportunity. The Red Hook Initiative is helping one community in Brooklyn turn things around.
Is America’s High-Tech Jobs Machine Slowing Down?
The pace of high-tech employment growth has been on a steady decline over the past two years. Despite growing substantially faster than total employment coming out of the Great Recession, job growth in high-tech industries and STEM occupations has slowed to match the anemic pace of job growth across the economy as whole. It goes without saying that a decline in these high-value jobs is not a welcome development for the U.S. economy.
New Bill Targets Patent Trolls Stunting Economic Growth
Entrepreneurs, young businesses, and emerging, high-growth technologies are powering what resurgence there is in the American economy. But these businesses are subject to an arcane, onerous system of patent regulation that leaves them vulnerable, and that vulnerability is abused by patent assertion entities and their allies to leverage that system against innovators. With this reality, we are faced with two options: a broken system, or the chance of a reformed system that champions innovation and growth.
Engine Interview with Kansas Radio: Startup Research and Policy
Engine's Research Director Ian Hathaway recently spoke with Jason Grill on Entrepreneur KC Radio on how high-tech startups create jobs. Referencing his recent research on the impact of startups on job creation and growth, Ian also specifically highlights the unique conditions that have led Kansas City to become a growing hub for tech entrepreneurship.
Engine On Air Episode 2: The Economic Impact of Startups
This summer, we released a new paper with the Kauffman Foundation that looks into the impact of high-tech startups on job creation and economic growth. To help us explore this issue, and the role policy can play in fostering growth, for this episode Mike McGeary is joined by Engine’s Research Director, Ian Hathaway, Dane Stangler, Director of Research and Policy for the Kauffman Foundation, Jim Franklin, CEO, and Tim Falls, Director of Developer Relations, from Boulder-based startup Sendgrid, and Robert Litan, Director of Research at Bloomberg Government.
What Every Entrepreneurial City Can Learn From Austin
Last week was Startup Week in Austin, Texas and as I was sitting, meeting and writing on Congress Street I was reminded of Austin’s special place in the lineup of growing entrepreneurial communities across America, from New York to San Francisco. In addition to being proudly weird, Austin is providing a blueprint for other communities that want to strengthen their local economies by incubating the growth of young high-tech companies.
California Rights Course on Small Business Tax
California Governor Jerry Brown signed a new law that amounts to a big victory for startups and their investors. Assembly Bill No. 1412 reverses a 2012 adjustment that would have resulted in massive retroactive taxes on investors and small business owners. Engine’s estimate on the new rule's impact on startups empowered advocates looking to overturn the adjustment with a data-rich perspective on future investment, business, and employment growth.
Obamacare Could Boost Entrepreneurship
Here’s what we know about the Affordable Care Act: 32 million Americans who would otherwise be uninsured will now have coverage. What you might not know is that Obamacare could also boost entrepreneurship by decoupling healthcare from employment. The pressure to be employed by a larger company is loosening as the Affordable Care Act makes it easier and less expensive to purchase individual coverage.
Immigration Reform Can Reinvigorate the Economy
Despite the current government shutdown, the march towards immigration reform is continuing. Last week, House Democrats released a comprehensive reform bill, and House Republicans too are working on solutions behind the scenes.Amidst signs of poor economic performance that will only get worse with the current shutdown and looming debt-ceiling debates, a comprehensive solution to immigration reform makes economic sense.
E-Rate Reform is Essential to Educational Equality
Schools and libraries need high-speed broadband connections to take advantage of new learning technologies that promise better educational experiences and outcomes, and expanded opportunities for students and communities, regardless of socio-economic standing, or ability to pay.
What Does the FTC Study of Patent Trolls Mean?
On Friday afternoon, the Federal Trade Commission announced its intention to launch a study of Patent Assertion Entities, commonly referred to as “patent trolls.” While a host of interesting research on the patent system has surfaced over the summer, the FTC’s involvement could lead to the evaluation of brand new information that will aid legislative efforts.
Surely We Can Find a Better Use For $83 Billion
A new study from the Progressive Policy Institute puts the economic cost of patent trolls at $83 billion. Patent trolls are capitalizing on a system which, as currently constituted, does not adequately service our growing economy. It is a system within our power to reconstruct, and while that work is underway, we need this community to continue to support those efforts to bring them to fruition.
What Techies Should Know About A Government Shutdown
For the first time in seventeen years, we’re staring down the barrel of an imminent government shutdown. Here's what you need to know about what the shutdown is, and how it will impact the tech economy.
California Law Lets Minors Erase Online ‘Overshares’
This week, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that aims to protect the online privacy of minors in California by fashioning a right to erase content posted on the internet. The new law is specifically designed to protect "the teenager who says something on the Internet that they regret five minutes later," but it also leads to questions about broader online privacy issues.
Why We Support The Common Core
The lofty aim of the Common Core is to raise achievement levels in public schools across the country. As a nation, we must ensure minimum attainment in preparation for college, a new economy, and for life. We must build this solid base before we can hope to sustainably foster spectacular achievement.
Education – A Talent Solution
Effective solutions to low educational attainment, specifically in STEM subjects, remain hard to find. Since the United States education system has so far failed to produce enough high-tech talent -- in the right places -- many U.S. firms are sourcing STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) talent from around the globe. But immigration reform is only a short-term solution to the talent shortage. To truly solve the problem, we must consider large-scale education reform. Holistic reform of education is a sustainable mechanism for economic growth, and the most direct solution for building a society of skilled individuals prepared to participate in the economy -- and specifically to replenish the high-tech labor market.
Recess is Over. What Now For Tech Policy?
As D.C. returns to work this week, we reset our focus on what remains of the first session of the 113th Congress, still hopeful for movement on immigration reform, patent litigation reform, and other issues that impact the tech community.
Can The U.S. Follow New Zealand and Ban Software Patents?
In banning software patents, New Zealand has done the equivalent of amending section 101 of the Patent Act that helps define what is, and is not, patentable. As a refresher, this oft-cited section is intended to preclude patent protection for laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas. Can the U.S. do the same?
Celebrating #StartupDay Across America
This week, we’re excited to be kicking-off Startup Across America Day where 44 members of Congress will be meeting with technology startups in their home states and districts on August 29th and in the weeks immediately after, or getting the word out to their constituents through social media.
High Speed Internet is Kansas City’s Lightning Rod
Google Fiber has fast-tracked the growth of Kansas City’s tech community. Inexpensive high-speed Internet is certainly an asset to young startups, but the truly exciting thing to come from Google Fiber is the supportive and collaborative tech community that has developed around it.