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Silicon Valley may come to mind when you think about technology hubs. Yet, Memphis may be a new contender, not just for innovation but in agricultural technology. AgDay national reporter, Betsy Jibben, talks with Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee; John Butler, the President and CEO of Agricenter Innovation; Bruce Kirksey, Researcher at Agricenter International; and Carter Williams, the CEO of iSelect.
This year, a biotechnology company that makes compostable food-service ware and a nine-year-old who organizes river cleanups were among those honored at the Tennessee Wildlife Federation Conservation Achievement Awards. Knoxville-based Genera Energy was recognized for its partnership with regional farmers to grow agricultural crops such as switchgrass and wheat straw, which the company then uses to make sustainable fiber. Vice President for Business Development Sam Jackson says natural fiber-based plates, bowls, cups and take-out containers will be ready by early next year.
Across the country and around the world, cities, research universities, government labs and other actors are reformulating the way anchor institutions can help lead technology-based economic development as the geography of innovation shifts. Julie Wagner, Bruce Katz, Tom Osha and others have formed the Global Institute on Innovation Districts (GIID), which is doing research and policy implementation to advance Innovation Districts around the world.
Big data holds commensurately large promise for medtech and digital health companies building tools to analyze that information and develop programs to improve patient health. But these emerging technologies have run into new privacy-oriented regulatory and legislative challenges. At the AdvaMed Digital MedTech Conference in San Francisco, experts in data privacy explained how new legislation is shaping how the industry thinks about privacy and how to protect patient information and mitigate business risk in an uncertain environment.
Tennessee state Sen. Bo Watson selected to lead Healthy States National Task Force
The task force will work over a two-year timeline surveying best practices and innovative state initiatives during planned task force meetings, some of which will be held at the annual CSG national conferences. Watson said there are four subcommittees: Capacity, Preparedness and Resiliency; What's Next? Leveraging Innovation; State Health Systems Return on Investment; and Interventions to Save Lives.
