Happy fall – it’s arrived on the calendar and with cool nights, beautiful days and bright fall foliage, it’s proving to be a delightful one! At MTI, we’ve ushered in fall with a bustle of activity including
completion of our PRIME 2.0 application period. We received 134 applications seeking, in the aggregate, more than $20 million. Our outreach attracted companies from all-over Maine – we received proposals from 14 Maine counties and, overall, approximately 40% of the applicants were new to MTI. We are well underway with our application review and hope to begin notifying applicants by the end of October.
As you know, MTI turns 25 this year, and we are busy gearing up for our 25th anniversary celebration where we look forward to seeing all of you. The celebration will be held October 29th from 4-7pm at USM’s Abromson Center. There is no cost to register, but we ask that you please RSVP so we can get an accurate count. We will feature a business mixer plus a short formal program. We expect a good turn out and we look forward to seeing friends and colleagues both new and old.
As a reminder, the $25 million R&D bond that the Legislature approved, and the Governor signed, will appear on November’s ballot. Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to participate in a podcast with the President of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce to provide information about the impacts associated with past R&D bonds and to discuss how MTI will administer the pending bond if it passes. If interested, you can find that podcast here.
Over the summer we assembled a Tech Board Cabinet made up of two representatives of each of the 7 Targeted Technology Boards. The purpose of the cabinet is to meet with me on a quarterly basis to propose/consider ideas for needed improvements to the Tech board as a whole, plan networking events, improve communications, develop governance tools and documents, and establish meaningful performance metrics. The cabinet is composed of a mix of longtime Tech Board members and newer participants. The first meeting was held September 10th at Cloudport in Portland. In an effort to better define each Tech Board’s purpose, key goals and objectives, the Cabinet discussed interest in developing a charter template for each of the individual Tech Boards to use to adapt to the needs of their sector. The charter would help guide the work of the individual Tech Boards and would include specific goals and performance metrics with which to aspire and achieve. It is hoped that the charter(s) will better position each Tech Board for future success and relevancy.
We hope you are enjoying this beautiful fall weather and we look forward to seeing you in October at our 25th anniversary if not sooner.
Best,
Brian