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Happy New Year to you!  I hope this message finds you tanned, rested and ready or at least rested and ready.

I will take a few minutes to make a few predictions about technology in Tennessee in 2010.  Nothing earth-shattering, but just a few random thoughts that I will come back to review from time to time.

Here we go:

1.  There will be additional corporate relocations to the Clarksville and Chattanooga area relating to the Hemlock semiconductor and Wacker Chemie.  This is a no-brainer.  We were blessed to have these announcements in the last 15 months and the residual effects are just now starting to take effect.

2.  TnInvestco will be successful in helping some new startups to acquire funding, but there will be questions about where the funds are being expended.  These will not be concerns about anything illegal or immoral, but there will be questions about what types of ventures will be funded.

3.  The success, or lack of success, of our universities in licensing technology effectively will be further questioned.  Tennessee has several universities with licensable technology that could be used to start new ventures, but there is considerable difference between the schools who are “easy to deal with” versus those who are not as easy to deal with.  Schools who choose not to license valid technology are leaving money on the table.  I wonder why…

4.  The continual funding crisis of Tennessee’s public universities will start to have a discernable effect on the ability of our institutions to get things done.  This is inevitable.

This is all I have for today.

We need to find ways to create new jobs in our state, and traditional, low skill manufacturing is not the answer.

Technology holds the key to our future.