Bringing Nanotech To Market

Abstract

Dozens of regional, state, and local initiatives have popped up over the past decade to help commercialize nanotechnology-based products and build a nanotechnology workforce for the future. Many of the initiatives failed to survive the Great Recession because of a lack of state funding, whereas others that involved multiple states withered away because the states did not have common goals. Today, a handful of state and local nanotech initiatives are speckled across the U.S. Some are seeing signs of success in terms of creating jobs and leveraging private-sector investments in nanotechnology, but many others are struggling to survive. Each of the initiatives has different goals and funding sources. “If you have seen one of these initiatives, you’ve seen one,” Jim Mason, executive director of the Oklahoma Nanotechnology Initiative (ONI), said last month in Portland, Ore., at a workshop sponsored by the National Nanotechnology Initiative. NNI organized the workshop to get ...