MATR Newsletter – February 18, 2019
The state with the best education wins!

3 Things You Can Learn From the Most-Watched TED Talk of All Time

His brilliant talk is proof that 56,036,246 people can’t be wrong.

“If we’re actually talking about a workforce, we can’t wait until they’re seniors in high school or a senior in college. [If] we’re going to be making the advancements that we need to, we actually have to say, ‘What are the first five years really going to look like?’” Gov. Steve Bullock

Governor Bullock talks early-childhood, higher ed during University of Montana visit

Today’s MATR Newsletter is sponsored by:

Come Home Montana

PayneWest Insurance offers competitive benefits to battle workforce crunch
A career in the insurance industry doesn’t exactly sound “sexy,” but one Missoula firm is giving its employees generous benefits and career growth opportunities to stave off an impending workforce shortage.
Montana Career Opportunities – Account Manager – Personal Lines, Quality Assurance Analyst, Training Specialist and more… – PayneWest
Montana Career Opportunity – Functional Programming – Senior Software Engineer, Data Architect, Software Engineer and more… Workiva

Montana Business and Govt. Agency Collaboration Success

Business professionals learn to build better relationships with Montana tribes
Business professionals came to Helena from all over the state last week to take part in Tribal Relations Training, a business seminar hosted by the Governor’s Office of Indian Affairs.
Helena summit helps connect small businesses in a big way
From guidance on a business plan to obtaining funding, from social media to contracts and insurance, representatives from around the state and state departments were on hand to lend advice and guidance.

Montana Economic Development

Small business brings opportunity to communities, Sarah Calhoun, founder and owner of Montana-based Red Ants Pants says
Starting a business from scratch is a daunting task for most anyone, especially someone with no prior business experience. But for Sarah Calhoun, founder and owner of Montana-based Red Ants Pants, the desire for better fitting, functional work pants was the spark she needed to make the leap into the world of small business and entrepreneurship.

Montana Business

Farmented Foods – Bozeman, Montana entrepreneurs turn ugly vegetables into fermented food
The two came up with the idea while in a class at Montana State University a few years ago, and the idea was simple: Eliminate food waste on small, local farms by using excess and ugly vegetables that farmers can’t sell.

Wyoming Business

High-dollar lobbyists, conservative activists come together to oppose Wyoming corporate income tax
In the past five weeks, the Wyoming Legislature has examined a property tax, a tax on wind energy, and taxes on hotel rooms, cigarettes and vape products.

Funding and Building your Business

This Is the Secret Ingredient That Turns Entrepreneurial Dreams Into Reality, According to an MIT Study of 400,000 People
If you want move beyond just dreaming, you need this one thing (and no, it’s not money).
New welding process opens up uses for formerly un-weldable lightweight alloy
Although the alloy is already used in items such as airplane wings and fuselages, sheets of it typically have to be riveted together. The scientists now hope that the ability to weld it will increase its applications.

Incubators and R&D

Montana State University algae research could make biofuel production more economical
“This could transform the algae biofuel industry,” said Gerlach, one of the project’s principal investigators.

The Creative and Cultural Economy

Building a DIY Robot Lab? These Are the Tools You Need
Whether you’re hacking a Roomba into a home-security droid or assembling your own robocreation, outfit your workbench with these essentials.

Regional Economic Development

A Good Read for Planners and Peers: ‘Why Old Places Matter’
A recent book brings a common sense framework to historic preservation debates.
Cities Point the Way in Promoting Opportunity and Reducing Poverty
These metrics provide a guide to which metros are succeeding in delivering relatively inclusive growth, and which aren’t.
Want to Foster Prosperity? Focus on Market-creating Innovations
In a conversation with Knowledge@Wharton, Christensen discusses what he calls the three types of innovation and why only one drives strong economic growth.

Regional Business News

A billion-dollar empire made of mobile homes
Big private-equity firms buy up hundreds of mobile home parks and call it affordable housing. But whether such investments benefit tenants or merely exploit them is a matter of dispute.

Montana Education Excellence

Helena robotics club headed to world championship again
For the second year in a row, the Helena-based robotics club Fusion 4133 is headed to the First Tech Challenge robotics world championship in Houston.
Team of Missoula Girl Scouts, INTERGALACTIC DUCKS, heads to international robotics competition
Elizabeth Franzon, Lydia Becker, Anisa Spaulding and Stella Michini are members of the winning team, known as the Intergalactic Ducks.

Government News & Events

New petition to sell Montana to Canada for $1 trillion to pay off US debt
“We have too much debt and Montana is useless,” the petition reads. As for getting Canada to go for the deal, “Just tell them it has beavers or something,”

Careers

3 Things You Can Learn From the Most-Watched TED Talk of All Time
His brilliant talk is proof that 56,036,246 people can’t be wrong.

Oregon Business

The urban-rural divide in Oregon has become more pronounced
What once was only a 3 percent political registration gap between Eastern Oregon and Multnomah County has now skyrocketed to more than 30 percent.

Miscellaneous Ramblings

If You’re Still Alive in 30 Years, you Might Live to be 1,000 Years Old
Ray Kurzweil, Google’s main engineer, is predicting that technology will become powerful enough to enable humans to live up to 200, or even 500 years of age.

Transportation

5 Autonomous Cars Trends Everyone Should Know About In 2019
Level five autonomy doesn’t exist yet, but manufacturers including Honda, Renault, BMW, and Toyota have said they hope to put fully autonomous cars into production by 2020, meaning we could expect to see trials and pilots taking place this year.
Union of Concerned Scientists: Rural Drivers Have Most to Gain from Clean Vehicles
Switching to clean vehicles would save money; it would also help the environment.
New ‘trackless train’ which runs on virtual rail lines launched in China
The trains carry up to 300 passengers and the new system is a cheaper and greener alternative than building new train or tram tracks.
Will there be a market for the coming explosion of electric cars?
Will there be a market for the coming explosion of electric cars?

Cool Stuff That’s Coming

Amazon may someday control your home. Are you comfy with that?
Amazon wants to go further than just making our homes “smart.” It wants to turn our dwellings into the “Amazon Home.”
Think about it for a minute.

TED and TEDX Talks

New TED Talk – The age of genetic wonder
Juan Enriquez forecasts the possible futures of genetic editing, exploring the immense uncertainty and opportunity of this next frontier.

Privacy, Hacking and Virus Alerts

Jamaican phone scammer picked the wrong 90-year-old: A former FBI director
The Jamaican’s research didn’t research everything. He didn’t learn that the man he was calling was the former director of the FBI and the CIA, the only person ever to hold both jobs.