North America

32 TCI Latin American members met in Portland-Oregon on October 10, as they were in the city to participate in the 10th Annual Conference of TCI.
El pasado 10 de Octubre, 32 socios latinoamericanos de TCI se reunieron en Portland-Oregon aprovechando su presencia en la conferencia anual del TCI.

Portland, Oregon has been selected as the host site for the 2007 TCI Global Conference. This year's conference is jointly hosted by the states of Oregon and Washington, and the City of Portland. The theme for 2007 is "Collaboration, Innovation, and Sustainability".

New York’s Center of Excellence program and other high-tech initiatives are helping to finance the expansion of the biotechnology company OSI Pharmaceutical on Long Island.

A 116 page report by the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness was released last month. It contains a detailed strategy for the state on how to become more competitive nationally and internationally.

The governments of Ontario and Chile's northern Antofagasta region have signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at strengthening bilateral mining industry cooperation.

A new partnership known as the Forest Research Opportunity B.C. (British Columbia) was recently brought together on the 1st of June. It is a new collaborative forest-research effort in order to harness the research and innovation capabilities present in British Columbia and furthermore to improve the competitiveness of the forest industry and increase the economic and social value of Canada's forests which are vital parts of Canada's economy and society.

The University of Maryland has been selected to establish the new prestigious Sloan Biotechnology Industry Center, a home for high-impact research on the forces driving the competitiveness of the U.S. biotechnology industry. A substantial start-up grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation will help fund this work which is expected to aid the industry to continue developing and increase its overall turnover.

Gérald Tremblay, Chairman of the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM) and Mayor of Montreal, officially launched the CMM's economic development plan, entitled "Charting Our International Future: A Competitive Montreal Metropolitan Region" on the 9 May.

US state South Carolina takes baby steps towards a stronger economy. That was the message of a speech given by Wall Street financier Darla Moore during the University of South Carolina's annual Economic Outlook Conference. More than 200 people attended this conference.

Portland is more and more becoming a centre for Linux, the computer software that according to several experts will be neighbour town´s Microsoft's biggest competitor in the future.