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Innovation Summit
Present at the 2021 Virtual Summit
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SAVE THE DATE
APRIL 7-9, 2021
Mark you calendars for this year's summit, which will encompass three afternoons, starting April 7-9 for a fully virtual conference that builds Alaska's capacity to innovate.
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Call for Pitch Contest and Innovation Shorts
The Innovation Summit is looking for five Alaskan or Yukon entrepreneurs to compete in the annual Pitch Contest, and a variety of presenters of "Innovation Shorts" to be featured in the 10th Annual Innovation Summit April 7-9, 2021.
The 2021 theme is Localization in a Global Economy. We will explore the balance between local production and employment and global commerce. We have experienced the need for and value of local businesses during this pandemic to not only provide services, but also to provide jobs and other resources. In Alaska and the Yukon we rely on many products and services that would be very hard to replicate locally. What is the right balance between global and local that leads to the greatest resilience and prosperity?
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SEABIA
2020 Builder's Choice Award
Deadline: February 28, 2021
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Junior Achievement Virtual Job Fair
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The Southeast Alaska Homebuilder's Association is delighted to announce the first year of the Builder's Choice Awards.
This award program was created to show the beautiful work of local home builders and contractors in Juneau. Members of the public are welcome to nominate a licensed contractor they hired for a project. The project must have been completed in 2020.
Applications open until Sunday, February 28.
Only licensed Juneau contractors can qualify to apply or receive nominations. SEABIA membership is not a requirement to apply or receive nominations.
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SAVE THE DATE
Student
Virtual Job Fair
March 2 & 4
8:30 AM - 6:00 PM
Local employers are invited to exhibit, share their industry and know-how with Alaska's students. JA Inspire is expecting more than 5,000 students to attend, and most will be ready to apply for jobs. Employers will have the opportunity to interview students from communities across the state, who received preparation before the event to apply for open positions, provided by Junior Achievement.
Employers of all sizes are invited to sponsor a booth
and they will receive 3 events for the price of 1,
including a Job Fair for adults from 4 - 6 PM on March 2.
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Listen in on our most recent Action Line update. This month we talked about Local Frequency, featuring Marc Wheeler from Coppa. He shared the inside scoop on how a participating business understands the affect his customers have on Juneau's economy at large.
In the second half of the show STEM Program Manager, Alyson Cooper was joined by a high school FIRST Robotics student giving an update on the transition to virtual tournaments.
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Local Frequency | Non-Profit Engagement
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The Local Frequency mobile app is good for business and good for Juneau non-profit organizations.
The already popular "round-up" feature used at checkout as a way to donate to the customers' non-profit of choice is seamlessly integrated into the Local Frequency purchasing experience. We call it Local Change, and by rounding up your purchase to the nearest dollar, you can choose and support any non-profit that is participating in the app every time you use Local Frequency.
We are on-boarding non-profits today. Do you have a non-profit to add to the list? Let us know and we will reach out to them.
Please contact Katelyn Combs at kcombs@jedc.org for more information on this feature and to add a suggested non-profit to our outreach list.
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PARTICIPATING NON-PROFITS
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A Survey of COVID-19 Unmet Needs in Juneau
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Our Research Team has reviewed the assistance programs available to individuals and households to identify which groups have been hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic and still have needs unmet by current assistance programs. The report and a short presentation of findings were given to the CBJ Assembly in late January.
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AK CARES Grant | At a Glance
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The AK CARES small business grant program allocated $290 million from federal CARES Act funding for the purpose of providing financial relief to small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The State Department of Commerce and AIDEA brought on JEDC as the primary grant operator for the Southeast Alaska business community in August of 2020. To assist with more grants statewide, JEDC hired 55 talented part- and full-time grant analysts to process the grants.
JEDC alone awarded a total of 1913 grants totaling $101,064,743, with an average award of $52,830 per applicant. Businesses based in Southeast Alaska account for 24.1% of the AK CARES grant awards totaling $67.2 million.
The highest total award by far was to commercial fishing. At 351 applications funded by JEDC, and 698 by the CARES program overall, representing $35 million overall. Excluding commercial fishermen, 1,045 Southeast small businesses received $50 million in AK CARES awards.
JEDC is hopeful that more grant programs are available to our struggling businesses soon. We hope to assist in future grant programs as needed.
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The largest number of grants, 1,510 (681 administered by JEDC) went to Commercial Fishing, this is 28% of AK CARES grant funds awarded. Followed up by Other Except Public Administration, Accommodations And Food Services, and Retail Trade, ($33.8 million/727 awards), ($34.6 million/665 awards) and ($27.9 million/531 awards) respectively. |
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Capital City Behind the Business | Gastineau Grains
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Kate Higgins is the founder of Gastineau Grains, a new company that transforms spent grain into nutritious flour alternatives and tasty snacks.
Kate was a 2020 finalist for Spruce Root's Path to Prosperity Program and Business Development Competition. As a finalist, she attended the Business Boot Camp and received technical assistance in writing a business plan and worked with a variety of business specialists and service providers.
For now, Kate is working out of her family home but aspires to eventually work in a commercial kitchen in Juneau to produce her tasty products.
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Arctic Innovation Competition
Submissions Due March 19, 2021
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Visitor Product Cluster
Working Group
Winter Product Development
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Have an original idea? You could win a cash prize through this statewide competition-Submission are due March 19, 2021.
- All ages are welcome.
- Individuals or teams are welcome.
- Only residents from North America are eligible to submit entries at this time.
Learn more about the competition on the
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What could winter tourism in Juneau look like? All curious businesses, organizations, and individuals are welcome and encouraged to attend an interactive and engaging virtual round table event.
Join Us
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FIRST LEGO League and FIRST Tech Challenge tournaments have finally begun for the season! A few hardy teams competed in the first FLL tournament February 1-6, and the remaining tournaments will be in March with one last qualifier in April for teams who had an extra late start this year.
FIRST Tech Challenge tournaments start next week, and teams across the state will have two additional qualifying tournament opportunities in March. State Championships for both programs will be held in March. All of the tournaments are being held remotely, which means teams from all over the state will be competing in each one.
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information on all of our
programs.
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Referees will review FLL videos and score them anytime before a deadline.
Judges will meet with FLL and FTC teams and learn all of the incredible things the teams have done in preparation for the tournament, then meet together and select teams for some specific awards.
Training is provided. If you have a willingness to be part of the program and engage with the teams in a meaningful way you would be a great fit! In order to give teams an opportunity to compete, we need tournament volunteers. This year, geography is not a factor.
Email acooper@jedc.org for information on volunteering for upcoming tournaments.
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Alaska Airlines and GCI have been steadfast supporters of our program for years. GCI is providing technical support to our FLL tournaments, which is greatly appreciated. In addition, the University of Alaska Anchorage has stepped in to provide an online platform that is giving FLL and FTC teams a high quality interactive tournament experience. We are grateful to these partners, our season sponsors, businesses that sponsor individual teams, and all of our volunteers for helping us to provide the FIRST program for Alaska's youth.
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Experience Juneau | Remote Workforce Extended Stay
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Email choosejuneau@jedc.org if you have a car, home or apartment that you would like to connect to Experience Juneau. Encourage your network to fill out the remote worker survey.
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JEDC is working on developing an extended stay option for remote workers in 2021.
For most visitors, Alaska is a distant frontier, filled with adventure and wilderness-a place that belongs to animals more than people. But this image does not accurately represent the Alaska we all know. JEDC has constructed a way for the average visitor to experience life in Juneau like locals do.
Choose Juneau will connect extended-stayers with options to rent a local home, buy groceries in our stores, and enjoy what our city has to offer. Remote workers will be able to work as they have been, but enjoy the amenities a place like Juneau has to offer them.
In addition to being an irreplaceable visitor experience, immersing them in our culture, it would also cement in their minds how possible their life here could be. And maybe, just maybe, they might decide to Choose Juneau for their home.
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Indicator of the Month | 2019 vs 2020 Jobs Q3
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Figure 1: Best Preforming Sectors in Juneau Source: Alaska Dept. of Labor QCEW BEST PREFORMING SECTORS IN JUNEAU
Construction is the only private industry that saw both job and wage growth in the early months of the pandemic. Natural Resources and Mining saw increases in both total and average wages. Other sectors that were not hit hard tend to be computer reliant and likely did not see much disruption due to the ease of working remotely. Financial Activities and Information saw only a 5% decrease in jobs in the early months of the pandemic. Overall, these well-fairing sectors still saw increases in total and average wages along with decreases in jobs, indicating the disappearance of lower wage jobs.
Figure 2: Hardest Hit Sectors in Juneau Source: Alaska Dept. of Labor QCEW HARDEST HIT SECTORS IN JUNEAU Sectors related to tourism (Trade and Transportation & Leisure and Hospitality) saw the largest decreases in job numbers. Jobs in these sectors tend to be held by a large percentage of nonresident workers. About 40% of jobs in these two sectors were held by nonresident workers in Southeast Alaska. This means many of the workers that hold these jobs simply did not show up last summer and only some of these job losses are hitting Juneau residents. It is important to note that not all of these losses are due to the absence of large-scale tourism in 2020 and it is very likely we will continue to see lower job and wage numbers when winter data becomes available. Manufacturing and Professional and Business Services only saw slight decreases in employment but saw about a 40% decrease in paid wages. The Professional and Business Services sector does include some tour operators and travel agencies. The large decrease in wages coupled with drops in employment and increases in average wages is indicative of relatively few high-wage earners and many low-wage jobs disappearing.
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Learn more about our investor program, please visit
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Become a 2021 JEDC Investor
We invite you to invest in Juneau by becoming
a JEDC Investor. Show your support of the
work done to advance Juneau and Southeast Alaska's economy.
Supporting JEDC impacts the long-term economic success of Alaska's Capital City while creating a business climate that bolsters your business or organization.
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subscribing
to JEDC News.
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If you find JEDC News to be of interest and value, please forward the newsletter to your friends and colleagues.
Executive Director
Juneau Economic Development Council
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Garrett Schoenberger, Chair
Dr. Karen Carey, Vice Chair
Jake Carpenter, Treasurer
Melissa Kookesh, Secretary
Mayor Beth Weldon
Alec Mesdag
Marc Guevarra
Alexander Kotlarov
Chris Dimond
Jill Weitz
Raymond Paddock III
Maria Gladziszewski, CBJ Assembly Liaison |
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