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John Deskins, an associate economics professor, research director at the Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) and assistant dean for outreach and engagement at the West Virginia University (WVU) College of Business and Economics, talked with The Positively West Virginia Podcast host, Jim Matuga, about his insight into the economic outlook of West Virginia, where the state is headed and the upcoming conferences he will be speaking at.

Tourism in West Virginia is on the rise, and ways to keep that trend going were explored on Tuesday, September 18, 2018 during the first day of the 2018 Governor’s Conference on Tourism at the Morgantown Event Center. State Tourism Commissioner Chelsea Ruby delivered the welcoming address to conference participants, who included representatives of visitors bureaus throughout the state, as well as faculty members of West Virginia University. Ruby detailed the state’s tourism promotion efforts over the past year.

The West Virginia High Technology Foundation is bouncing back from its recent bankruptcy case and moving ahead with its mission to expand the I-79 Technology Park. The park occupancy is at a 10-year high, and a new grant will open space for new federal anchors that can help diversify the state’s economy. WVU’s West Virginia Forward program touts cybersecurity, cloud services and data centers — all key elements of the tech park — as a significant job growth and diversification sector for the whole state.

As the capacity for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) careers in West Virginia continues to increase, a new effort dubbed “Establishing Mentoring Pipeline of Women through Education and Research in STEM (EMPOWERS), is rising to encourage women to seize opportunities in the field. EMPOWERS, a partnership between representatives from the NASA WV Space Grant Consortium, WVU Tech, Marshall University, West Virginia State University, West Virginia University, the WVU Extension Service’s 4-H program, TechConnect West Virginia and the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences of West Virginia, represents the best way of doing business.

West Virginia University’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research will kick off its fall Economic Outlook Series in early October, the first of five events that will run through mid-November. The BBER, which is housed in the WVU College of Business and Economics, will present its West Virginia Economic Outlook 2019-2023 statewide economic analysis and forecast Oct. 3 at Embassy Suites in Charleston. The event will be held from 7:30 a.m. to noon, and will include economic outlooks from the state and national perspectives.

From health insurance to succession planning and cybersecurity to the status of West Virginia’s economy, the inaugural Alignment 2018 conference held in Morgantown contained a wide variety of resources for the state’s small businesses. There, they had the opportunity to network, gain insight on various topics. Among those topics was the need for cyberthreat insurance and the advantages of using cloud computing-based technologies to run and connect a small or large business.

Thanks to the new First2 STEM Success Alliance, the WWU Center for Excellence in STEM Education (WVU CE-STEM) has partnered with other in-state educational entities to improve enrollment and retention in this important field. WVU was among the first to receive National Science Foundation awards for the Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (INCLUDES) Alliances. This is a nationwide initiative designed to enhance leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) discoveries and innovations by broadening participation in these fields at scale. WVU is one of five participating entities in the First2 STEM Success Alliance, part of the INCLUDES initiative.

The West Virginia University LaunchLab kicked off the 2018 Fall semester with its first Welcome Back Pitch & Showcase. Participating students presented a two-minute pop-up pitch, highlighting a problem and solution that apply to one of West Virginia Forward’s three main areas of focus: business, education or human capital. Students’ pitches included specific ideas on how we can bring more manufacturing jobs to the state, advance educational opportunities to students to retain talent in West Virginia – particularly among underrepresented populations – and create more jobs.

Members of the community will soon have the opportunity to accomplish multiple goals with one stop in Morgantown for the inaugural Alignment 2018: West Virginia’s Small Business Conference. Organized by former West Virginia University wide receiver Zach Abraham, now the principal of Wheeling-based Align HR, the conference aims to be the one-stop shop for the small businesses of the Mountain State. The conference will cover a variety of topics such as the West Virginia Forward initiative, the post-reform tax environment, risk management, cybersecurity and several others.

Yanfang (Fanny) Ye, assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering at West Virginia University, has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation in support of her work to enhance security for modern software programming cyberinfrastructure. The award comes with $649,156 in funding over a three-year period. Ye will focus her efforts on the development of new techniques by exploring innovative links between artificial intelligence and cybersecurity to automate the detection of insecure and malicious codes on social coding platforms. Her proposed techniques will benefit scientific communities and society as a whole by promoting the efficiency of cyber-enabled software development without sacrificing the security.