Investor Watch: August 07, 2023

WISCONSIN

SRI International finds the state’s manufacturers have a “tremendous opportunity” to be a “critical epicenter” of the EV supply chain … if the right public/private investments are made.

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Map courtesy of World Obesity Federation

If health of the populace is a site selection factor for your company, one resource worth attention is the World Obesity Federation. Estimates presented in the organization’s fifth annual World Obesity Atlas published in March suggest that, “on current trends, overweight and obesity will cost the global economy over US$4 trillion of potential income in 2035,” nearly 3% of current global GDP. The organization maintains the Global Obesity Observatory. Proportions of obesity’s economic impact based on 2019 figures range from a low of 1% of GDP in some African countries to more than 3% in the United States, Bolivia, number of Eastern European and Pacific Island countries to a high of 4.25% in Bulgaria.

“The estimates for global levels of overweight and obesity (BMI ≥25kg/m²), also referred to as high BMI throughout this Atlas, suggest that over 4 billion people may be affected by 2035, compared with over 2.6 billion in 2020,” the report states. “This reflects an increase from 38% of the world’s population in 2020 to over 50% by 2035 (figures exclude children under 5 years old). The prevalence of obesity (BMI ≥30kg/m²) alone is anticipated to rise from 14% to 24% of the population over the same period, affecting nearly 2 billion adults, children and adolescents by 2035.”

Past Site Selection coverage in this arena has focused on the impact of diabetes, data on physical activity inequality and on which territories appear to be absolute paradigms of good health and fitness.

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Photo courtesy of ESRA

A total of 117 college teams competed in the final week of the 2023 Spaceport America Cup competition at Spaceport America in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in late June. The overall competition involved more than 5,900 rocketeers from 158 institutions, including 78 teams from 23 foreign countries.

Scoring anomalies discovered post-competition revealed in July that Team 130 University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, had overtaken the initially announced victor Team 7 BYU from Brigham Young University by 1.2 points in the annual competition sponsored by Spaceport America and the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA). “ESRA recognizes Team 130 for their achievement; however, the judges choice selection of overall Spaceport America Cup winner remains with Team 7 Brigham Young University,” said a statement from ESRA President and Chairperson Cliff Olmsted. “Rest assured, our all-volunteer ESRA team takes these errors very seriously. We have received a lot of feedback on ways we can improve our scoring accuracy and transparency to identify errors sooner for all teams. These changes will be considered carefully as we look forward to the 2024 event.”

In a timely results for the two nations hosting the FIFA Women’s World Cup in soccer, a team from New Zealand (No. 3 overall) and two from Australia were among the six foreign entries represented in the final, corrected Top 10:

1. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
2. Brigham Young University
3. University of Canterbury (New Zealand)
4. Cornell University
5. Ecole de technologie superieure (Quebec)
6. The University of Queensland (Australia)
7. Monash University (Australia)
8. University of Maryland, College Park
9. Poznan University of Technology (Poland)
10. Istanbul Technical University (Turkey)