About 500 people attended the first day of a two-day-long summit at The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel to discuss the role of higher education in Pennsylvania's economic development and Pennsylvania's "brain drain."

The summit, titled "Creating Pennsylvania's Future: A Higher Education Economic and Community Development Summit," brought together 65 higher education institutions and 150 organizations ranging from economic developers to nonprofit organizations, said Craig Weidemann, vice president for the Penn State Outreach office.

The goals of the conference, said speaker and Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) Dennis Yablonsky, were to focus on retaining Pennsylvania universities' graduates, transfer technology and to start up new companies in Pennsylvania.

Weidemann said that although Pennsylvania has the third-highest number of colleges and universities in the country, it is also the state with the most graduates leaving the state for employment after graduation.

"You bring all this talent in, but they're not staying in state," he said.

Yablonsky said the original goal was to help strengthen the Keystone Innovation Zone (KIZ) Program that Gov. Ed Rendell and the DCED created to promote economic development within Pennsylvania. The summit expanded to include more participants than just those involved with KIZ.

Yablonsky said the KIZ helps regions focus on a specific economic sector to create companies and retain students. Penn State is part of the "I-99 Corridor," said Neil Weaver, spokesman for the summit.

Jack Gido, Penn State director of economic and workforce development and planning committee member, said planning for the event began last February.

The day kicked off with keynote speakers President Graham Spanier and Emily DeRocco, assistant secretary for employment and training in the U.S. Department of Labor.

After the speeches, participants could attend sessions comprising different "tracks" that related to economic development: entrepreneurship, work force development, technology transfer -- which includes the licensing of technologies from research institutions to entrepreneurs -- and community and economic development, Gido said.

Juli Roebuck, associate vice president of university relations for Arcadia University, said that she was attending the event for the sessions on community and economic development, to discuss issues including how to attract development in towns.

Roebuck said that one of the messages about community development was to encourage universities to use their own money to help towns.

"The universities should put their money up to help revitalize the towns," she said. "Don't wait for state funding."

The summit itself was more successful than expected. Gido said about 200 people were expected, but more than 500 attended. The summit is the first of its kind in any state, Gido said.