Second wind: It’s Wednesday, Jan. 10, and over the hump we go. Welcome back, dear readers, to the five-day workweek.
Gold standards: It was 50 years ago today that the U.S. Surveyor 7 landed near lunar crater Tycho and Matt Bodkin – cartoonist for Newsday, Long Island Business News and a zillion other regional publications – landed on Earth.
This is also a fairly noteworthy date in the annals of innovation and business: London debuted its first underground railway (1863), John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil (1870), RCA introduced the 45 RPM record (1949) and the United Nations opened its New York City headquarters (1951), all on Jan. 10.
Sitting on some socioeconomic history in the making? Got an opinion to share? A hot networking event? Tell us all about it at editor@innovateli.com.
Close enough: Before we jump into the busy week in Long Island innovation, three cheers for New York City innovation, which got a boost Tuesday when mass media titan Discovery Communications – the circa-1985 Maryland giant boasting a TV Guide’s worth of popular channels and roughly $7 billion in annual revenues – announced it was relocating its global HQ to the Big Apple.
With the company planning to sell its Silver Springs digs and relocate 1,300 employees to NYC by the end of 2019, the city stands to gain another major international tech/communications/entertainment player (Discovery, owner of TLC and Animal Planet, is in the middle of an $11.9 billion acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactives, HGTV and the Food Network).
And if you believe in the synergistic relationship between innovation in NYC and innovation on Long Island (which we do), that only bodes well for this region.
BUT FIRST, THIS
A higher higher education: When factoring choice, cost, graduation rates and other key factors, New York is the best state in the nation to seek a college education.
So says MoneyRates.com, which ranks the Empire State No. 1 among the 10 Best States for College Students, a sea-to-shining-sea review that considered a full syllabus of variables before deciding the 10 best states for college students to study.
The final grade: New York, with 230 four-year colleges and strong student-retention and graduation rates, is top of a heap that also includes Massachusetts, California, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Virginia, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri and Washington State.
Drawing on experience: Thirty-eight employees of Melville-based H2M architects + engineers have completed the company’s in-house Project Management Certificate course.
The year-long, 24-session course is designed to help participants develop and hone their project-management skills, with class materials updated regularly to reflect new legislation, leading-edge professional design standards and other best-management practices. Since H2M introduced the Project Management Certificate program a decade ago, 175 company employees have completed the intensive course, including this year’s class.
“We frequently hear from experienced staff that joined H2M that they were not … trained in the necessary skills to manage projects,” CEO Gary Loesch said in a statement. “They believe a major differentiator between H2M and the firms that they worked at is that H2M invests the time necessary to mentor and train its staff.”
A few words from our sponsor: Carter, DeLuca, Farrell & Schmidt is Long Island’s premier patent and IP law firm, with rich experience in biotechnology, chemistry, electrical, computer software, mechanical, optical, physics and more.
TOP OF THE SITE
Building appetites: Its main course won’t be ready for several months, but The Spur – the first-ever Hamptons-based co-working environment – is already tempting members inside the Southampton Social Club.
Partly sunny: It’s not the whole 100-acre, 19-megawatt ball of wax, but the Brookhaven Planning Board has given the Middle Island Solar Farm permission to shine with a 40-acre trial run.
Busted: Stony Brook biotech Applied DNA Sciences is being credited with the conviction of an Irish armed robber who heisted the wrong molecular-tagged cashbox.
Another happy landing: A state spending program will pump $2 million into safety and infrastructure improvements at Long Island regional airports.
Farmingdale tops the list: Sure, New York is a great state for a college education (see above), but on Long Island, which school offers the best bang for your educational buck? Farmingdale State College, says one national reviewer.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Secret mission: The year is off to a mysterious start for SpaceX, Elon Musk’s private aerospace company, which completed its first launch of 2018 Sunday night: a Falcon 9 rocket mission carrying the Zuma spacecraft – a U.S. government satellite with a Northrop Grumman pedigree and a classified purpose – into orbit.
But will it call you tomorrow? It’s cuddly. It makes slow, simulated breathing noises and other soothing sounds. And while it’s shaped like a lima bean, you’re probably going to want to sleep with it – especially if you suffer from insomnia.
Final flight: The once-mighty 747 has carried its last passenger for a U.S. airline, with the stalwart jet officially out of service as of this week (at least in America).
Bundle up: Technology can’t prevent the next blizzard, but from the Internet of Things to predictive analytics, it can help your business survive it.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Wonderschool, a New York City-based network of boutique, high-quality childcare facilities and preschools, raised $2.1 million in new funding led by Omidyar Network, Be Curious Partners, Rethink Education, Edelweiss partners and Learn Capital.
+ Voatz, a Boston-based mobile-focused election, voting and citizen-engagement platform, raised more than $2.2 million in seed funding led by Medici Ventures.
+ Immusoft, a Seattle-based gene-therapy company, closed the first $3 million tranche of its Series B funding round led by 600 Mile Challenge Fund.
+ Yonomi, a Colorado- and Texas-based IoT company that provides a platform giving developers the tools to build, integrate and scale smart home products and services, completed a $5 million Series A financing round.
+ Inocucor, a Montreal- and Denver-based developer and producer of biological crop inputs for high-value produce and row crops, raised $9.5 million in the second close of its Series B financing round, led by Pontifax AgTech.
+ F1 Oncology, a Florida-based biotechnology company discovering and developing adoptive cellular therapies for solid tumors, received a $10 million equity investment.
+ Neural Analytics, a Los Angeles-based medical-device company developing and commercializing technology to measure, diagnose and track brain health, raised $15 million in Series B financing led by Alpha Edison.
BELOW THE FOLD
No glass ceiling here: The most awesome codebreaker in World War II was a woman.
Better late: Perpetually tardy? Science can help you come up with some fresh excuses.
Gentle reminder: There’s really no such thing as “free” news. Please support great firms like Carter DeLuca Farrell & Schmidt (George Likourezos really is someone you should know).
