By RAY DONNELLY // Ten years ago Oct. 1, the region lost a strong, powerful voice in economic development, when C. Kenneth Morrelly passed away suddenly. He died on the cusp of realizing a project he’d been devoted to for many years, the Homeland Security Research Center. The project was a centerpiece of his time as CEO and president of LIFT, the Long Island Forum for Technology. October 1, 2009, was a red-letter day for the region’s…
By GREGORY ZELLER // From the If It Ain’t Broke file comes the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council, which covers proven ground in its annual progress report/wish list to the Empire State Development Corp. Meeting ESD’s yearly Oct. 1 submission deadline, the LIREDC slapped a new title on its 2019 report (“Long Island: Breaking Down Barriers”) but filled it with a familiar mix of success stories and future ambitions, largely focused on the Island’s…
By GREGORY ZELLER // Good news for research-rich, offshore-open Long Island: New York’s clean-energy economy is growing at more than double the rate of the overall state economy. So says the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which on Tuesday announced an 8.9 percent growth in statewide clean energy-related employment since 2016 – exceeding 158,000 employees in 2019, according to NYSERDA, and still climbing. These and other impressive numbers await in the state’s…
By GREGORY ZELLER // A million-dollar gift from the National Science Foundation will help a classroom’s worth of science- and math-focused Long Island high schoolers enroll at Farmingdale State College. All told, 32 students from six regional high schools will enjoy four-year, $20,000 scholarships, thanks to a $1 million S-STEM grant, the largest ever issued to Farmingdale State by the NSF. Targeting academically talented, low-income students, the S-STEM awards – for Scholarships in Science, Technology,…
End run: Welcome to Friday, dear readers, and the last leg of this busy late-summer workweek. It’s Sept. 6 out there, and if you had the Mayflower departing Plymouth, England, and setting a course for history on this date in 1620, well done! A half-crown and two shillings for you; please contact our Awards Department for more information. Are you ready for some football? It’s Unification Day in Bulgaria and Armed Forces Day in…
Warmest greetings: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, as we slog through a sticky summertime stretch of socioeconomic innovation. It’s Aug. 7 out there, and we’re at the steamy center of Summer 2019 – the mathematical midpoint between the June 21 summer solstice and the Sept. 23 autumnal equinox. Party on, Côte d’Ivoire: To our readers along the Ivory Coast, a joyous Independence Day. Here in the States, Aug. 7 is National Lighthouse Day, celebrating…
By GREGORY ZELLER // The food/energy/water nexus will center once again on the New York Institute of Technology, courtesy of another chunky federal grant. Principal investigator Ziqian (Cecilia) Dong, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at NYIT’s College of Engineering and Computing Sciences, will use a $747,000 National Science Foundation grant to establish a “research coordination network” focused on food, energy and water – the trifurcated nerve center of sustainable urban development. Through…
By GREGORY ZELLER // The Long Island Bioscience Hub is making the grade, according to a report card prepared by independent evaluators. Since launching in 2015, the LIBH – a National Institutes of Health effort uniting Stony Brook University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institute for Medical Research – has trained hundreds of innovators, helped fund dozens of technology-development projects and assisted the formation of numerous startup companies and…
By GREGORY ZELLER // Invention, and reinvention. They are the manifestation of creativity and the heart of innovation. True today, on a Long Island staking a claim as a leading biosciences hub; true a half-century ago, when a unique combination of potato farms and cutting-edge aerospace defined an otherwise sparse suburbia. The current leadership of the Long Island Business Development Council, which turns 50 this year, is a reinvention of sorts – a forward-thinking team…
By GREGORY ZELLER // A blockbuster summer sequel will see Stony Brook University soar into space, once again. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has selected eight research teams to collaborate through the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, a national thinktank featuring dozens of scientific disciplines, all focused on the final frontier and human space exploration. Among them: Timothy Glotch, a professor in SBU’s Department of Geosciences, and his team of more than 60…
Half full: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, as we reach the midpoint of another exciting week of socioeconomic innovation. Before we dive in, a warm welcome to new newsletter subscribers Michael, Kathleen, Josh, Frank, Tim, Wayne, Elizabeth, Warren, Eddie, Cliff, Noel, Micaela, Paige and Gary. Let us be the first to wish you a healthy and safe World Day Against Speciesism. Ecologically logical: That must mean it’s June 5 out there, and most of…
By GREGORY ZELLER // A new cross-continental collaboration is just one of the innovative energy efforts revving things up inside the Institute for Gas Innovation and Technology. Stony Brook University’s 15-month-old IGIT is firing on all cylinders on its mission to address current and future power needs through increasingly low-carbon means – including a new memorandum of understanding inked this month with the San Diego-based Center for Sustainable Energy, seen as a major play toward…
By GREGORY ZELLER // From the Didn’t See That Coming file comes the sudden departure of Stony Brook University President Samuel Stanley Jr., who has resigned his position and will step down July 31. Stanley, who become SBU’s fifth president in July 2009, will become the 21st president of Michigan State University, according to several news reports. His decision – which follows a decade-long tenure ripe with physical expansion and award-winning faculty research – has…
By GREGORY ZELLER // A cornerstone of Long Island’s innovation economy has partnered with a New York City-based technology icon to launch a new hub for regional AI research. Stony Brook University this week officially flipped the switch on its new Institute for AI-Driven Discovery and Innovation, a research-and-development hub laser-focused on what the university calls “the AI-driven economy of the future.” At a May 9 launch event hosted in New York City by global…
Cold open: Beware the Ides of March, dear reader – oh, wait, it’s the Ides of May. It only feels like March. But it’s actually May 15 out there, midpoint of the month, two-thirds of the way through spring and halfway home in this latest (chilly) week of socioeconomic innovation. For the record, as of Tuesday afternoon, the Weather Channel was forecasting that high temperatures on Long Island wouldn’t exceed 70 degrees until the…