Springtime fresh: Spring is in the air, dear readers, as we enjoy the sunshine and seasonable warmth enriching this busy week of socioeconomic innovation.
Flight right: Choose your brews with care on National Beer Day.
To your health: Today is Wednesday, April 7, a.k.a. World Health Day, when the World Health Organization notes its 1948 founding by annually spotlighting an important international issue. In 2021, reflecting years of health gains lost to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s all about global health inequities.
Contributing to no one’s good health, but tasty nonetheless, are National Coffee Cake Day and National Beer Day, also celebrated each April 7.
Another bright idea: All this lovely sunshine calls to mind a Stamford University radar-astronomy experiment that peaked 62 years ago today, when electrical engineers bounced radar beams off the sun for the first time.
First and mainframe: On April 7, 1964, IBM unveiled System/360 – a daring innovation that shoved computers into corporate America and forever transformed IT.
The input that started it all: Speaking of computational conquests, happy birthday, Internet! The “request for comments” that paved the way for your creation were first published on this date in 1969 – the web’s symbolic birthdate (actual flesh-and-blood births below).
Kick the can: Carter deferred on the neutron bomb; Reagan fired it up.
(Temporarily) diffusing a crisis: Bowing to internal and international pressure, President Jimmy Carter stymied production of neutron bombs – thermonuclear warheads designed to kill people with radiation, while sparing infrastructure – 43 years ago today.
Innovators were not deterred: Development continued and neutron bombs went into production after Carter left office in 1981, remaining in storage until the last were decommissioned a decade ago.
Space Odyssey: And still conducting extended operations today, NASA’s Mars Odyssey Mission blasted off on April 7, 2001, carrying the Odyssey orbiter to its historic rendezvous with the Red Planet.
After 20 years in orbit, the Mars probe continues to return stunning high-def images and videos.
If adventure has a name: It must be David Fairchild, two-fisted botanist.
Indiana Jones and the pharaoh’s farm stand: American botanist David Fairchild (1869-1954) – an international adventurer credited with introducing mangos, nectarines, alfalfa and about 20,000 other exotic plants to the United States – would be 152 years old today.
Also born on April 7 were English poet laureate William Wordsworth (1770-1850); Italian chemist Francesco Selmi (1817-1881), remembered as a cofounder of colloid chemistry; American industrialist W.K. Kellogg (1860-1951), who flaked out and revolutionized breakfast; Polish-British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), the “father of social anthropology”; and American jazz and swing great Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan, 1915-1959).
Capo di tutti capi: And take a bow, Francis Ford Coppola! The American film director – widely considered one of the greats, and a shining light of the ballyhooed New Hollywood era – turns 82 today.
Wish the godfather of modern cinema and all the other April 7 innovators well at editor@innovateli.com, where every time we think we’re out, your news tips and calendar events pull us back in.
About our sponsor: Bridgeworks is Long Island’s modern coworking and office space. Headquartered in Long Beach, our workspace offers flexible month-to-month private offices, meeting rooms and innovative amenities for companies of all types. Membership includes onsite management, high-speed Internet access, mail services, full café, onsite parking and easy access to the Long Island Rail Road. Members also gain early access to the Airbnb for commercial real-estate, DropDesk.
BUT FIRST, THIS
Fast lane: The New York State Department of Transportation has wrapped up more than $42 million in Suffolk County bridge-repair work, including several projects completed ahead of schedule.
The centerpiece of this latest LI road-repair effort is the new, wider overpass carrying Walt Whitman Road over the Long Island Expressway in Melville, a $28.2 million job replacing a circa-1962 span buckling (figuratively) under the 164,000-plus motor vehicles crossing daily. The new bridge includes broader shoulders, wider pedestrian sidewalks and bigger LIE service road intersections, all designed to enhance vehicular and pedestrian safety.
Albany spent another $14.4 million refurbishing the LIE’s eastbound and westbound spans over River Road in Riverhead, as well as the westbound Middle Country Road bridge over Old Country Road in Riverhead and the Lincoln Avenue Bridge over Sunrise Highway in the Town of Islip – with all work completed five months ahead of schedule, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office. “New York State is building a modern transportation system that will meet the demands of the 21st century,” DOT Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez said in a statement.
Smitten: Independent Patchogue institution Long Island Community Hospital may have finally found its soulmate.
Old doctors in love: Long Island’s last independent hospital is engaged, once again.
About two years after calling off its fling with Stony Brook Medicine, 65-year-old Long Island Community Hospital of Patchogue has accepted a marriage proposal from New York City-based NYU Langone Health – at least, the besotted providers “have signed a non-binding letter of intent to begin discussions on a potential transaction that would bring the two organizations together,” according to a joint statement.
As romantic as that sounds, there’s lots of real estate between here and the altar: NYU Langone took nearly three years to complete its 2019 acquisition of Mineola-based Winthrop University Hospital (now NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island), and there are mounds of due diligence waiting before this new marriage is consummated. But “we are very enthusiastic about the proposed affiliation,” noted NYU Langone Health Dean and CEO Robert Grossman, “as we believe that the united strength of our organizations will greatly enhance delivery of healthcare services to residents of Suffolk County.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Lots to learn: Adelphi’s spruced-up programming includes new continuing-ed and graduate-certificate courses, and a new bachelor’s degree with global implications.
Fire all lasers: Long Island was the epicenter of a 30-year patent battle over who actually invented “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.”
Innovation in the Age of Coronavirus: Come-and-go clinics, a commencement-like experience and more – Long Island’s one-and-only pandemic primer keeps on keeping on.
VOICES
A comprehensive, sustainable food plan for Eastern Long Island will require the participation of many East End stakeholders – and it’s time to get busy, according to food-and-beverage boss Kate Fullam, who flavors our nourishing Voices library with a well-seasoned call to action.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Holy Jeff Bezos! There are now 2,755 billionaires in the world – where do you land on the list? Forbes ranks 2021’s richest.
Throttle back: There’s a razor-thin margin between a strong work ethic and toxic productivity. Huffpost walks the line.
Sunny forecast: As the Great Reopening beckons, venture capitalists are banking on a “hot startup summer” in Silicon Valley. Wired catches some rays.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Kinta AI, a California-based, AI-powered platform for managing factory operations, raised $5.5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Lachy Groom’s LGF and Mo Koyfman’s Shine Capital.
+ Olive Union, a Nevada-based hearing-health company, closed a $7 million Series B funding round led by Beyond Next Ventures, Bonds Investment Groups and Japan Policy Finance Corp.
+ OpenSea, a New York City-based marketplace for non-fungible tokens, raised $23 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Naval Ravikant, Mark Cuban, Tim Ferris, Belinda Johnson, Pascal Capital, Blockchain Capital and Regan Bozman, among others.
+ CirrusMD, a Colorado-based provider of on-demand virtual-care services, raised $20 million in Series C funding led by Blue Venture Fund, with participation from 7wireVentures, Drive Capital and the Colorado Impact Fund.
+ Entrada Therapeutics, a Massachusetts-based biotech focused on intracellular biologics, closed a $116 million Series B financing round led by Wellington Management Co., with participation from Redmile Group, TCG Crossover, Greenspring Associates, Point72, Qatar Investment Authority, Moore Strategic Ventures, Goldman Sachs, CureDuchenne Ventures and an undisclosed global investment firm.
+ Living Security, a Texas-based cybersecurity company, closed a $14 million Series B funding round led by Updata Partners, with participation from previous investors Silverton Partners, Active Capital, Rain Capital and SaaS Venture Partners.
BELOW THE FOLD (Competition Edition)
Facial: Surely we can do better.
Signup: The Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council is offering a $2,000 non-clinical scholarship to future communications professionals.
Faceoff: Federal health officials have set a $500,000 build-a-better-mask contest.
Livestream: With $1.5 million on the line, Rice University’s “largest, richest student business startup competition” goes virtual.
No contest: Please continue supporting the amazing companies that support Innovate LI, including Bridgeworks, a true Long Island leader in the critical coworking space. Check them out.
