Farm report: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, as we shake off these April showers and get our hands good and dirty, tilling the back 40 of socioeconomic progress.
It’s April 6 out there, and we’re sowing the seeds of innovation, essential to a bountiful economic-development harvest. Dig it!
Bowled over: You are what you açaí.
Healthy start to any day: Before we begin, let’s raise a spoon to National Açaí Bowl Day, an annual celebration of the popular superfruit acai, pureed with frozen bananas and berries and finished with granola, seeds and other wholesome toppings.
On the other end of the nutrition spectrum, it’s also National Twinkie Day. Please celebrate responsibly.
Beer here: Also requiring responsible revelry is New Beer’s Eve, an April 6 observance marking the night before New Beer’s Day, which is all about the legalization of U.S. beer sales on April 7, 1933 – a precursor to the official end of Prohibition.
Picture this: If there are photos of that first New Beer’s Eve, you can likely thank master innovator George Eastman, who sold his first roll-film Kodak camera 133 years ago today.
It stuck: Speaking of Kodak moments, New Jersey-based DuPont chemist Roy Plunkett accidentally discovered Teflon on this date in 1938.
Last stop: Also sticking around (for a while) were New York City trolley cars, which ended 125 consecutive years of service on April 6, 1957, with final runs on what is now Roosevelt Island.
New York trolley service tracked back to 1832 and the rollout of the world’s first streetcar line.
In a pinch, maybe: Jake can rake, but we probably won’t get to see it.
Designate this: It was this date in 1973 when the designated hitter – long an abomination of Major League Baseball’s junior circuit, about to delegitimize National League pitching and batting statistics and forever eliminate incredible moments like this – became a thing.
Still going: And on that same day – April 6, 1973 – NASA’s Pioneer 11, the first Earth ship to study Saturn up close, blasted off from Cape Canaveral.
Carrying a message from humanity to the cosmos (and directions to Earth, for curious visitors), the probe stopped transmitting in 1995 – though best guesses say it’s still hurtling through interstellar space, with a flyby of the star Lambda Aquila expected in about 4 million years.
Cover me! American nuclear physicist John Higson “Jack” Cover Jr. (1920-2009) – a NASA contractor who invented the Taser stun gun in his garage after reading about a man temporarily immobilized by a downed power line – would be 102 years old today.
Mistral: Lyrical Latina.
Also born on April 6 were Italian painter Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483-1520), the Renaissance master known best as Raphael; Chilean poet-diplomat Gabriela Mistral (born Lucila Godoy Alcyaga, 1889-1957), a Nobel Prize-winner remembered for her humanism; American engineer and industrialist Donald Douglas Sr. (1892-1981), who founded the Douglas Aircraft Co.; controversial American geneticist James Watson (born 1928), a Nobel laureate revered for answering fundamental genetics questions, before things got ugly; and American actor Billy Dee Williams (born William December Williams Jr., 1937), known best as intergalactic “Star Wars” scoundrel Lando Calrissian.
Great ant: And take a bow, Paul Stephen Rudd! The American actor – who reached new heights as Marvel’s Ant-Man, and is also a candy store empresario in upstate Rhinebeck – turns 53 today.
Give People Magazine’s reigning sexiest man alive your best at editor@innovateli.com, where there’s nothing sweeter (or sexier, for that matter) than your news tips and calendar events.
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BUT FIRST, THIS
Job well done: New rental housing and robust job creation highlight the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency’s 2021 performance, according to the agency’s annual economic-impact report.
Compiled by Connecticut-based consultancy Camoin Associates, the fiscal rundown details 12 projects supported by the IDA in calendar 2021 – an important year, the agency notes, with regional economies fighting their way out of the pandemic. All told, the projects are expected to create more than $380 million in construction spending, the report states, with a roughly $80 million “net benefit” for the Nassau economy.
The 12 projects – half of which focus on rental housing, with 885 new units (including 240 new affordable units) on the way – are also expected to create 2,870 jobs, including 1,100-plus post-construction full-time positions. “This agency is very proud of our steadfast approach to growing our economy throughout the last year – creating new jobs (and) building new places for current and future residents to live while growing the county’s tax base,” Nassau County IDA Chairman Richard Kessel said Tuesday. “The 2021 report is evidence that we have certainly rebounded.”
Pardon our appearance: Renovations are in order inside Long Island Innovation Park.
Answering the call: A Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency transaction will trigger a $44.3 million investment inside Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge that leverages a new Town of Smithtown overlay zone.
The IDA has preliminarily approved a tax-incentives package backing Venture One Real Estate, an LLC aiming to demolish an underutilized 90,702-square-foot office building and construct a 123,970-square-foot industrial space on 7.4 acres straddling Wireless Boulevard. The project – which promises 220 construction-phase jobs, with 30 full-time-equivalent jobs to come – advances under Smithtown’s new overlay zone, a bit of zoning flexibility created specifically in response to a 2017 Economic Opportunity Analysis that prioritized new industrial spaces.
The Venture One project, which must still undergo a final IDA vote, checks off important economic-development boxes – but more importantly, it addresses a critical big-picture need, according to Suffolk County IDA Executive Director Tony Catapano. “It is no secret that industrial space is in high demand,” Catapano said Tuesday. “The IDA is pleased to invest in this project, as it will provide quality space for attracting new businesses to the area or assist existing businesses to expand.”
POD PEOPLE
Episode 16: Brian Fried, always thinking.
What really makes the HIA-LI tick? How about the Long Island Association? What are Adelphi University’s long-term plans? What’s on SUNY Old Westbury’s drawing board? And Hofstra’s? What are the secrets of Long Island’s most successful product designer … and what really scares the Island’s top ghost hunter?
Sponsored by clean-energy pioneer ThermoLift, Season 2 of Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast delivers these answers and more – a top-tier classroom for inventors, investors, entrepreneurs and executives. Get an earful.
TOP OF THE SITE
Pac-Man fever: April Fools’ Day pranks notwithstanding, Smith Haven Mall’s Game On Retro Arcade is a time-tripping smash hit.
Solid ground: State and regional backers are hoping a state-of-the-art Ground Transportation Center will help Long Island MacArthur Airport take off.
Gentle reminder: Thanks for forwarding this brilliant newsletter to your fellow innovators – also remind them that individual subscriptions are always easy, always free.
VOICES
Nonprofits anchor Jeffrey Reynolds, president and CEO of the Garden City-based Family and Children’s Association, books some time with Airbnb, which offered people around the world a chance to help strapped Ukraine residents – a brilliant innovation lesson for Long Island charities.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Adapting quickly: Innovation is supposed to be difficult – it’s how you adjust that counts. Fast Co. pivots.
Easing off: With fuel prices soaring (and always), there are proven ways to stretch every gallon of gas. Huffpost tanks.
Accentuating positives: Russia’s horrific Ukraine war could actually promote a long-term shift toward sustainability. Nature extrapolates.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Herb’N Eden, a Georgia-based all-natural bath and beauty company, closed a $1.2 million funding round led by Mercantile Venture Capital, with participation from The Core Venture Studio.
+ Dank Bank, a Delaware-based NFT trading platform, raised $4.2 million in pre-seed funding backed by Mechanism Capital, Samsung NEXT, Morningstar Ventures, Vincent Van Dough’s Starry Night Capital, Kyros Ventures and Cryptopathic.
+ Electives, a Massachusetts-based education platform connecting teachers and corporate learners, closed an $8 million Series A funding led by Accomplice and G2O Ventures, with participation from Boston Seed Capital.
+ Green Revolution Cooling, a Texas-based provider of single-phase immersion cooling for data centers, raised $28 million in Series C funding led by SK Lubricants.
+ Black Crow AI, a New York City-based, no-code, machine-learning infrastructure company, raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Imaginary Ventures, Left Lane, Good Friends, Interplay and Red Antler, among others.
+ Flux Marine, a Rhode Island-based developer of electric outboard motors and watercraft battery systems, raised $15.5 million in Series A funding led by Ocean Zero, Boost VC and Winklevoss Capital, among others.
Like this newsletter? Innovate Long Island newsletter, website and podcast sponsorships are a prime opportunity to reach the inventors, investors, entrepreneurs and executives you need to know (just ask New York Tech). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD
Short attention span: This is your brain on TikTok.
TikTok brain: Short-content videos are rewiring kids’ minds.
Candy crush: Inflation is battering the Easter bunny.
Wordle on steroids: Meet Semantle, Wordle’s insanely difficult copycat.
Up-loaded: Please continue supporting the amazing institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including the New York Institute of Technology, where they’re stocked with today’s top tech tools – and already developing tomorrow’s. Check them out.
