Air quality: Welcome to the huffing, puffing middle of another breathtaking workweek, dear readers, with spring and innovation in the air.
It’s Wednesday out there, and we’re helping you breeze over the hump by filling your lungs (and your mind) with some fresh socioeconomic excellence. Ready? Deep breath!
A day with a peel: Had to slip that in on National Banana Day.
Chopped champion: A look inside our April 19 mystery basket reveals rice balls, bananas, garlic and amaretto, all of which enjoy a national day today. You have 20 minutes for the appetizer round, chefs … your time starts now.
Whatever you make, we’re gonna need to work it off – good thing it’s also World Bicycle Day, the popular annual spin on physical fitness, rolling out every April 19.
Starts with a bang: Less about innovation than a bloody melee that sparked the primed-to-blow American Revolution, the infamous “shot heard round the world” – fired by the Redcoats, or armed American Colonists, or neither, or both – rang out on this date in 1775 in Lexington, Mass.
Duryea discrepancies: All about innovation was automotive pioneer Charles Duryea and his gasoline-powered automobile, which was the first of its kind (or was it?) when he introduced it (or did he?) on April 19, 1892.
Different spin: Giving “Bicycle Day” an entirely different meaning was Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, who 80 years ago today consumed 250 micrograms of a compound he derived from a fungus, then peddled home and recorded history’s most famous LSD trip.
Back in the day: The American Broadcasting Company logo in 1948, when ABC first networked.
Know your ABC: Spin your dial to Channel 7 here on Long Island, where of course you’ll find the American Broadcasting Co. Television Network, which first transmitted out of Philadelphia on this date in 1948 to affiliates in New York, Maryland and the District of Columbia.
Hard news: And speaking of broadcasting milestones, New York City radio station WINS (1010 AM) famously pulled the plug on Rock ‘N’ Roll on April 19, 1965, in favor of an all-news format.
While WINS is still giving us the world in 22 minutes – with the old-timey teletype sound effect and everything – the switch was initially considered a big mistake.
Prohibited: American crimefighter Eliot Ness (1903-1957) – the American Prohibition agent known best as the leader of the Untouchables, archnemesis of Chicago kingpin Al Capone – would be 120 years old today.
Sharp Sharapova: Maria has been just as successful off-court as on.
Also born on April 19 were Norwegian American entrepreneur Ole Evinrude (born Ole Andreassen Aaslundeie, 1877-1934), who invented the first practical outboard motor; American conservationist Richard Pough (1904-2003), founding president of The Nature Conservancy; English comedian, actor and pianist Dudley Moore (1935-2002), victim of a rare neurological disease; French Spanish fashion designer Paloma Picasso (born 1949), daughter of Pablo Picasso and celebrated jewelry designer; and Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova (born 1987), the first Russian woman ranked No. 1 in her sport and a really savvy investor, according to Forbes.
What’s your Curry? And take a bow, Timothy James Curry! The versatile English actor and singer – who graced everything from classic camp to action thrillers to slapstick comedies before a stroke confined him to a wheelchair in 2012, and has since transitioned exclusively to voice acting – turns 77 today.
Wish the dedicated, multitalented performer well at editor@innovateli.com, where your news tips clarify our voice and your calendar events showcase our versatility (and we’re always acting on your behalf).
About our sponsor: ZE Creative Communications is a full-service, integrated marketing communications agency specializing in public relations, creative marketing, crisis communication and social media. Founded in Great Neck, ZE Creative Communications has been helping clients create compelling and successful messaging campaigns for more than three decades. Learn more here.
BUT FIRST, THIS
Tuning up: A centerpiece of Long Island entertainment is accepting applications for its 2023 Student Scholarship program.
The Stony Brook-based Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame will take applications from graduating high school seniors across Long Island – including Suffolk, Nassau, Queens and King counties – interested in studying music in college. With individual $500 scholarships at stake, applicants with a minimum high school GPA of 2.5 already accepted to an accredited college or university have until May 12 to submit high school transcripts, third-party letters of recommendation attesting to their musical commitment and 400- to 500-word essays on their education and career goals.
The application form and more details on the 2023 program – which marks the return of the long-running scholarship awards after a one-year hiatus – are both available here. “For over a decade, the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame has been delighted to distribute tens of thousands of dollars for scholarships,” noted LIMEHOF Education Committee Chairman Tom Needham, adding the awards “provide support to numerous aspiring professional musicians and music teachers.”
Ageless: Investing in the science of aging is investing in a healthier New York, according to Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis.
Old money: An investment for the ages will add new wrinkles to Stony Brook University’s groundbreaking work on the science of aging.
Stony Brook’s Presidential Innovation and Excellence Fund, a research-rich amalgam of Simons Foundation funding and private donations, will ante $10 million to create the Center for Healthy Aging, focused on a regional 65-plus population that grew by more than 113,000 people over the last decade. The center will integrate resources from across Stony Brook Medicine – including the Renaissance School of Medicine and the SBU schools of Nursing, Social Welfare and Dental Medicine – with research emerging from the Center for Biotechnology, the Program in Public Health and other top Stony Brook academic centers.
The well-funded mission: revolutionize senior healthcare. “Our multidisciplinary Center for Heathy Aging will bring together resources … to focus on vastly improving the care of the aging across Long Island,” noted Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis. “By providing a centralized home for basic, translational and clinical research, along with advanced geriatric specialty care, the center will help ensure older New Yorkers can live healthy, fulfilling lives.”
POD PEOPLE
Episode 19: Timothy Sams, new thinking at SUNY Old Westbury.
May approaches, and with it Season 4 of Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast, featuring all-new one-on-ones with the best and brightest regional innovators. Dozens of brilliant conversations from Seasons 1-3 are streaming now; pick a big brain … then pick their big brain!
TOP OF THE SITE
Welcome to the club: With an enrollment uptick sure to follow, SUNY Old Westbury will become the eighth university spread across Nassau and Suffolk counties.
Spend like water: With billions of dollars in play, Albany is cutting dozens of checks — and accepting new funding pitches from clean-water projects across the state.
It’s that simple: The more subscribers we get, the easier it will be to keep delivering these enriching and entertaining newsletters. Tell your friends.
VOICES
Cushman & Wakefield Managing Director and Voices commercial real estate anchor David Pennetta explores the slow but steady evolution of “green infrastructure” – and details why it’s more important than ever on sunny, windy Long Island.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Mission Impossible: Just a fad – or are plant-based meats here to stay? Vox grills burger barons.
(Not) by the book: Bankrupt FTX was doomed by bad bookkeeping. Inc. scours the spreadsheets.
Spies like us: Inside the Chinese “secret police station” busted in NYC. Reuters dabbles in espionage.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Reef, a Hawaii-based Net Revenue Retention software provider, closed a $5.2 million seed funding round led by Struck Capital, SCV-SBI, Builders VC and Dig Ventures.
+ Epic Sciences, a California-based diagnostics platform, raised $24 million in Series G funding led by Deerfield Management, Arsenal Capital Partners, Blue Ox Healthcare Partners, Domain Ventures and Labcorp.
+ Aer Therapeutics, a North Carolina-based biopharma focused on lung diseases, raised $36 million in Series A funding backed by Canaan, OrbiMed and Hatteras Venture Partners.
+ ThayerMahan, a Connecticut-based autonomous maritime surveillance solutions provider, raised $30 million in Series C funding led by MC2 Security Fund, I Squared Capital and Ducenta Squared Asset Management.
+ Whizz, a New York City-based e-bike subscription platform, raised $3.4 million in seed funding backed by Joint Journey, TMT Investments and several private investors.
+ Kintra Fibers, a NYC-based materials science innovator, raised $8 million in Series A funding led by H&M Group, BESTSELLER Invest FWD and Fashion for Good.
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 ZE Creative Communications). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Pitch Perfect Edition)ZECC
Spoiler alert: The “Planet of the Apes” is Earth, “Soylent Green” is people and Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father!
Change-up: Forget steroids – climate change could be increasing home runs.
Fastballs: At some stadiums, faster games are extending beer sales.
Curveballs: Deciphering cinema’s all-time greatest plot twists.
Earned runs: Please continue supporting the amazing agencies that support Innovate Long Island, including ZE Creative Communications, which has earned its decades of success with brilliant pitches, smart strategies and masterful control. Check them out.
