No. 1068: School’s out – but fairies, affordable housing, ancient civilizations and sweet pralines are all in

 

See you in September: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, as schools across Long Island and the rest of the nation wrap up the 2025-26 academic year.

Heartfelt congratulations to the Class of 2026 as a fresh crop of graduates bids farewell to high school this week – if you thought that was fun (or not), wait until you see what comes next! The rest of us already know what comes next, including the second half of this latest busy workweek (starting with this snappy midweek innovation review).

Stuck in the middle with you: Speaking of mids, it’s getting close to the end of the month (today is June 24) and Summer has just begun, so of course we’re kicking off today’s edition with a nod to Midsummer (or Midsommar, if you’re feeling particularly Scandinavian).

It’s a (largely Swedish and Finnish) celebration of nature’s beauty and bounty that falls not in the middle of Summer – as the name might suggest – but around the Summer Solstice, which of course rolled through our beautiful Northern Hemisphere on Sunday (actually, the middle of the Summer harvest season, for those keeping score). So go find yourself some strawberries, a floral crown and a nice bonfire.

Mood enhancements: Also worth celebrating are International Fairy Day (a global folklore-fest embracing whimsy and magic) and the National Day of Joy (encouraging Americans to tune out the demoralizing and utterly embarrassing national news and take pleasure in the simple things, like kindness and community).

If those observances don’t put a smile on your face, this one almost certainly will: It’s also National Pralines Day, combining nuts, sugar, cream and (if you’re lucky) chocolate truffles every June 24.

Southern comfort: Other international events bringing Americans comfort and joy include the Gadsden Purchase, through which the United States purchased roughly 30,000 square miles of land from Mexico (basically, the southern portions of modern-day Arizona and New Mexico) for a modest $10 million – the last substantial territorial acquisition in the contiguous United States, inked by President Franklin Pierce on this date in 1853.

The Twain shall meet: Farther north, Connecticut-based inventor Samuel Clemens (you may know him by his famous pen name) earned his second of three patents (this one for a pre-pasted scrapbook) on June 24, 1873.

Target lock: Heading west to Minnesota, we find the mighty Target Corp. – now a top-10 U.S. retailer, according to the National Retail Federation – which was founded June 24, 1902, by entrepreneur George Draper.

Take your Pickford: Way, way, west, in Hollywood, iconic starlet Mary Pickford signed the first-ever million-dollar contract for an actress 110 years ago today.

This is a recording: And it was June 24, 1963, when the Telcan video recorder – recorded as history’s first home video recorder – was demonstrated publicly for the first time at the BBC’s London studios.

A far cry from the upgrades that would soon follow, the Nottingham Electronic Valve Co.’s breakthrough was expensive (priced around $650) and very limited (it produced low-quality black-and-white recordings for about 20 minutes at a time).

Out with a “bang”: English astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle (1915-2001) – a champion of stellar nucleosynthesis who never embraced the “Big Bang” theory, even though he named it – would be 111 years old today.

Also born on June 24 were French American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours (1771-1834), one of history’s greatest science, engineering and entrepreneurial minds; Austrian-American physicist Victor Hess (1883-1964), who earned a Nobel Prize for discovering cosmic rays; English guitarist Jeff Beck (1944-2023), a visionary virtuoso, eight-time Grammy Award-winner and two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee; English musician, songwriter and actor Mick Fleetwood (born 1947), also enshrined in the Roll & Roll Hall of Fame (as the superstar drummer for British American immortals Fleetwood Mac); and Argentine professional soccer star Lionel Messi (born 1987), still making history.

The Reich stuff: And take a bow, Robert Bernard Reich! The author, professor, political commentator, founding editor of American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and former U.S. secretary of labor – friend of conservatives and liberals, employee of Republican and Democratic Presidents and leading critic of the “sordid and cruel megalomaniac who now occupies the Oval Office,” who firmly believes America will regain its international exceptionalism once Trump is gone – turns 80 today.

Birthday wishes for one of Time magazine’s 10 Most Effective Cabinet Members of the 20th Century gratefully accepted at editor@innovateli.com, along with news tips, calendar events and political commentary (at least, as it relates to the innovation economy).

 

About our sponsor: SUNY Old Westbury empowers students to own the future they want for themselves. In a small-college atmosphere and as part of a dynamic and diverse student body that today is 5,000 strong, students at Old Westbury get up close and personal with the life and career they want to pursue. Whether it’s a cutting-edge graduate program in data analytics, highly respected programs in accounting and computer-information sciences or any of the more than 70 degrees available, a SUNY Old Westbury education sets students on a course toward success. Own your future.

 

BUT FIRST, THIS

Affordable advance: Governor Kathy Hochul has ceremoniously welcomed a state-supported affordable/supportive housing development in the Village of Hempstead.

Designed by Melville-based H2M architects + engineers and built on a long-vacated lot within walking distance of the Long Island Rail Road’s Hempstead Station and the Nassau Inter-County Express bus terminal, the five-story Estella Housing development includes 95 apartments deemed affordable to households earning at or below 60 percent of the Area Median Income. Forty-two units are set aside as “supportive homes for vulnerable individuals and veterans experiencing homelessness,” according to the governor’s office, including 30 supported through the New York State Office of Mental Health’s Community Residence Single Room Occupancy program and 12 backed by an Empire State Supportive Housing Initiative award.

The development – further funded by a New York State Homes and Community Renewal tax-credit program, Albany’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance and the Empire State Development Corp. – also includes a 5,000-square-foot space occupied by nonprofit Morrison Mentors, which provides STEM education and workforce-development programming for at-risk populations. “Estella Housing showcases our efforts to make communities like Hempstead more affordable and how we can support our most vulnerable New Yorkers,” Hochul said Monday.

When in (Ancient) Rome: An international scientific team, including key contributors from Stony Brook University, has traveled through time to unearth a previously undiscovered society emerging after the fall of the Roman Empire.

The multidisciplinary researchers – including Krishna Veeramah, an associate professor in SBU’s Department of Ecology and Evolution, and other Stony Brook contributors – sequenced 300-plus genomes from historical Hungarian cemeteries, aiming to uncover how regional communities developed after the Romans fell. Working with colleagues at Hungary’s Eötvös Loránd University, the scientists filled in blanks left by the various Barbarian kingdoms that replaced the Roman overlords (but left few written records).

By combining ancient DNA and modern archaeological datasets, the team – which shared its findings in a paper published this month in the peer-reviewed journal Science – divined details of life on the Little Hungarian Plain around 1,700 years ago, revealing complex migration patterns and a previously unknown hierarchal society (confirmed by better diets, finer clothes and richer loot at certain gravesites, including weapons and jewelry). “Prior to our ability to analyze the DNA of these peoples … archeologists assumed these communities were of the same rural type,” Veeramah noted. “But what we see is a larger post-Roman society.”

 

TOP OF THE SITE

Risers and shine: A smart (and ambitious) Long Island startup is helping to put high schoolers on the right career paths – and giving regional companies a golden chance to recruit future professionals.

Fight song: Innovate Long Island’s first-ever Reader Pledge Drive is still open! Our safe and secure support page is standing by right now – and even the smallest donation goes a long way toward keeping our newsletters and website content paywall-free. Thanks in advance for helping your favorite innovation-news source fight the good fight!

 

VOICES

Travel through time with one of the world’s most prolific pharma manufacturers, as Long Island Bio Executive Director and Voices History Anchor Tom Mariner traces the unparalleled success of regional cornerstone Amneal Pharmaceuticals – and reveals the secret sauce of the generics giant’s healthcare-affordability mantra.

 

STUFF WE’RE READING

From the start: AI is quickly rewriting the rules of early-stage innovation. The World Economic Forum catches up fast.

A matter of trust: Mobile technology is reshaping financial empowerment – but how do you automate trust? Forbes eyes invisible infrastructure.

Light touch: In a potential solar-power breakthrough, Japanese scientists have learned how to “upgrade” visible light into UV light. Phys.Org brightens your day.

 

RECENT FUNDINGS

+ Tugboat Solutions, a North Dakota-based consumer insurance claims analysis platform, raised $3 million in Seed funding led by ResilienceVC, with participation from Sure Ventures, South Dakota First and Gener8or.

+ Orthogonal, a California-based discovery, orchestration and payments platform for AI agents, raised $4.3 million in Seed funding led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Pioneer Fund, Decasonic, Blast, Outbound and Surreal.

+ Syntax Bio, an Illinois-based synthetic biology company programming new cell therapies, raised $14.4 million in expanded Series A funding led by Astellas Venture Management, Illumina Ventures, DCVC Bio, Civilization Ventures, EGB Capital, Mansueto Office, Portal Innovations, Draper Associates, Allegis Capital, LongGame, Mayo Clinic, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Illinois Ventures, Exit Fund, Sigma Group and Walder Ventures.

+ fomo, a New York City-based trading platform, raised $75 million in Series B funding led by Index Ventures, with participation from Union Square Ventures and Benchmark.

+ Bionyra Phama, a Massachusetts- and France-based clinical-stage biopharma developing next-generation biologics for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, raised $165 million million in Series A funding led by Jeito Capital and Sofinnova Partners, with participation from Arkin Bio, Sanofi Ventures, Sixty Degree Capital, Vives Partners and Apollo Health Ventures.

+ Upscale AI, a California-based, AI-powered networking infrastructure company, raised $190 million in Series A-1 funding led Premji Invest, with participation from NVIDIA, Salesforce Ventures, Seligman Ventures, Temasek, Maverick Silicon, Mayfield, Prosperity7 Ventures, StepStone Group and Tiger Global.

 

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 – on Long Island, and soon, across New York State (just ask SUNY Old Westbury). Gregory Zeller can tell you more.

 

BELOW THE FOLD (Alan Greenspan Edition)

Bankable: The longest-tenured Federal Reserve chairman was the rarest of the rare: a celebrity banker.

Nobody’s perfect: He scored many wins but couldn’t escape the shadow of the Great Recession.

Still teaching: Greenspan’s work – and legacy – were based on facts, not presidential delusions.

Count on it: Please continue supporting the innovative institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including SUNY Old Westbury, where cutting-edge academics – multiplied by strong social foundations and broad diversity – strengthen students’ bottom lines. Check them out.