Finish what you started: Kudos, dear readers! With focus, grit and a dash of dedication, you’ve completed another productive Autumnal workweek and reached the start of a bright and brisk Long Island weekend.
Almost! Just one little workday to navigate before you can throttle down – and this week-in-innovation review to help you finish big.
Expiration date?: Not to be confused with your daily pharmaceutical regimen, Good & Plenty licorice candies have been around for more than 130 years.
One can only hope: Today is Oct. 24, and to our readers throughout the 193 Member States comprising the United Nations, our deepest apologies for any recent American developments you might find … distasteful. Also, our sincerest wishes for a peaceful United Nations Day, celebrating undying (if fleeting) hopes for global unity.
You are what you eat: Celebrating healthy, sustainable and accessible food choices, we also raise our spoons, forks, sporks, chopsticks and other utensils to National Food Day, the annual homage to wholesome eating.
Alas, while National Food Day feasts on nutritious and delicious choices, the Oct. 24 holiday menu does not: Please choose from National Bologna Day (processing your lunchmeat), World Tripe Day (boiling up some tasty cow-stomach lining) and Good & Plenty Day (binging on the nation’s oldest candy brand, which dates all the way back to 1893).
Built to last: There’s good evidence (and plenty of it) that the spectacular Cathedral of Chartres was consecrated on this date in 1260 in Chartres, France, about 50 miles southwest of Paris. (The 765-year-old church – now a UNESCO World Heritage Site – is actually the last of a line of churches built at the site, with 9th-,10th-, 11th- and 12th-century versions all burning down).
Fire at will: Also burning down is the phosphorous friction match, which was patented on Oct. 24, 1836, by Massachusetts-based inventor Alonzo Phillips.
All on the line: Also lighting things up was the first transcontinental telegraph line, which became a thing on this date in 1861, when Western Union engineers linked the nation’s eastern and western telegraph networks in Utah – allowing, for the first time, instantaneous communication between Washington and San Francisco.
Washington heights: Still dazzling, almost a century later.
By George: Also making new connections was the George Washington Bridge, which was officially dedicated by New York Gov. Franklin Roosevelt 94 years ago today (eight months ahead of schedule and a day before it opened to vehicular traffic, for those keeping score).
Sonic boom bust: And crossing the Atlantic Ocean for the last time – with passengers – was British Airways’ supersonic Concorde jet, which made its final commercial flight from New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport on Oct. 24, 2003.
Air France had ended its Concorde service in May of that year. The final New York-London supersonic flight was timed to coincide with two other ceremonial British Airways Concorde flights: one from Scotland to Heathrow and another that took off from Heathrow, circled the Bay of Biscay and returned to London.
The little things: Dutch naturalist and microscopist Antoine van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) – the first to observe and describe bacteria and protozoa, earning him immortal status as the “Father of Microbiology” – would be 393 years old today.
Love the Drake: Few rap artists have been praised as much as the Canadian superstar.
Also born on Oct. 24 were American writer, editor and 19th Century influencer Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879), who championed education, lobbied for the creation of America’s Thanksgiving holiday and wrote the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”; American filmmaker, actor, aviator and business executive Merian Cooper (1893-1973), a WWI U.S. Army Air Service combat veteran, innovative entrepreneur and larger-than-life daredevil who directed the original “King Kong”; American mechanical engineer and inventor Nathaniel Wyeth (1911-1990), who fiddled with polyethylene terephthalate and created plastic soda bottles; American comic book writer Bob Kane (born Robert Khan, 1915-1988), remembered best as the co-creator of Batman (and least for being a bit of a supervillain himself); and Canadian rapper, singer and actor Drake (born Aubrey Drake Graham, 1986), an impressive five-time Grammy Award-winner (with an astounding 55 Grammy nominations).
We’re in the wrong business: And take a bow, PewDiePie! The popular Swedish Internet celebrity (born Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg) – beloved by his “Bro Army” and cheered globally for his energetic gaming videos, copious use of Swedish swear words and impressive net worth – turns 36 today.
Send the world’s highest-paid YouTuber a birthday greeting at editor@innovateli.com, where we don’t have PewDiePie’s fabulous bank account or 110 million subscribers, or his trophy case of awards or lucrative endorsement deals, or his … where were we going with this?
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BUT FIRST, THIS
Stick around: Hofstra University President Susan Poser’s “exceptional leadership” has earned her a contract extension.
Hold that Poser: The Hofstra University Board of Trustees has renewed the contract of University President Susan Poser.
The board announced Wednesday that it had extended Poser’s contract by five years, with her new term slated to run through August 2031. Poser, the ninth president in Hofstra University history and first woman to fill the office, was selected to succeed longtime President (now President Emeritus) Stuart Rabinowitz in August 2021 and officially inaugurated that October.
Board of Trustees Chairman Donald Schaeffer praised Poser’s “exceptional leadership,” which has “strengthened [Hofstra’s] academic profile, elevated research and enhanced the student experience.” Poser – a former vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago who earned a law degree and a PhD in jurisprudence from the University of California, Berkeley – said it was “a privilege to serve the university,” adding that she looked forward to “continu(ing) the important work that we have begun at Hofstra.”
Flood warning: More than 27,000 Nassau and Suffolk businesses face serious threats from flood-related economic losses.
That’s the troubling word from the Long Island Regional Planning Council, which has refreshed the Long Island Economic Flood Risk Study, a comprehensive Geographic Information System analysis the council originally commissioned in 2024. The update –like the original study, completed by Syosset-based LIRO GIS – lists additional business communities along the North Shore and along the Island’s inland waterways, and calculates that nearly 7,000 individual businesses face “high” or “extreme” coastal-flooding risks.
According to the revamped study, those risks threaten more than 58,000 jobs and upwards of $11 billion in annual sales volumes. “As we have seen several times in just the last 18 months alone, the devastation from severe flooding brought about by heavy rainfall presents the potential for severe economic loss along our coastal communities,” noted LIRPC Chairman John Cameron. “This important study provides a tool for all levels of government and the private sector to develop strategies to minimize the risk.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Intelligence, squared: Artificial intelligence won’t replace human real estate brokers, according to Commercial Industrial Brokers Society of Long Island President Ralph Benzakein, but it will supercharge the fastest and smartest of them.
Gifts, wrapped: This holiday season (after dazzling your clients and partners with one-of-a-kind gift boxes from LocaLI Bred), give your entire innovation team a gift that keeps on giving – easy subscriptions to Innovate Long Island’s engaging and informative newsletters are always easy, always free.
ICYMI
The world’s best bagel might come from Long Island – or New Jersey or Chicago or New Orleans or Honolulu or Spain. Only the judges at next month’s 2025 New York BagelFest can say for sure.
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BEST OF THE WEST (AND SOMETIMES NORTH/SOUTH)
Innovate LI’s inbox overrunneth with inspirational innovations from all North American corners. This week’s brightest out-of-towners:
From California: Los Angeles-based pet-care pacesetter SiiPet uncovers new health insights with artificial intelligence-powered feline litterbox monitor.
From New York City: Professional-development pioneer American Management Association reinforces AMA seminars with AI-enabled “skills coach” tool.
From California: Palo Alto-based electric micromobility master ALSO introduces game-changing lineup of short-distance electric vehicles for consumer and commercial use.
ON THE MOVE
Steven Wright
+ Steven Wright has been appointed director of sales at Woodbury-based SterlingRisk. He was senior vice president and head of U.S. BrokerConnect at global credit insurance company Coface.
+ Shameika Williams has been named to the third cohort of SUNY’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice Fellows. She is an assistant professor of public health at SUNY Old Westbury.
+ Lucas Pelaez has been hired as a project engineer at P.W. Grosser Consulting in Bohemia. He was a design engineer at Fiskaa Engineering in New York City.
+ Long Island Cares-The Harry Chapin Regional Food Bank has announced two new hires:
- Colleen Kiker has been hired as retail stores donation coordinator. She was the lead teacher at The Learning Experience in Rocky Point.
- Max Luft has been hired as program associate. He was a peer counselor at Stony Brook University.
+ Daniel Bernard, has been hired as a partner at Tully Law Group in Melville, focused on estate planning, estate tax planning and business succession planning. He is the founder of Bernard Law in Shoreham.
+ Neelima Sehgal has been named a 2025 fellow of the American Physical Society. She is a professor of physics and astronomy in the Stony Brook University College of Arts and Sciences.
+ Devon Giordano has been hired as executive director of the Sayville-based Long Island Conservancy. She was associate director of development at the Nature Conservancy of New York in Cold Spring Harbor.
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 LocaLI Bred). Gregory Zeller can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Ballroom Blitz Edition)
Worth a thousand words: Not a good look for the White House.
Outcry: Outrage abounds as the East Wing comes crashing down.
Out of order: Demolition proceeds, but the ballroom plans have not been approved.
Pardon our appearance: This is not the first time the People’s House has undergone extensive renovations.
Constructive suggestion: Please continue supporting the ingenious innovators who support Innovate Long Island, including LocalLI Bred, which redesigns your holiday gift-giving strategy with unique Long Island products and creative discounts. Check them out (and don’t forget to use code “innovateli5” on those big corporate orders!).
