We’ll be right back: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, and another high-energy, late-Spring hump day.
Before we hurdle, a quick reminder that Innovate Long Island is having a crazy-busy couple of days – collecting our first-ever Fair Media Council Folio Award and showing the flag at the inaugural Long Island Tech & Innovation Summit – and won’t be publishing a newsletter this Friday.
Fret not: We’ll be back on schedule next week! Now, on with your midweek innovation review.
Iced, iced baby: Enjoy your favorite tea iced today.
Spicing things up: Today is June 10 and also the second Wednesday of June 2026, the latter making this World Franchise Day, a celebration of the profound socioeconomic impacts of the franchise business model – near-and-dear, obviously, to Innovate Long Island’s entrepreneurial-toolbox motif.
That shines a spotlight on our friends over at the Florida-based Spice & Tea Exchange, which now boasts franchised locations in Port Jefferson and Patchogue. Of course, they were likely to have a big day anyway, with both National Herbs and Spices Day and National Iced Tea Day falling on June 10.
Don’t have a cow, man! (Wait, on second thought…): If that whets your appetite, you’re in luck – National Egg Roll Day (munching on the crunchy fried apps), National Frosted Cookie Day (putting the icing on top) and National Black Cow Day (which has nothing to do with ebony bovines and everything to do with root beer floats) are all on today’s menu.
String theory: Also floating was Benjamin Franklin’s kite, famously flown during a thunderstorm on this date in 1752. (For the record, while the exact date of the Founding Father’s mythological electricity experiment is disputed, historians generally agree that June 10 is close enough.)
Doc(umented): Speaking of Colonial America, medical practitioner licenses were first required in America on June 10, 1760, as part of a freshly minted Colonial New York City law regulating medicinal practices.
Point taken: Too bad they never regulated doctors’ handwriting – that would have given even more gravitas to the brilliance of Hungarian brothers Georg and László Bíró, who earned an Argentinian patent for the ballpoint pen on this date in 1943.
Poly market: Famous U.S. patents issued on this date include one earned by chemical company DuPont, which locked up super-strong polyester film Mylar 74 years ago today.
Plot twist: The Millennium Bridge opened on schedule … but might have been overmatched by the pedestrian turnout.
London bridge is (almost) falling down: And it was June 10, 2000, when London’s instantly recognizable Millennium Bridge opened to the public.
It was also June 10, 2000, when London’s instantly recognizable Millennium Bridge was closed to the public for emergency engineering inspections, after the heralded River Thames crossing began swaying under the weight of an enormous volume of pedestrian traffic. (A limit on the number of walkers allowed to cross the unique bridge at any moment was quickly enforced.)
Over the rainbow: American actress, singer and dancer Judy Garland (born Frances Gumm, 1922-1969) – a gifted child star who grew up to become one of the 20th Century’s most enduring celebrity icons – would be 104 years old today.
Just her typecast: Hattie McDaniel, who portrayed a domestic servant in more than one movie, famously noted, “I’d rather play a maid than be one.”
Also born on June 10 was American journalist Rebecca Felton (1835-1930), the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate (a symbolic appointment that lasted only one day, capping a long career in politics and journalism); American physician and explorer Frederick Cook (1865-1940), who insisted he reached the North Pole a year before fellow adventurer Robert Peary, though his Inuit guides claimed otherwise; American actress, singer and comedian Hattie McDaniel (1893-1952), the first African American to win an Academy Award (for her supporting role in “Gone With the Wind”); American illustrator and children’s book author Maurice Sendak (1928-2012), who visualized “Where the Wild Things Are”; and Indian American business executive Sundar Pichai (born Pichai Sundararajan, 1972), the billionaire CEO of Google and parent company Alphabet.
Ice queen: And take a bow, Tara Kristen Lipinski! The American sports commentator and former competitive figure skater – the 1997 U.S. national champion and world champion, a two-time Champions Series Final champion and a 1998 Olympic gold medalist (the youngest to earn gold in an individual-athlete competition in Winter Olympics history, at just 15 years and 255 days) – turns 44 today.
Send your best to the retired figure skater at editor@innovateli.com, where your news tips and calendar events are pure gold.
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BUT FIRST, THIS
Breath of fresh air: A Long Island hospital is among the first in the nation – and the very first on the East Coast – to deploy an innovative neurotechnology device designed to quickly wean patients off mechanical ventilators.
Northwell Health’s North Shore University Hospital has called in the AeroPace, a catheter device that aims to rapidly strengthen diaphragm muscles in patients spending a protracted amount of time breathing through ventilators. The flagship product of Lungpacer Medical USA stimulates phrenic nerves via electrodes attached to subclavian or internal jugular veins, forcing the diaphragm to contract, preventing diaphragm atrophy and reducing ventilator time by hours – in some cases days, according to Pennsylvania-based Lungpacer.
Noting that “90 percent of [breathing] work comes from the diaphragm,” critical care expert Eric Gottesman – NSUH’s director of intensivist medicine and head of the Manhasset-based hospital’s AeroPace program – praised the FDA-approved rapid-recovery technology. “The longer you are on a ventilator, the longer your recovery,” Gottsman said. “Being on a ventilator for an extended period can lead to other medical complications. This innovative device can make an outsized impact on patient outcomes.”
Book smart: “The 91st Day” offers a rare look inside the HR world.
Human resourceful: A Port Jefferson Station-based human relations expert is offering non-HR professionals a valuable glimpse behind the people-ops curtain.
Nathaniel Sietz, a senior employee relations specialist for National Grid, has published “The 91st Day: A Firsthand Account From the Frontlines of HR,” a behind-the-scenes look at what really happens in HR departments – particularly during and immediately after the first 90 days of a new employee’s tenure, when “the employee is showing their best self [and] the organization is showing theirs.” Writing under the nom de plume “Nate Hill,” Sietz – whose lengthy résumé includes stints in employee recruitment and HR management at Uniondale-based Lockheed Martin, Woodbury-based AriZona Beverages USA and other large-scale enterprises – focuses on employee and company performance around the 90-day mark, “when that window closes and reality shows up.”
Day 91 is when employees find out “whether the culture was real” and whether the company is indeed the right professional fit. “I’ve been in HR long enough to have watched this happen hundreds of times,” Sietz told Innovate Long Island. “I think it has real implications not just for individuals, but for how Long Island organizations attract and hold onto talent.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Real serious: With a new law on the books requiring disclosure from advertisers who utilize “synthetic performers,” New York has widened its national lead on AI transparency.
Keepsakes: Innovate Long Island is keeping it fresh, keeping it real and keeping it free – no charge for our newsletter subscriptions, no paywalls on our website. We want to keep it that way, but we need your help! Please keep our safe, secure and very important Reader Pledge Drive front of mind.
VOICES
Happy birthday, America! And happy birthday, New York State! As the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, the Empire State blows out 238 candles of its own – and Sahn Ward Braff Coschignano Managing Member Michael Sahn is blowing through two centuries-plus of U.S. law as shaped by New York’s most memorable lawmakers.
STUFF WE’RE READING
‘Force’ to be reckoned with: Canada’s comprehensive conservation plan leaves plenty of room for ecological innovations. Pew Charitable Trusts looks north.
This time, it’s personal: Innovators (on both sides of cybercrime) battle it out over online personal security. Forbes picks sides.
Seed fund: Anticipating growers’ evolving needs is the genetic heart of seed innovation. Seed World sows it up.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Rejuvenate Bio, a California-based biotech developing gene therapies for age-related and chronic diseases, raised $6 million in funding led by VCapital, with participation from Merck Animal Health, Kendall Capital Partners, Connecticut Innovations and Digitalis.
+ Reset, a California-based embedded earned-wage platform for credit unions and community banks, raised $6 million in Seed funding led by Georgia’s Own Credit Union, InTouch Credit Union, Chartway Credit Union, VyStar Credit Union, One Washington Financial, Curql, Navari and the Bankers Helping Bankers Fund.
+ Lexful, a Utah-based, AI-native, secure-IT documentation platform for managed-services providers, raised $7 million in Seed funding led by Top Down Ventures and York IE.
+ Edge Markets, a New York City-based financial services company focused on the gaming, crypto and prediction markets, raised $29.2 million in Series A funding led by CoinFund, with participation from Indicator Ventures, Mantis VC, Stepstone Group and Bullpen Capital.
+ A Security, a NYC-based data-protection platform focused on discovering and remediating weaponized-AI paths, raised $37 million in funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Cyberstarts, Cerca Partners, Wiz CEO Assaf Rapaport and Cyera CEO Yotam Segev.
+ Highland Electric, a Massachusetts-based Electrification-as-a-Service model focused on the transition from diesel-vehicle to electric-vehicle fleets, raised $75 million in funding led by Galvanize.
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 Nixon Peabody). Gregory Zeller can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (World Cup Edition)
Gold standard: Who will raise this year’s FIFA World Cup Trophy … and how much will you have to pay to see it in person?
Trouble ticket: With the tournament about to begin, AGs from several states are investigating FIFA ticket sales.
Up all night: New York has extended statewide bar/restaurant serving hours during the tourney.
According to plan: Predicting the outcome of every game in the entire World Cup.
Net gains: Please continue supporting the fantastic firms that support Innovate Long Island, including Nixon Peabody, where expert strategy, teamwork and execution aren’t limited to the soccer pitch. Check them out.
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