That’s encouraging: It’s Friday, dear readers, and you’ve nearly completed another busy week of socioeconomic innovation.
Just one more day to go, so let’s dig deep and finish strong – your well-earned weekend awaits!
Final credits: A somber salute to last-act directors.
Try not to think about it: It’s March 11 out there, when we salute professionals we routinely avoid, until we absolutely need them – welcome to World Plumbing Day and National Funeral Director and Mortician Day.
That’s nuts: Today is also National Oatmeal Nut Waffles Day, an oddly specific breakfast observance ironed out every March 11.
Holy sheet: While enjoying your waffles, consider that one of humanity’s greatest innovations unfolded on this date in 105 A.D. (yep), when inventor Lun Tsai showed Chinese Emperor Han Ho Ti a bamboo and mulberry pulp stretched over a bamboo frame.
One thousand, nine hundred and seventeen years later, humankind struggles to go paperless.
Courant events: Tsai’s innovation would’ve been front-page news, if there were front pages – but that didn’t happen until March 11, 1702, when the Daily Courant, the first English-language daily newspaper, published its first issue in England.
Highest bidder: Sotheby’s, still the biggest on the block.
Four pence going once, four pence going twice…: Speaking of English firsts, international auction house Sotheby’s held its first-ever auction 318 years ago today.
Venus, if you will: Still going (we presume) is the Pioneer 5, an ambitious NASA space probe designed to explore interplanetary space between Earth and Venus that launched on this date in 1960.
The spacecraft last transmitted on June 26 of that year, 22.5 million miles distant and still speeding away.
The rest is history: And everything changed on March 11, 2020, when the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a global pandemic – the first caused by a novel coronavirus.
New York mirror: Schiff’s left-leaning broadsheet, opposite of Murdoch’s conservative tabloid.
Past Post: American businesswoman Dorothy Schiff (1903-1989) – a social services-minded socialite who promoted liberal causes as the longtime owner and publisher of the New York Post – would be 119 years old today.
Also born on March 11 were American engineer and inventor Vannevar Bush (1890-1974), who headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II; American actor and comedian Samuel Horwitz “Shemp” Howard (1895-1955), the underappreciated “fourth Stooge”; American computer scientist J.C.R. Licklider (1915-1990), whose “Intergalactic Computer Network” became the Internet; Australian American newspaper publisher and media mogul Rupert Murdoch (born 1931), who took The Post in another direction; and English author, screenwriter, essayist and humorist Douglas Adams (1952-2001), who crafted “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and other epic satires.
The final insult: And take a bow, Jerry Gordon Zucker! The American moviemaker – who wrote, produced and/or directed some of Hollywood’s best-ever knee-slappers, including “The Kentucky Fried Movie,” “Airplane!” and the “Naked Gun” series, among others – turns 72 today.
Wish Zucker well at editor@innovateli.com, where you’ll surely want to share some news tips and calendar events. (“Yes,” you’re thinking, “but don’t call me ‘Shirley.’”)
About our sponsor: Farrell Fritz, a full-service law firm with 15 practice groups, advises startups on entity formation, founder and shareholder agreements, funding, executive compensation and benefits, licensing and technology transfer, mergers and acquisitions and other strategic transactions. The firm’s blog, New York Venture Hub, discusses legal and business issues facing entrepreneurs and investors.
BUT FIRST, THIS
Digestion invention: Marie-Line Grinda, following gut instincts.
Kitchen aid: Two new women-owned commercial enterprises are turning up the heat at the East End Food Institute’s Community Kitchen.
The Gut Goodness (a buckwheat-based baker offering gluten-free breads, crackers and granolas) and Vegan Muse (an animal-rights champion serving plant-based cheeses and spreads) have both set up shop in the Community Kitchen, a regional hub for food aggregation, manufacturing and distribution located on Stony Brook University’s Southampton campus. Each business also packs a personal backstory: The Gut Goodness owner Marie-Line Grinda suffered through decades of digestive discomfort before developing her stomach-friendly recipes, while Vegan Muse founder Alexandrea LaFata directs a portion of her profits to animal sanctuaries.
With the Southampton-based Community Kitchen cooking on all cylinders, the EEFI is hoping to replicate the successful shared-kitchen recipe at its East End Food Market in Riverhead. To date, the institute has raised roughly $29,000 toward a $300,000 fundraising goal, with a New York State matching reimbursement grant hanging in the balance; more info on the EEFI’s Grow With Us Campaign available here.
Fresh water: The Nassau Suffolk Water Commissioners’ Association has selected its executive leadership for the remainder of 2022.
The association – comprised of 21 publicly elected commissioners representing more than 620,000 Nassau and Suffolk customers – voted internally to select Locust Valley Water District Commissioner Patricia Peterson as its new president. Also earning fellow commissioners’ support was Bethpage Water District Commissioner John Coumatos, elected first vice-president, and South Farmingdale Water District Commissioner Ralph Atoria, elected second vice-president.
Commissioners also elected South Huntington Water District Commissioner Joseph Perry as NSWCA secretary and Roslyn Water District Commissioner Michael Kosinski as association treasurer, with all terms set to expire Dec. 31. “Long Island has one of the world’s greatest freshwater aquifers,” Peterson said in a statement. “As stewards of the public’s trust, NSWCA will continue to promote sustainability, conservation and transparency through education while … protecting the invaluable aquifer that supplies the more than 620,000 people we serve.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Back to the future: With a renewed emphasis on its original LI-centric mission, Accelerate Long Island has tapped an old friend to chair its powerful Board of Directors.
Familiar faces: Aiming to supercharge regional socioeconomics, the Long Island Association has added nine high-caliber names you know to its impressive board.
Show of shows: Producer/talk-show host Donna Drake joins Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast – and we join her internationally syndicated newsmagazine – for the first-ever Long Island Multimedia Crossover Virtual Extravaganza.
ICYMI
Ambitious wellness entrepreneur has real skin in the game; cautious SUNY Trustees have good reason to slow down.
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: Menlo Park-based VC firm Neotribe Ventures launches $90 million Ignite Fund to boost breakthrough, imagination-stretching technologies.
From Oregon: Portland-based flight-training school Hillsboro Aero Academy connects with national and regional carriers to train the next generation of commercial pilots.
From California: San Francisco-based mental wellness brand No. 8 improves cognitive function, increases energy and reduces stress with mindful nootropic gummies.
ON THE MOVE
Omar Khalique
+ Omar Khalique has been hired as director of cardiovascular imaging at Catholic Health in Rockville Centre. He previously served as an associate professor of medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center in Manhattan.
+ Elaine Colavito and Erika Conti, partners at Uniondale-based Sahn Ward Braff Koblenz, will lead the firm’s Matrimonial and Family Law Practice.
+ Michael St. Pierre has been elected to the Ronkonkoma-based Association for Mental Health and Wellness’ Board of Directors. He is principal of Hauppauge-based St. Pierre Associates.
+ Gregory Carman, Zachary Manasia and Kelan Sullivan have joined Uniondale-based Forchelli Deegan Terrana as associates. All three are recent graduates of St. John’s University School of Law.
+ Patrick DeCanio has been hired as a Police Science and Criminal Justice teacher at Nassau BOCES GC Tech in Levittown. He was a detective, second grade, in the New York City Police Department.
+ Joseph Costanza has been hired as a site/civil designer at Hauppauge-based VHB. He was previously a civil engineer at Woodbury-based B. Thayer Associates.
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 Farrell Fritz). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD
Swing for the fences: Bettors can now put it all on their favorite individual players.
Even money: Why cool stoicism matters more than ever.
Long shots: A complex startup will soon take bets on professional athletes’ individual performances.
Take your chances: Is creating a “failure résumé” worth the risk?
Take no chances: Please continue supporting the amazing firms that support Innovate Long Island, including Farrell Fritz, which leaves no avenue unexplored in support of your early-stage enterprise. Check them out.
