Bitter end: It’s the last full day of Summer 2022, dear readers! The Autumnal Equinox occurs at 9:03 p.m. tomorrow, when the sun will be directly over the equator – and no, you cannot balance an egg on its end at the precise moment.
Sorry. But it’s still the start of the beautiful fall season, not to mention hump day of this latest busy workweek, so don’t be bitter. Let’s rock!
New and improv-ed: Before we rock, we roll with this quick reminder about BrandSlam, our unique “marketing improv” event coming Oct. 6 to LaunchPad Huntington.
What’s “marketing improv?” Well, our panel of experts – including big brains from Huntington-based Brandtelling and Stony Brook University Economic Development – will create slogans and other brand-building content, live on stage, for an audience of early-stage entrepreneurs with great business ideas and not-so-great PR plans. Learn more here (and make it fast … tickets are almost gone)!
Dove the one you’re with: The UN doubles down on some basic concepts on the International Day of Peace.
Cue the doves: Being the last day of summer and all, today must be Sept. 21 – the UN’s International Day of Peace, promoting nonviolence and social justice around the globe.
Tea it up: It’s also National Chai Day, a domestic U.S. celebration of the decidedly Indian mixture of black tea, cardamom and other aromatic herbs.
Secret service: Speaking of international intrigue, Sept. 21 is a big date for espionage, starting with Revolutionary War hero Capt. Nathan Hale, who was spying on the British for Gen. George Washington when he was captured on this date in 1776.
Hale was summarily executed. No such fate, however, awaited infamous double agent Benedict Arnold, who treasonously offered West Point to the British on this date in 1780. (Plot foiled, Arnold fled to England and died two decades later.)
Gas guzzler: Not exactly — the Duryea’s 1893 breakthrough ran on a single cylinder.
Give her some gas: In less treacherous news, Massachusetts brothers Charles and Frank Duryea demonstrated the one-cylinder “Ladies Phaeton” – the first working gasoline-powered automobile built in the United States – on this date in 1893.
Yes, Virginia: The New York Sun declared “there is a Santa Claus” in one of history’s most famous editorials, published 125 years ago today in response to a worried letter from 8-year-old Virginia O’ Hanlon.
Go west: Cowboy movies became a thing on Sept. 21, 1903, with the premier of “Kit Carson,” a silent film hailed as the very first western.
Big finish: And one of history’s most successful space missions ended as planned on this date in 2003, when the unmanned space probe Galileo burned up in Jupiter’s outer atmosphere.
With fuel low and electrical systems failing, the robotic explorer – which orbited Jupiter and its myriad moons for more than eight years – was purposely steered into the gas giant so it wouldn’t hit any of those rocky satellites, which scientists thought might harbor microscopic life.
Auto pilot: Spanish aeronautical engineer and pilot Juan de la Cierva y Codomiu (1895-1936) – who invented the Autogiro, a single-rotor predecessor to the modern helicopter – would be 127 years old today.
What’s up, Chuck: Innovative innovator Jones put Bugs in the system.
Also born on Sept. 21 were English science fiction cornerstone Herbert George “H.G.” Wells (1866-1946), a master of social commentary and fantastic visions; French physicist Louis-Paul Cailletet (1832-1913), who earned attention for liquifying oxygen and nitrogen; Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853-1926), who earned a Noble Prize for liquifying hydrogen; Canadian oceanographer Richard Fleming (1909-1989), a master of chemical and biochemical oceanography; and American animator Chuck Jones (1912-2002), the cartoonist who made the Warner Bros. portfolio – Bugs, Daffy and the rest – household names.
Who you gonna call? And take a bow, William James “Bill” Murray! The deliciously deadpan American actor, writer and comedian turns 72 today.
Show your Stripes (and give the bona fide national treasure the Royal Tenenbaum treatment) at editor@innovateli.com, where your news tips are never Lost in Translation and without your calendar events, every day is like Groundhog Day.
About our sponsor: Whether it’s helping with site selection, cutting through red tape or finding innovative ways to meet specific needs, businesses that settle in the Town of Islip soon learn that we take a proactive approach to seeing them succeed. If your business wants to locate or expand in a stable community with great quality of life, then it’s time you took a closer look at Islip.
BUT FIRST, THIS
Nursing them along: Molloy University has ceremoniously opened a state-of-the-art educational facility for future nurses and other healthcare professionals.
Led by Molloy President Jim Lentini, Provost Michelle Piskulich and Barbara H. Hagan School of Nursing and Health Sciences Dean Marcia Gardner, Monday’s ribbon-cutting officially introduced the 20,000-square-foot Amityville facility, built to train 1,500 combined graduate and undergraduate nursing students. The new school will also offer continuing-education classes in medical coding, medical assisting and addiction counseling, among other in-demand healthcare specialties.
The cutting-edge space includes high-tech medical-skills laboratories and “high-fidelity simulation labs” designed to test students at different stages of their nursing-education journey. “This is another new opportunity we have created for students to develop the crucial competencies for nursing practice,” Lentini said Monday, highlighting “leading-edge educational strategies and technologies that will prepare nurses for the future healthcare environment.”
Synchronize your shorelines: The Long Island South Shore Estuary Reserve needs saving, and Albany has a plan.
Shore thing: Albany has updated its comprehensive management plan for the diverse ecosystems of the South Shore Estuary Reserve.
With Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences still celebrating a decade-long rescue mission that revived the endangered Shinnecock Bay estuary, the 2022 Long Island South Shore Estuary Reserve Comprehensive Management Plan has surfaced, providing regional communities and stakeholders with a guide for restoring and protecting the South Shore’s valuable ecological resources – and safeguarding the “estuary economy” for decades to come. Administered by the New York State Department of State, the South Shore Estuary Reserve was created in 1993 to promote prudent management of coastal waters and the uplands draining into them.
With the Estuary Reserve including cities, towns and villages across Nassau and Suffolk, the plan update is “essential for the future management, protection and restoration of the local estuary ecosystems,” according to New York Secretary of State Robert Rodriguez. “Each year, the South Shore Estuary provides abundant recreational and economic opportunities to millions of residents and tourists, which is why we must protect it.”
POD PEOPLE
Episode 30: Elaine Gross, dignified warrior.
After 21 years, founder Elaine Gross has stepped down as president of ERASE Racism – and on her last day in office, she sat down with Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast to discuss two-decades-plus of social-justice progress and the immense challenges still ahead for historically segregated Long Island.
The now-president emeritus’ gracious appearance was an immense honor – and another “great get” for our impressive podcast series, which chats up the best of LI’s socioeconomic best. Hear for yourself.
TOP OF THE SITE
Energetic partnership: Competitive videogaming is getting a major B12 shot (literally) at Farmingdale State College, thanks to a new corporate sponsorship.
Passage from India: An Indian-born, Syosset-based global distributor says the same digital tech that electrified Indian socioeconomics can help any small business.
You’re a busy person: Please forward this informative and entertaining newsletter to your entire innovation team – and strongly suggest they get their own free subscriptions, because, jeez, don’t you have enough to do?
VOICES
Voices nonprofits anchor Jeffrey Reynolds, president and CEO of the Family and Children’s Association, trips up a few misconceptions about “magic mushrooms,” which show diverse – and possibly significant – therapeutic promise, but also present serious heath and social risks.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Turning Japanese: The kaizen approach encourages hands-on innovation from your entire corporate team. Harvard Business News pulls together.
Cutting edge: Smart organizations are multiplying the cloud’s digital reach by the speed and mobility of edge computing. Fast Company logs on.
For the defense: The Small Business Innovation Research program is critical to national defense – and it’s about to go kaput. Defense News marshals its forces.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Zócalo Health, a Washington State-based provider of a healthcare services for Latino patients, raised $5 million in seed funding led by Animo, Virtue, Vamos Ventures, Freada Kapor Klein, Nikhil Krishnan and Erik Ibarra.
+ Elevation Spine, a California-based developer of integrated-fixation spinal technologies, raised $11 million in Series B funding led by Technology Venture Partners and Mutual Capital Partners.
+ Cybera Global, a New York City-based cybersecurity innovator, raised $5 million in funding led by Converge VC, New North Ventures, Founder Collective, Swiss VCs Serpentine and CV VC.
+ MyCarrier, an Arizona-based freight-shipping platform for small and midsize shippers, raised $22 million in Series B funding led by NewRoad Capital Partners, Greycroft and Lerer Hippeau.
+ Tract, a California-based online-education community, raised $7 million in seed funding led by NEA, Moving Capital, Alumni Ventures Group, Minerva and Correlation Ventures.
+ Rootine, a Tennessee-based healthcare provider for athletes, raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Relevance Ventures, Techstars and DSM Venturing.
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 the Town of Islip). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Personal Computing Edition)
Die hard: They got a lot floppier than this, believe you me.
Clean slate: How to erase your personal information from the Internet.
Last man flopping: Floppy disks are back, and this guy’s got ’em.
Reboot: What we can still learn from old-timey 1990s software.
Data driven: Please continue supporting the amazing organizations that support Innovate Long Island, including the Town of Islip Office of Economic Development, where the numbers (and a long list of successful local business) don’t lie. Check them out.
