Aaaaand, we’re back: From the Where’s My Innovation Toolbox? File comes … Innovate Long Island, back on the air as of Tuesday afternoon – a feather in the cap of our West Coast tech team (thank you, Krista and Dean), a great relief for us and good news for the amazing innovators we cover (and the many readers inspired and entertained by our ongoing advocacy-journalism experiment).
As mentioned in Monday’s (subscriber-only) Calendar Newsletter, we are eternally grateful to the fans and followers who wrote and called while our website was down – your support could not help us resolve those nasty repeating A files and bad plug-ins any faster, but it was a heartwarming, mission-reaffirming reminder why we should.
Sincerest apologies for our absence. And now, enough with all the tech and mushy stuff – we’re back, baby, and there’s innovation to discuss. On with the show!
Love, retail style: You can spend big on Valentine’s Day … or spend quality time with your significant other.
Valentine shmalentine: It’s Wednesday out there, dear readers, and speaking of mushy stuff, your favorite newsletter arrives just in time for Valentine’s Day, the Feb. 14 salute to love, passion and rampant commercialism.
Too crass? Well, consider National Retail Federation projections that American consumers will spend $25.8 billion on Valentine’s Day this year (down from 2020’s pre-pandemic high of $27.4 billion, but more than enough to end America’s hunger crisis in one fell swoop). Plus, we don’t need a Hallmark Holiday to show our significant others that we love them.
Book it: Instead, we’ll focus on Feb. 14’s other indigenous days – although National Cream-Filled Chocolates Day and National Condom Day both have an inescapable Valentinian air.
So we’ll champion International Book Giving Day, which expresses love for the page and printed word – and encourages us to spread that joy every Feb. 14.
Leave it to Beavers: There was joy in Oregon on this date in 1859, when the Beaver State became the 33rd U.S. State…
Grand opening: … and in Arizona on this date in 1912, when the Grand Canyon State became the 48th U.S. State.
What can brown (and Big Blue) do for you? Speaking of names and nicknames, two corporate monickers you know entered the lexicon on this date, both rebranding pre-existing companies – the American Messenger Service became the United Parcel Service on Feb. 14, 1919, and the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. was rebirthed as International Business Machines (a.k.a. IBM) on Feb. 14, 1924.
Suffragette engine: Six months before U.S. women were guaranteed the right to vote, the League of Women Voters officially formed.
League leader: Preceding the U.S. Constitution’s historic 19th Amendment (which granted women the right to vote) by six months, the League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago 104 years ago today.
Say cheese … in spaaaaace: And it was Feb. 14, 1990, when the Voyager 1 space probe – speeding out of the Solar System and already 3.7 billion miles from the Sun – snapped the iconic “Pale Blue Dot” photo of Earth.
The picture was one of 60 the interstellar probe took on its way out the door, including shots of Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter and Venus – creating what scientists hailed as the Solar System’s “Family Portrait.” For the record, Mercury (too close to the Sun), Mars (obscured by scattered sunlight) and Pluto (too tiny and far away) are missing from the composite image.
Just our type: American inventor, newspaper editor and politician Christopher Sholes (1819-1890) – who changed the national news-publishing industry by inventing a page-numbering machine and the modern typewriter – would be 205 years old today.
Dig it: Prototype investigative reporter Carl Bernstein — half of the team that shattered one of the biggest cover-ups in U.S. history — was born 80 years ago today.
Also born on Feb. 14 were American abolitionist, social reformer, writer and statesman Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), who had no official birth record, so he chose this date in 1818; American engineer George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. (1859-1896), remembered best for creating the Ferris wheel; American master innovator Margaret Knight (1838-1914), arguably the most famous woman inventor of the 19th Century; American electrical engineer Greenleaf Pickard (1877-1956), who pioneered wireless radio with the groundbreaking crystal detector; and Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky (1898-1974), who predicted supernovas, dark matter and much more.
Bern, baby, Bern: And take a bow, Carl Milton Bernstein! The Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist and author (and one-time Stony Brook University professor – most famous for breaking the Watergate scandal alongside Bob Woodward, springboarding him into a long career as an expert in the use and abuse of power – turns 80 today.
Wish the ace reporter well at editor@innovateli.com, where we thoroughly investigate your news tips – and we’re quite expert at publishing your calendar events, if we don’t say so ourselves.
About our sponsor: St. Joseph’s University has provided a diverse population of students in the New York metropolitan area with an affordable education rooted in the liberal arts tradition since 1916. The independent, coeducational university provides a strong academic and value-oriented education at the undergraduate and graduate levels, aiming to prepare each student for a life characterized by integrity, intellectual rigor, social responsibility, spiritual depth and service. Through its Long Island, Brooklyn and online campuses, the university offers degrees in 60 majors, special course offerings and certificates and affiliated and pre-professional programs. Learn more here.
BUT FIRST, THIS
At your service(s): Lieutenant Gov. Antonio Delgado will head up New York State’s new Office of Service and Civic Engagement.
New ideas from Old Westbury: A new state office dedicated to increasing public-service opportunities has heard an earful from one of Long Island’s top universities.
A team of SUNY Old Westbury students (representing the college’s Accounting, Criminology, English, Mental Health, Philosophy, Politics/Economics/Law, Professional Studies and Psychology programs) met recently with Lieutenant Gov. Antonio Delgado to provide insights and ideas for the burgeoning Office of Service and Civic Engagement. Designed to uplift statewide communities by creating accessible public services – and new opportunities to provide them – the OSCE will be part of the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, and Delgado was in town to learn about existing SUNY Old Westbury service engagements and to pick students’ brains about additional avenues Albany might explore.
The lieutenant governor said he was “inspired by what I know New Yorkers can and will do in the name of service,” and the diverse selection of learners “did a wonderful job of describing … key ideas that I’m sure [Delgado] will use to inform his decisions,” according to SUNY Old Westbury President Timothy Sams. “Their input provided a valuable lens from which new solutions can come,” Sams added.
New ideas from Japan (and Melville): The multinational parent of one of Long Island’s largest and most innovative employers has racked up another impressive collection of U.S. patents.
Canon Inc., mothership of Melville-based Canon USA, ranked fifth for the number of U.S. patents awarded in 2023, according to a preliminary count by Connecticut-based patent-data analyst IFI CLAIMS Patent Services. Sharpening its laser-focus on new printing, imaging, medical-device and industrial-equipment technologies, Canon collected patents for its cutting-edge Single Photo Avalanche Diode sensors, its deep learning image-processing techniques, its semiconductor chip-producing nanoimprint lithography devices and other next-generation advances.
Based on IFI’s numbers, including its 2023 patents, Canon is the only company in the world to rank in the top five of U.S. patent-earners over each of the last 38 years. “We are firm in our commitment to push the boundaries of imaging technology,” said Canon USA Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel Seymour Liebman. “Canon’s relentless pursuit of excellence is the driving force in developing innovative technology that will help contribute to a strong future.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Cable vision: A new Cable Splicing Machine developed by a Long Island-based robotics leader can improve power-grid resilience and improve worker safety.
Tape delay: This week’s technical difficulties also pushed back the Season 5 premier of Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast. But rest assured, it’s coming … for now, our Seasons 1-4 archive is standing by, featuring enlightening one-on-ones with dozens of regional innovation economy leaders. Who did you miss?
VOICES
Family and Children’s Association President/CEO Jeffrey Reynolds laments an “epidemic of isolation and loneliness” hurting New York State’s rapidly expanding senior population – but an AI-powered robot is delivering companionship and new hope, according to our Voices human services/nonprofits anchor.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Go team: Navigating the path to successful innovation is a team effort. Harvard Business Review on the road.
Balancing act: Time to ditch Protestant work ethics for a pro-laborer ethos. Vox on the job.
Financial aid: Behold, the 50 hottest fintech startups of 2024. Forbes on the rise.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Cosmic Aerospace, a Colorado-based manufacturer of all-electric passenger aircraft, raised $4.5 million in seed funding led by Pale blue dot, Aera VC, Visionaries Club TOMORROW, Fifty Years and Possible Ventures.
+ BRIJ Medical, a Georgia-based med-tech, raised $5.5 million in funding led by Tim Gleeson of Vidant Capital.
+ Bugcrowd, a California-based, AI-powered security platform, raised $102 million in growth funding led by General Catalyst, Rally Ventures and Costanoa Ventures.
+ Closinglock, a Texas-based fintech and fraud-prevention pioneer, raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Headline, LiveOak Ventures, RWT Horizons and GTMfund.
+ Truflation, a California-based economic-data field company, raised $6 million in funding led by Laser Digital, Red Beard Ventures, Modular Capital, Abra, G20 and Four Seasons Ventures.
+ Thea Energy, a New Jersey-based fusion-energy innovator, raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Prelude Ventures, 11.2 Capital, Anglo American, Hitachi Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital.
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 St. Joe’s). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Color-Coded Edition)
Am I blue: A waxy outer shell — not the berries themselves — give blueberries their unique color.
Red alert: House Republicans have no legislative wins to run on, and they know it.
Blue by you: Why those blueberries aren’t as blue as you think.
Gold medal: How marigolds can save the world.
Color guard: Please continue supporting the amazing institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including St. Joseph’s University, where the Blue-and-Gold stands for strong academics and worthy values. Check them out.
