Last leg: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, as the first week of December rocks on and the last month of 2024 (!) rolls toward its jingle-belling conclusion.
The big sale days have come and gone, though of course you still have plenty of shopping to do. And we’ve all got the next festive holiday break in mind, though of course there’s plenty of work to do first. Here’s an inspirational and educational midweek innovation review to help keep you motivated and focused.
Cast of thousands: There are more modern uses for standard dice — a gaming tool that first appeared some 5,000 years ago — than we can even count.
Bank on it: Today is Dec. 4, and – assuming we’re not knee-deep in fallout from a massive, long-prophesized sky battle between UFOs and international air forces, predicted to light up Earth’s skies last night – we’ll open with the UN’s International Day of Banks, which is less about no-fee checking accounts than the vital role big financial institutions play in responsible, sustainable international development.
Roll with it: If responsible banking is too tame (and there really wasn’t a UFO war last night), take your chances with National Dice Day, celebrating gaming cornerstones that have been changing fortunes for more than five millennia.
And whether you prefer them crispy, crunchy, chewy, sprinkled, frosted, double-stuffed, chocolate coated or any other way, you can’t lose on National Cookie Day, fresh from the oven every Dec. 4.
It wasn’t always spineless: Speaking of losers, The Los Angeles Times – which made headlines for all the wrong reasons this election season – was first published on this date in 1881 (as The Los Angeles Daily Times).
It wasn’t always written: But it became easier to jot it down 130 years ago today, when the clever designs of Wisconsin-based telegraphy instructor George Parker earned the world’s first fountain pen patent.
Flame on: Burger King began flame-broiling 70 years ago today.
It wasn’t always royalty: In fact, it was the far-less-majestic “Insta-Burger King” that entrepreneurs James McLamore and David Edgerton opened on Dec. 4, 1954, in Miami, Fla. – the first restaurant in what would become the mighty Burger King chain.
She wasn’t always a senator: Dianne Feinstein – who would later become California’s first woman U.S. Senator and the first woman to chair both the Senate Rules Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee – became the first woman to serve as mayor of San Francisco on this date in 1978.
It wasn’t always there: And the International Space Station began to take shape on Dec. 4, 1998, when the Space Shuttle Endeavor blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center on an ISS construction mission.
The shuttle carried the American-built Unity node into space, where it would become the vital link between the Russian-built Zarya cargo module (already in orbit) and the American-built Destiny laboratory module (which would launch in 2001).
Plane dealer: American combat pilot Gregory “Pappy” Boyington (1912-1988) – the U.S. Marine Corps WWII fighter ace who shot down nearly 30 Japanese Zeroes, earned numerous medals and inspired “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” a circa-1970s military comedy-drama on the NBC Television Network – would be 112 years old today.
King on his court: Originally drafted by the Nets, Bernard proved a prolific scorer for several NBA teams.
Also born on Dec. 4 were Scottish historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), a major Victorian Era essayist; Lakota Sioux leader Tasunke Witko (a.k.a. Crazy Horse, 1841 or 1842-1877), who ably resisted the European invasion of the northern Great Plains and was later memorialized as a heroic resistance fighter; American engineer Chester Greenwood (1858-1937), a big-eared innovator and ice-skating enthusiast credited with inventing earmuffs; British nurse and war hero Edith Cavell (1865-1915), who treated soldiers on both sides of WWI and was ultimately captured and executed by Germany; and American cultural anthropologist Robert Redfield (1897-1958), a pioneer of urban anthropology.
Nets gain: And take a bow, Bernard King! The retired National basketball Association superstar – who was drafted out of University of Tennessee in 1977 by the Uniondale-based New York Nets but debuted with the team after its move to New Jersey – turns 68 today.
Give the Brooklyn-born Hall of Famer (who played for the Nets, the Utah Jazz, the Golden State Warriors, the New York Knicks and the Washington Bullets during his storied career) your best at editor@innovateli.com, where your news tips and calendar events find nothing but net.
About our sponsor: ZE Creative Communications is a full-service integrated marketing communications agency, specializing in public relations, creative marketing, crisis communication and social media. Founded in Great Neck, ZE Creative Communications has been helping clients create compelling and successful messaging campaigns for more than three decades. Learn more here.
BUT FIRST, THIS
Degrees of collaboration: Suffolk County Community College is greasing the skids for graduates eyeing medical studies at Binghamton University and St. George’s University.
Just weeks after introducing the Seawolves at Suffolk initiative – clearing a path for grads into various Stony Brook University programs – SCCC has announced new collaborations with SUNY Binghamton and St. George’s, a center of international studies based on the island of Grenada in the West Indies (with educational ties to institutions across the United States). The collaboration focuses specifically on SCCC students transferring into medical, veterinary and pharmaceutical doctoral-degree programs.
Up to five seats per year will be reserved at Binghamton for well-qualified SCCC grads, while the St. George’s alliance offers two options: a 2+5 Pathway that combines an SCCC associate’s degree and a five-year St. George’s MD program, and a 2+2+4 Pathway combining an SCCC associate’s degree, a pre-medical or pre-veterinary bachelor’s degree at a St. George’s partner university and a four-year MD or Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program at St. George’s. “These partnerships represent a significant step forward in providing our students with exceptional opportunities in healthcare,” noted SCCC President Edward Bonahue.
Bionic man: Chad Bouton is helping the paralyzed move and feel again.
Best of Time: Congratulations to a couple of Innovate Long Island favorites, who’ve cracked Time Magazine’s list of the Best Inventions of 2024.
With a tip of the cap to Hauppauge-based engineering consultancy Intelligent Product Solutions, Chad Bouton – vice president of advanced engineering and director of the Neural Bypass and Brain-Computer Interface Laboratory at Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research – earned Time’s nod with the Double Neural Bypass. The next-generation technology involves brain-implanted microchips and an arm-mounted device that help a quadriplegic patient, who broke his neck in a 2020 pool-diving accident, move his right arm and hand. (More on the 2024 Time list below.)
According to old friend Bouton – also the cofounder of Connecticut-based 2019 startup Neuvotion, which licenses the Double Neural Bypass – the biotechnology shows terrific promise for other patients living with paralysis, particularly stroke survivors. And it’s another win for the technical design experts at IPS, according to Chief Operating Officer Bob Wild, who noted the Time recognition “reminds us why we do what we do at IPS – partnering with innovative companies like Neuvotion to help bring big ideas to life.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Extending its beach: Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital has opened a new primary-care medical facility on the City of Long Beach boardwalk – another post-Sandy healthcare upgrade for the barrier island and its residents and visitors.
Return of the pod people: This just in … Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast returns next week with a fresh slate of innovation-economy leaders, success stories and brilliant ideas. Catch up now on anyone and anything you’ve missed – dozens of useful lessons stand ready to sharpen your thinking skills, about 30 minutes at a time.
VOICES
Pharmaceutical companies and distributors ruled complicit in the national opioid crisis have been ordered to pay billions in court-ordered penalties, including hundreds of millions to Nassau and Suffolk counties – but Voices Healthcare Anchor and former Northwell Health Senior Vice President Terry Lynam wonders whether Long Island’s shares are being used properly.
STUFF WE’RE READING
The giant slayers: How 100-person startups are taking the fight to corporate titans. Fast Co. applauds agility.
The middle mess: Proposed import tariffs will cost middle-class households thousands of dollars per year. Forbes crunches numbers.
The little things: And not so little, as the 200 Best Inventions of 2024 improve the human experience. Time celebrates innovation.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Lightning AI, New York City-based creator of the PyTorch Lightning framework, raised $50 million in funding. Backers included Cisco Investments, J.P. Morgan, K5 Global and NVIDIA.
+ Tenstorrent, a California-based manufacturer of computers specifically for artificial-intelligence uses, raised $693 million in Series D funding led by Samsung Securities and AFW Partners.
+ Infleqtion, a Colorado-based quantum-information pioneer, received $11 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Defense.
+ Cofactor AI, an Illinois-based AI-powered platform for hospital management, raised $4 million in Seed funding led by Drive Capital.
+ BioSurfaces, a Massachusetts-based biotech that manufactures medical devices and coatings out of FDA approved polymers via electrospinning, received a $2 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
+ Grey Market Labs, a Virginia-based provider of cybersecurity solutions, secured $8 million in Series A funding led by Capri Ventures.
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 ZE Creative Communications). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Almost Christmas Songs Edition)
Buried treasures: Winter is just getting started in the Northeast snowbelt.
I won’t be home for Christmas: How to break the bad news.
Rudolph the brown-nosed defamer: Things keep getting worse for guilty Giuliani.
Let it stop, let it stop, let it stop: After epic holiday blizzard, Upstate New York braces for more lake-effect snow.
Little drummer boys (and girls): Please continue supporting the amazing agencies that support Innovate Long Island, including ZE Creative Communications, where master message makers always bang the drum for your brand-building benefit. Check them out.
