Hot Topics

CEBIP

Sustainability August 20, 2019

Albany plugging $79M into SBU campus efficiency

By GREGORY ZELLER // A variety of state-funded efficiency upgrades – including new lighting, ventilation and operations-management systems – are included in a new Stony Brook University infrastructure-improvement plan. Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday announced a comprehensive $79 million strategy to bring additional energy-efficient improvements to the Long Island jewel of the State University system. Financed and implemented by the New York Power Authority “in partnership with SUNY,” the upgrades target several SBU facilities –…

Newsletters August 9, 2019

No. 428: On supergravity, winning wines and power plays – plus, market smarts for innovators

  Friday on your mind: The five-day plight ends once more, dear readers, as we wrap up another week of socioeconomic innovation and welcome another warm, well-earned weekend. On that note, put your hands together for … the Easybeats! Here first: It’s Aug. 9 on Long Island and around the world, marking the UN’s annual International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, which sticks up for the estimated 370 million natives who account for 5…

Startups August 8, 2019

For those with ‘charging anxiety,’ a lite in the dark

By GREGORY ZELLER // This is no AAA battery – a Long Island City startup with Long Island connections is bringing its field-tested “charge-sharing” tech straight to The Show. Hoplite Power, a client of Stony Brook University’s Clean Energy Business Incubator Program proliferating rechargeable smartphone battery packs and a network to rent and return them, is set to join the New York Mets just in time for the Amazins’ unlikely playoff run, with five “Hoplite…

Awards and Events June 6, 2019

SBU commercialization shines at Incubator Showcase

By GREGORY ZELLER // Innovation is always on display at the Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology, but it truly shined this week, when the stars of Stony Brook University’s economic-development universe soaked up some spotlight. The university’s fourth-annual Incubator Showcase, a one-day ingenuity bazaar highlighting Stony Brook’s complex commercialization ecosystem, filled CEWIT with imagination Wednesday, as residents and clients of SBU’s myriad incubators and business-development programs shared their progress with potential investors,…

Energy May 13, 2019

‘Switch’ set, superconductivity startup soars

By GREGORY ZELLER // Resistance, it turns out, is not futile – but in this power struggle, a Stony Brook startup may have the technological advantage. In the world of electricity transmission, resistance – opposition to an electric current’s flow, the opposite of electrical conductance – is the whole bowl of wax. Tip the scales from conductance to resistance, and it’s going to be a dark night on Main Street. The challenge is especially steep…

Awards and Events March 27, 2019

Breakfast of champions

Hundreds turn out to honor LI’s brightest innovators (photos by Bob Giglione) In a rare breakfast networker that delivered all the feels, Innovate Long Island saluted its 2019 Innovators of the Year Tuesday at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury. More than 200 guests turned out to honor two dozen of Long Island’s brightest and boldest researchers, inventors, entrepreneurs and executives, including 2019 Master of Innovation Mitch Maiman and Stony Brook University Vice President…

Clean Energy March 21, 2019

Island’s first large-scale digester to feed energy needs

By GREGORY ZELLER // If you’ve had a bellyful of landfill waste, hang on – Long Island’s first stand-alone large-scale anaerobic digester is finally on its way. The Long Island Power Authority’s Board of Trustees has approved an energy contract with a new food waste-recycling facility in Yaphank, claiming to be capable of reducing Island-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 85,000 metric tons annually – the equivalent of removing 18,000 cars from regional roads, according to…

Clean Energy March 6, 2019

ThermoLift lands on (Google for Startups) cloud nine

By GREGORY ZELLER // A rising star of Stony Brook University’s science-commercialization ecosystem is getting a major boost from Google. ThermoLift, headquartered at SBU’s Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center and a member of the university’s Clean Energy Business Incubator Program, has been accepted into Google Cloud for Startups and has received “cloud computing credits” valued at $20,000. Google Cloud for Startups is designed to help early-stage tech enterprises scale up their businesses by offering…

Clean Energy February 25, 2019

All systems flow: StorEn batteries in critical test phase

By GREGORY ZELLER // In an energetic example of Stony Brook University’s science-commercialization system firing on all cylinders, university researchers are getting into the vanadium flow – testing a prototype battery with unprecedented energy-storage capabilities. A vanadium flow battery developed by Stony Brook-based clean-gen company StorEn Technologies is being put through its paces by Unique Technical Services, a 2012 launch spun out of SBU’s Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center. Wielding an array of engineering…

Newsletters February 13, 2019

No. 380: On Coach K, ‘foodpreneurs’ and Donna Drake’s new digs – plus, introducing our 2019 Innovators of the Year!

  Middle march: Onwards and upwards, dear readers, as this latest week of socioeconomic progress plows ahead. It’s Feb. 13 out there, and if you had boozing brawler Guo Wei leading a military coup and declaring himself emperor of China’s short-lived Later Zhou dynasty on this date in 951 A.D., nice work – here’s a voucher for 100 copper Ban Liang coins. Dial it up: Before we dive in, a peaceful World Radio Day –…

Startups November 19, 2018

Saving the planet from the ground up, literally

By GREGORY ZELLER // Allied Microbiata didn’t win 76West – but being a finalist in the innovative state-funded competition, which stimulates the clean-energy economy across the Southern Tier, wasn’t too shabby. A ground-level effort in more ways than one, the 2017 startup is an early-stage bootstrapper with ties to Stony Brook University and Columbia University, on a primary mission to remediate soils and sediments tainted by toxins. And the graduate of the PowerBridge NY program…

Clean Energy November 13, 2018

Cold start: With $25M round set, ThermoLift ices test

By GREGORY ZELLER // A Stony Brook-based heat-pump innovator has completed a rigorous round of prototype testing – and, in the process, crushed a series of critical U.S. Department of Energy performance standards. ThermoLift, headquartered at Stony Brook University’s Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center and a member of the university’s Clean Energy Business Incubator Program, announced Tuesday that it’s wrapped up testing of its innovative, refrigerant-free natural-gas air conditioner and cold-climate heat pump technology…

Newsletters September 12, 2018

No. 339: Innovation (and procreation) in Russia, the ‘Best Colleges’ on Long Island and strange things on Cynthia Nixon’s bagel

Fair-to-middling: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, and the midpoint of another exciting workweek. We trust yours is, at least, slightly above average. It’s Sept. 12 out there, marking the international observance of Mindfulness Day, which promotes the notion of careful consideration. Why don’t you just think about that for a bit. Putin the “Mother” in “Mother Russia”: It’s also the Day of Procreation in Russia, which stems from a 2006 speech in which Vlad the…

Clean Energy September 10, 2018

FuzeHub brings clean-gen Build4Scale workshops to LI

By GREGORY ZELLER // A U.S. Department of Energy training program that schools burgeoning energy-hardware manufacturers on prototyping and manufacturing is coming to Long Island. FuzeHub, a nonprofit networking organization serving as the vital cog of New York State’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership, has scheduled its first Long Island-based Build4Scale workshops, designed to equip energy innovators with the necessary knowledge to create manufacturing-ready prototypes, avoid costly redesigns and play nicely with large-scale manufacturers. With the Trump…

Clean Energy July 16, 2018

With clever new focus, hope floats at Energystics

By GREGORY ZELLER // In the movies, the hero routinely saves the world in a single bound – but in real life, getting there often requires many smaller steps. Such is the lesson learned by innovator Reed Phillips and his Stony Brook-based startup Energystics Ltd., which has always favored the slow-and-steady route but is now laser-focusing on a particular vertical that Phillips hopes will prove a gateway to much bigger things, and that right quick….