The evolving COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping the world around us, and myriad Long Island forces – large and small, corporate and nonprofit, industrial and academic – have risen to the challenge. Innovate Long Island presents Innovation in the Age of Coronavirus as a running journal of this region’s resourceful response to the greatest global challenge since World War II. Stay healthy, dear readers. Poll: More than half of Metro New Yorkers won’t accept…
By GREGORY ZELLER // A key component of the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council’s strategic investment has taken flight – actually, broken ground – at Long Island MacArthur Airport. This week, a gaggle of state and local politicos joined regional rainmakers to mark the beginning of work on a new “intermodal facility” at the Islip aerodrome, designed to increase air traffic by facilitating easier ground transportation. The project will renovate an existing airport building…
By GREGORY ZELLER // You’ve been there, sports fan: bottom of the ninth, sudden-death overtime, one-point lead, two-minute warning, third and long, the odd-man rush, the alley-oop, the champ goes down, the kick is up… And in every sport, behind every great play, around it and inside it and below and above it – the roar of the crowd. Sports are back. In fact, after months of reruns and silence, fans are enjoying an unprecedented…
Good Friday: You’ve done it again, dear readers … another long workweek bested, another summery weekend earned. Well done. Since we can’t do it properly – bellying up in your favorite dive and getting lost in some smokin’ house band – ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Cowboy Junkies! An even 50: Before we jump in, aloha to our many readers in Hawaii, where Statehood Day – marking the 1959 admission of the 50th…
Engines of innovation: Welcome to Friday, dear readers, as we race to the end of another sticky summer workweek and throttle down for another well-earned weekend. Low key: It’s Aug. 14 out there, and honestly, the pickings are very slim – the best we could do is the Day of Remembrance of the Defenders of the Fatherland in Abkhazia, which is, like, not even a real country. It’s also National Financial Awareness Day, which…
By HARRY COGHLAN // It is disorientating (to say the least) to think back on our original plans and goals for 2020, and realize how so many of them had to be revised or abandoned. But as Robert Burns (sort of) said, best-laid plans often go awry, and when they do, the organizations that prevail are the ones able and willing to adapt, react and produce. In short, flexible organizations stand the best chance. While…
By GREGORY ZELLER // Strap yourselves in, Long Island, but keep strapping on those facemasks. And batten the hatches for some political fallout, too – Phase Four has arrived, with fireworks. Governor Andrew Cuomo, one of President Donald Trump’s more vocal critics, pulled no punches in Monday’s daily briefing, in which the governor announced strong COVID-19 numbers across the state, confirmed that indoor dining in New York City is on hold indefinitely and essentially accused…
Phase 2 Friday: You’ve done it again, dear readers! Another tough workweek conquered – and, as your reward, Long Island’s first weekend under Phase 2 reopening protocols. Well played! It’s June 12 out there, and while you’re probably itching for your teenager to find a summer job after a half-year of home learning, it is indeed the U.N.’s World Day Against Child Labour, which is a very different matter and no joke. That’s, like,…
Stuck in the middle: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, as Long Island languishes in Phase 1 and we innovate our way through another quasi-quarantined workweek. Ready, set, Joe’s: It’s June 3 out there, and before we begin, Innovate LI is thrilled to introduce our newest sponsor – St. Joseph’s College, which operates campuses in Patchogue and Brooklyn (in addition to SJC Online) and this week joins our pantheon of prestigious boosters. More on St….
By GREGORY ZELLER // Still planning an in-person grand finale for October, one of Hofstra University’s most popular entrepreneurship efforts has transitioned – smoothly, if temporarily – to a virtual format. Hofstra’s Healthcare Entrepreneurship Community Challenge has performed the pandemic pivot, with a full week of online mentorship and study commencing Monday for 31 participating healthcare startups, including four based on Long Island. Engaging them online is an impressive cross-section of health, law and med-tech…
By GREGORY ZELLER // With canceled internships and rescinded job offers adding insult to injury for shortchanged U.S. college students, Long Island universities are working hard to keep their flocks working this summer. Longstanding career- and business-development programs at Adelphi University and Hofstra University have refocused their efforts through a pandemic-friendly lens, with a growing number of virtual internships and other remote-working (and remote-learning) opportunities now in play. The need for a Summer 2020 internship…
Thirty years later, Hilary Topper – part marketing ace, part social influencer, all 21st century It Girl – is still going strong. Game-changing technological jolts, 9/11, the Great Recession and now, of course, the great 2020 coronavirus pandemic … none have stopped the clever self-promoter and fierce businesswoman from building Long Beach-based HJMT Public Relations into one of Long Island’s best-known and most-respected marketing brands. With a new book (“Branding in a Digital World: How…
Yes, you May: Welcome to Friday (we checked, it’s true) and a brand-new month in the surreal odyssey that is the Age of Coronavirus. It’s May 1 out there – the earliest date Mother’s Day can fall in Samoa, Hong Kong, Hungary, Lithuania, Mozambique, Portugal, Spain and Romania, though today is not Mother’s Day in any of those places (nor in the States, where it falls two Sundays hence). Legally delish: It is, however,…
Rock on: It’s another work-from-home Wednesday, dear readers, as we muscle through a tough workweek marked by bitter national divisions, phased re-openings and no real endgame (yet) for the great 2020 pandemic. The good news is, a mile-wide planet-killer asteroid zooming through the Solar System at a breezy 19,000 miles per hour will narrowly miss Earth today. So, no worries there. Wish list: On that cheery note, welcome to April 29 – World Wish…
By GREGORY ZELLER // The coronavirus couldn’t stop tradition at Hofstra University, where the regularly scheduled Hofstra-Digital Remedy Venture Challenge went off without a hitch, virtually. Now in its eighth year, the business plan contest – which challenges Hofstra students to come up with new products or services and create business plans to commercialize them – held its final competition round April 24. As per custom, the penultimate pitch-off pitted 10 finalists in a winners-take-all…