30 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 30 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 30 LOSENPGTISELMABNEDRP R2E0S1S7.C •O lMo n• gSiEsPlTaEnMdBeprsER 20.1cToUmT 3U1111
Incubating the Island’s future
By JOSEPH KELLARD
The state’s Start-Up NY program may be a bit of
a dud, but that hasn’t slowed the pace of other
university-based programs that seek to support
and commercialize innovation from students,
staff and sundry entrepreneurs.
The latest: Long Island University’s Post campus,
where nationally renowned startup expert Dane
Stangler has taken the Vorzimer Endowed Chair
in Entrepreneurship and will help steer the
school’s T. Denny Sanford innovation institute.
He will continue to dabble in innovation policy
at the Startup Genome and the Progressive
Policy Institute, bringing cutting-edge wonkery
to Brookville.
At Stony Brook University, where more than 50
companies are already being nurtured in incubators
both brick and virtual, economic development
officials have just landed $75 million for
a center to commercialize medical devices and
other technology. Called I-DIME, for Discovery
and Innovation in Medicine & Engineering,
the center should be up and operating by 2019,
joining SBU programs that support software,
biotechnology, clean energy, foodtech and more.
The university is also beginning to make the
rounds to find funding to expand its advanced
energy center, long packed to the rafters.
Hofstra University, home of the richest student
business plan contest in the nation, will add
a cutting-edge incubator next year as its new
50,000-square-foot business school opens. Until
then, the university’s Center for Entrepreneurship
is rocking – literally – with a student-run
recording business and new grants for entrepreneur
assistance.
The recording label, Mane Records, recently
signed IzzeYe, the Hofstra alum and “groovy
rap” artist previously known as Rashaan
Perkins.
Although modest when compared to the
110,000 square feet of incubation at SBU, the
8,000-square-foot Entrepreneurship & Technology
Innovation Center at NYIT punches above
its weight, with programs focused on energy,
information technology and cyberspace, bioengineering
and medical devices. NYIT is also collaborating
with EdTech, a San Francisco-based
education technology company, on a virtual
reality project and is partnering with NASA.
“That is our philosophy: a university-industry
partnership model with companies of various
sizes and at various stages of their development,”
said Dr. Nada Marie Anid, dean of the School of
Engineering and Computing Sciences at NYIT.
Despite those successes, questions continue to
dog local incubator programs, mostly over the
huge cost and slow return on investment. Many
of the darts have been aimed at the Start-Up
NY program, which offers tax breaks and other
bennies to entrepreneurs who agree to move on
campus and create jobs.
Four years in, the state continues to defend its
track record, despite having spent millions to
create jobs that missed goal by 80 percent. The
program’s kick-off national advertising program
cost $53 million alone.
Start-Up NY was especially lackluster on Long
Island, where more than half of the 28 participating
companies either withdrew or were
kicked out for violating guidelines. Some moved
to other states.
But Jason Conwall, a spokesman for the state’s
economic development agency, said it is premature
to judge the program’s performance.
“Put simply, this is a marathon, not a sprint,” he
said.
Start-Up NY aside, Long Island continues to
underwhelm many observers, who point to the
region’s rich technological past, its internationally
acclaimed research labs and potent education
sector and wonder why its entrepreneurial
ecosystem is so anemic.
It’s not for lack of talent: The Island has also
continued to grow its technology labor market,
which jumped 24 percent from 2011 to 2016,
according to CBRE’s annual Scoring Tech Talent
Report. Long Island’s millennial population
grew 8.7 percent from 2010 to 2015, nearly
double the U.S. average, and the New York
metro area was the top region nationwide for
tech degree completions between 2014 and 2015,
according to the report.
Ellen Rudin, managing director of CBRE’s Long
Island offices, said there is an ideal combination
of a highly educated and talented workforce in
the region, which is located close to Manhattan
and top business centers in adjoining states.
“Due to these attributes, as well as other changes
to the Long Island region, like the planned
transit-oriented developments, Long Island’s
technology sector should continue to grow in
the coming years,” she said.
For a region that’s spent four decades trying
to replace its defense industry, “coming years”
sounds downright promising.
THIS MONTH
Biocogent, a provider of biotech-based products and services to the personal care and cosmetic
industries, is an anchor at Ston y Brook University’s Long Island High Technology Incubator.
(John Griffin, Stony Brook University)