Date: Jan 01, 2019 Source: Innovateli (
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This event, and these pages, are dedicated to Long Island's best and brightest ideas, born across a broad spectrum of inventiveness and nurtured by social need, red-blooded capitalism and old-fashioned creativity.
This year's honorees start at the top, literally. In 2019 Master of Innovation Mitch Maiman, we have selected a mind-over-matter maestro who's guided the next-generation product-development company he launched a decade ago to global prominence; in Stony Brook University Economic Development Vice President Yacov Shamash, first-ever winner of our John L. Kominicki Legacy Award, we salute an old friend whose contributions to the regional innovation economy will ripple for decades.
Collectively, our other 2019 honorees display an amazing breadth of innovation. The Zucker School professor developing new telehealth options for Spanish-speaking patients. The Stony Brook startup battling environmental contamination with microbiological warriors. The beauty-industry veteran who thought small and scored big.
There's the new Edgewood video-production studio, the Smithtown medical-product ace, the Jericho digital-education expert and the Southampton "entrepreneur's club."
We're saluting one of the Feinstein Institute's all-time champions in the fight against lupus. And for the first time, we're honoring high schoolers who are already showing off the skills they'll need to thrive in the 21st century innovation economy -- and maybe save the world along the way.
Healthy pet treats, next-level vanadium flow batteries, new employee-loyalty apps and a familiar download now one billion blocks into its anti-robocall crusade -- the inventiveness highlighted in these pages knows no bounds.
As fervent believers in the power of Long Island's innovation economy, we're thrilled by the collective talents of our 2019 awardees. As humanitarians, we're emboldened by their heart -- each of these thinkers, tinkerers, entrepreneurs and execs is not only interested in making a buck, but in changing the world.
We firmly believe Long Island's economic vitality depends on brilliant researchers, forward-thinking makers and risk-taking venture capitalists, just like these inspiring awardees. And we think they deserve a round of applause!
Like Innovate Long Island itself, these awards wouldn't be possible without the encouragement and generous support of our sponsors. Their company logos and congratulatory messages grace these pages. We'd also like to offer our sincerest appreciation to the universities, law firms, accounting firms, economic-development offices, nonprofit foundations and individuals who believe -- as we do -- that innovation will be the bedrock of Long Island's restored prosperity.
Thank you also to the small army of professionals who helped us pull this off, including steadfast photographer Bob Giglione, videographer and digital master John Richardson (and his entire Quick-Cast team), the topflight experts at Design Audio Visual, graphic designer extraordinaire Mike Albano and, of course, our longtime friends at the Crest Hollow Country Club.
To the 2019 Innovators of the Year: Congratulations! As we like to say, ideas are easy -- the hard part is courage, determination and execution. And that's why you're here.
~ Marlene McDonnell, Gregory Zeller
CLEAN GEN
Innovator of the Year: Allied Microbiota
Location: Stony Brook
The skinny: Battling environmental contamination with unique microbes and enzymes
Allied Microbiota is an early-stage bootstrapper on a primary mission to remediate soils and sediments tainted by toxins. Founded by Frana James and Raymond Sambrotto, the startup found itself in fairly elite company last year, when it was named a finalist in the prestigious 76West competition.
Allied Microbiota uses microbial products to treat toxic pollutants, including PCBs, in soil and sediment. And while it didn't take top honors at 76West, the science is sound, developed over a course of years by Sambrotto, who spent a decade pitting microbes against various pollutants.
Advancing as far as it did in the competition added to the strong start for the Columbia University PowerBridge NY program graduate, currently basking in the business-development glow of Stony Brook University's Clean Energy Business Incubator Program.
With several patent applications in the works and an ambitious field-testing program underway with New Jersey-based environmental engineering firm Clean Earth, the cofounders -- along with new Director of Technology Michael Chin -- are now field-testing and fine-tuning solutions for a market that, according to James, is ripe for such products.
"Once we show the technology can work at that scale, commercialization is the next step," the entrepreneur notes. "Our plan is to start manufacturing on a larger scale [in 2019]."
