The Cortland Business Innovation Center, a new incubator space in a historic building owned by the Cortland Downtown Partnership (CDP), has joined BIA/NYS as our newest member.

The CDP has converted 1,200 square feet on the second floor of its building to incubator space and is planning to upgrade the balance of the floor as well. The space will accommodate about six startups, both student-initiated businesses from an entrereneurship program run in partnership with business faculty at SUNY Cortland, and independent community entrepreneurs.

CDP already manages a program under which Cortland students are placed in internships with downtown businesses, and the placement service will be expanded to serve the startup population in the incubator. We warmly welcome the Cortland Business Innovation Center to membership! 

Some 65 members and guests were in attendance at the daylong 2013 Annual Meeting of BIA/NYS, held at The Tech Garden in Syracuse. The Tech Garden also hosts the NYSERDA-sponsored Cleantech Center incubator and a range of other business- and economic-development programs sponsored by the CenterState Corporation for Economic Opportunity (CenterStateCEO). 

Welcome remarks were given by Robert Simpson, president of CenterStateCEO, and Hon. David Valesky, state Senator for the district of the Tech Garden and chairman of the state Senate Committee on Economic Development. Featured remarks were offered by:

• Ed Reinfurt, of Empire State Development/NYSTAR, on the Innovation Hot Spot/NYS Business Incubator programs and the Governor's proposed tax-free zones (presentation attached)
• Clayton Besch, of Empire State Development/SBTIF, updating on the Innovate NY Seed Fund and alerting to future news on the Innovate NY Venture Capital Fund;
• Bob Herz, deputy chief of staff to state Senator Martin Golden, on activities of the Senate Select Committee on Science, Technology, Incubation & Entrepreneurship
• Dr. Timothy Killeen, president of SUNY RF and Vice Chancellor for Reseearch, on the Innovation NY Network and other priorities of SUNY and the RF for SUNY (presentation attached). 

A featured panel discusssion on Student Entrepreneurship and Incubation was moderated by Dr. Anthony (Tony) Collins, president of Clarkson University, and included the following panelists:

• John Liddy, representing the Syracuse Student Sandbox
• Steve Kuyan, representing student entrepreneurship activities at NYU-Poly and its incubator programs (presentation attached)
• Matt Draper, representing Clarkson University's Young Innovators Program and Peyton Hall incubator
• Mary Howard, representing the NYCEDC-sponsored E-labNYC program training graduate students and postdocs in NYC life-science institutions

The Cornell University Business & Technology Park has joined BIA/NYS as our newest member. Situated just off the main Ithaca campus, adjacent to Tompkins County Airport, the park comprises 700,000 square feet across 200 acres. Among its 26 buildings is the Langmuir Lab, a laboratory-equipped multitenant facility that has long attracted early-stage and startup companies with significant ties to Cornell University. We warmly welcome the Cornell Business & Technology Park to membership.

Blue Sphere industries and North Shore Solutions, two businesses started by then-undergraduates and mentored at our member Clarkson University's Peyton Hall incubator, were recognized as runners-up for the National Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award by the Sigma Nu Tau entrepreneurial honor society. For more information, see the university news release.

Matthew Turcotte, the founder of North Shore Solutions, was the first participant in Clarkson's Young Entrepreneurs Program through which the unviersity receives equity in a student startup in exchange for free tuition. This and other strategies for student entrepreneurship will be discussed in a panel on student entrepreneurship moderated by Dr. Anthony Collins, Clarkson University's president, at our annual meeting on June 7th.