Ansar Khan, a recent grad of the University at Buffalo whose venture Refulgent Software we've mentioned previously as a tenant of our member the UB Technology Incubator, was named to Forbes magazine's exclusive list of 2012 All-Star Student Entrepreneurs.

Refulgent Software's initial product Ambur is a mobile app for point-of-sale management in restaurants, and it was founded while Ansar was a student. It is currently profitable and employs nine programmers and salespeople, of whom eight are UB students or alumni. For more info, see the UB news release. Congrats to Ansar!

James Spencer, an entrepreneurial business-development executive who served most recently as associate director at the nationally prominent incubation program at the University of Central Florida, has been named to jointly direct incubator and research-park operations at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

According to an RPI news release, he will direct the Emerging Ventures Ecosystem, an acceleration program that is a founding member of BIA/NYS, and also the Rensselaer Technology Park. For more information see also coverage in the Times Union.

We warmly welcome James Spencer to New York State and look forward to introducing his new joint portfolio of activities at RPI to our statewide community of business incubators and research parks!

The role that our member the Pratt Design Incubator plays in the ongoing revitalization of Brooklyn is highlighted by WNET-TV's MetroFocus program. The MetroFocus story notes how the Pratt Institute, its alumni, and energy created by the incubator at the Brooklyn Navy Yard are all helping revitalize the Myrtle Avenue corridor where the Institute's main campus is situated. The story also includes a video produced by WNET's companion program Treasures of New York, featuring several incubator tenants and program director Deb Johnson (video embedded after the break).

Robert Fritzinger, director of our supporting member the SUNY Fredonia Technology Incubator and a serial technology entrepreneur, was appointed to the SUNY Patents and Inventions Policy Board at the Research Foundation for SUNY, according to coverage in the Dunkirk Observer. Bob's bio, which describes how he sold one of his Western New York startups to the computer chip-maker Intel, is here. The SUNY Fredonia Technology Incubator is a sponsor of our association's annual meeting, as is the Research Foundation.