The Zahn Center for Entrepreneurship, an incubator for hardware startups based on the campus of CUNY's City College of New York (CCNY), has joined BIA/NYS as our newest member.

Started at CCNY's Grove School of Engineering with support from former garment and technology entrepreneur Irwin Zahn and the San Diego-based Moxie Foundation and from the office of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, the Zahn Center offers its tenants and other clients mentorship, engineering support, and access to a wide array of 3D printers, laser cutters, machining capability, electronics, and software tools.

The Zahn Center targets both startups based on the work of CCNY faculty, students and staff, and also entrepreneurs from New York city who are focused on building physical products. The incubator is led by Haytham Elhawary, Ph.D., an expert in medical robotics formerly on the technical staff of Philips Research North America and also the organizer of the NYC Hardware Start-Up meetup.

We warmly welcome the Zahn Center to membership! 

New York State's final enacted budget for 2013-2014 includes the strongest-ever support for business incubation as a critical component of the state's overall economic-development strategy. Through negotiations that led to the final budget, Governor Andrew Cuomo's vision for tax-free Innovation Hot Spots was merged with key provisions of the Business Incubator Support Act proposed by Senator Martin Golden. The package also received approval from the state Assembly.

Under new statutory language included in Part C of the final "revenue bill," incubators that follow nationally recognized best practices will be eligible to apply for recognition as a "New York State Incubator" by Empire State Development Corp., the state's principal economic-development entity. ESDC is further empowered and funded to make grants to these designated incubators to support the kinds of business-growth services that distinguish excellent and effective incubator programs from the rest.

A subset of designated New York State Incubators with particularly strong ties to university R&D will also be eligible to apply for tax-free status for up to five years for qualifying tenant/clients. The state expects to designate and support one such "Innovation Hot Spot" in each of 10 economic regions, starting with five in the coming year. 

For more information, see Governor Cuomo's news release, the state Senate's news release, or a specific news release from Senator Golden (see attached). Our association and our members warmly appreciate the ability of all branches of government, both legislative chambers, and all political parties to achieve a joint vision for advancing the practice of business incubation statewide.

BioBAT, a project to develop affordable, state-of-the-art biotechnology space at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, is searching for an executive director. BioBAT is a collaboration among our supporting member the SUNY Downstate incubation program, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the Research Foundation for SUNY, and the State of New York. For more information please see the attached job description.

Two discovery-stage biotech companies spun off from the laboratory of a star researcher at Roswell Park Cancer Institute will move into the Thomas Beecher Jr. Innovation Center, a member incubator on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC).

OncoTartis, Inc., and Tartis Aging, Inc., are based on technologies licensed from Roswell Park and developed in the laboratories of Dr. Andrewi Gudkov. Dr. Gudkov and his first commercial company, Cleveland BioLabs Inc. (CLBI), were recruited to Buffalo in 2007. The two new spin-offs had outgrown space available to them in the CLBI building but wished to remain on the BNMC campus.

For more information, see the BNMC news release and coverage in The Buffalo News.