NYIT Receives Start-Up NY Approval

NYIT's ETIC provides research and collaborative space for corporate partners, faculty members, and students.

On September 16, NYIT received approval for its first Start-Up NY tax-free business development zone. By granting the approval, Empire State Development (New York State’s economic development engine managing the Start-Up NY program), will allow businesses to operate free of state and local taxes for 10 years at NYIT in exchange for job-creation and regional-investment commitments.

“Education for education’s sake is a model that doesn’t work in a 21st-century global economy,” said School of Engineering and Computing Sciences Dean Nada Marie Anid, Ph.D., in a story in Innovate LI. “This will further close the gap between industry and what we do in the classroom. Our students will be able to interact with businesses on our campus and become entrepreneurs in their own right.”

The tax-free zone will be located in 3,772 square feet of the 8,000-square-foot Entrepreneurship and Technology Innovation Center (ETIC), located within Harry Schure Hall on the Long Island campus. The newly designated space will target companies in the IT, cybersecurity, bio- and green-tech industries, among others.

In a recent article in Newsday, Anid noted that the ETIC facility has already received inquiries from a number of startup companies as well as some larger corporations. “I’d like to recruit an offshoot of a large company, like IBM, to come to our Start-Up NY zone…It would give us fast results,” she said.

The ETIC is equipped with high-tech facilities and laboratories for bioengineering, health analytics, nanofabrication, rapid prototyping, materials science, IT, and cyber defense. NYIT estimates its tax-free NY zone will generate up to 44 new jobs over the next five years, including internships, project and research opportunities, and post-graduation employment for NYIT students. Part of the Start-Up NY program specifies that employees in the tax-free zone pay no state income taxes.

The designation coincides with the hiring of a new ETIC director, Michael Nizich, Ph.D., who previously worked at Applied DNA Sciences (ADNAS). Nizich noted that the ETIC and its tax-free zone “offers a unique location for regional technology companies to collaborate with the innovative faculty members and students at NYIT in order to foster new and exciting innovations that will continue to benefit both the business sector, regional economy, and society in general for years to come”