Ellen Ditonto, Jamestown Board of Public Utilities business development coordinator, joined a panel discussion at the New York State Innovation Summit on “Climate Tech Innovation and Manufacturing in New York State.”

Ellen Ditonto, Jamestown Board of Public Utilities business development coordinator, discussed the Retool WNY Initiative in a panel discussion on “Climate Tech Innovation and Manufacturing in New York State” as part of the New York State Innovation Summit held recently in Syracuse.

The conference was sponsored by FuzeHub and New York State Division of Science, Technology and Innovation.

Steve Bravo, director of commercialization for the New York Energy Research and Development Authority, moderated the panel. Joining Ditonto in the group were John Cerveny, senior director and program manager for New Energy New York; Ken Rother, managing director of REV Ithaca Hardware Accelerator, and Mike Riedlinger, managing director, Technology Commercialization for NextCorps and Scale for ClimateTech.

Ditonto highlighted the outcomes of a $750,000 NYSERDA grant awarded to the BPU that has resulted in the utility’s Retool WNY Initiative. She described the curriculum development for a Building Automation Systems certificate program at Jamestown Community College; a manufacturing study produced by Insyte Consulting; and the mini-transformation grants provided to regional manufacturers that have developed parts or components for the clean energy industry.

The grant helped to create and execute the three Retool Conferences that have brought together manufacturers, startups, entrepreneurs and funding agencies to the Jamestown area.

Panelists discussed New York state’s resurgence in manufacturing and the development of both the I-Tech Corridor and the Battery Tech Corridor, which will bring semiconductor and battery manufacturing to the state. Ditonto talked about Electrovaya, a Canadian lithium-ion battery manufacturer, selecting the Jamestown area for its first United States production facility and the opportunity to recruit suppliers to the Southern Tier battery industry.