New York Tech: 12 people to watch in 2012
DANIEL HUTTENLOCHER, 53 -- DEAN OF COMPUTING & INFORMATION SCIENCE, CORNELL
Huttenlocher helped spearhead Cornell University’s drive for the right to open a high-tech
graduate school on Roosevelt Island, forging a partnership with the Technion-Israel Institute of
Technology that beat out rivals like Stanford University in the competition for Mayor Bloomberg’s
favor.
The school’s permanent campus on Roosevelt Island won’t be complete for another five years, but
the project will kick into gear this year in a temporary space in the city, with students in
attendance by September. “The idea is to connect students to the New York City business
community while they’re still students, so they’re more likely to stay in New York,” said
Huttenlocher, who is working to make the campus both a resource for tech companies looking for
talent and a “magnet” for New York tech, where people can brush up on skills, network, and show
off their work. “We really want New York to be recognized as one of the absolutely top tech
sectors in the world."
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/twelve-2012-gallery1.1005245#ixzz1jwPhs0pw
Technology and innovation at the core of the Big Apple
12 January 2012
By John Morgan
The legacies from the collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment bank in 2008 include years of
turmoil on Wall Street and a nosedive for the Western world's economies.
Now add to the list a science and engineering graduate school to be set up in New York with public
investment of land and funding: a key element in the city's drive to reduce its economic reliance
on financial services. The competition to build the new campus - launched in December 2010 by
New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg - brought seven consortia entries from 17 universities
around the world. Cornell University was announced as the winner last month.
Seth Pinsky, president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, said the campus
project was a response to the fact that the city was "too reliant on a single industry - namely
financial services".
After the collapse of Lehman Brothers, conversations were initiated with academics, venture
capitalists and community leaders about the single development they believed could improve New
York. Becoming a leader in technology and innovation was a "consistent theme".
Mr Pinsky said: "The key to being a leader in technology and innovation is to have a critical mass
of applied sciences research, and R&D activity: specifically a major academic research institution."
While New York already has some of the world's leading universities, Mr Pinsky said that "given
the scale of our ambition...which is to become a world leader in technology and innovation, we just
didn't have enough of this going on".
The city will put up $100 million (£64.7 million) to fund infrastructure, as well as providing the
land for the campus, to be sited on Roosevelt Island in the East River.
Cornell, based in Ithaca, New York, has also received a $350 million donation for the city campus
from Charles F. Feeney, an alumnus who established the Duty Free Shopping Group. Operating
costs are $2 billion over 30 years.
Kent Fuchs, Cornell provost, said the public investment showed "the city, the area and the full
administration [are] fully committed to making this happen...That they were willing to put up land
and not just their willpower but also financial resources, tells us they are as committed as we are."
The New York campus - scheduled to open in a temporary location this September - is, Professor
Fuchs said, "not creating the traditional academic structure of faculties, schools or departments,
we are creating focus areas or hubs". These will focus on connective media, healthier life and the
built environment.
The campus, expected to open on Roosevelt Island by 2017, will also feature a section run in
partnership with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology focusing on master's degrees in
applied science, as well as research. Mr Pinsky expects "hundreds" of businesses to emerge from
the campus, noting the business record of graduates from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Boston. "This is really the opportunity we are looking to tap."
He described the campus as "an Erie Canal moment", referring to the 1825 state-built canal that
helped New York become the East Coast's leading port. He added: "This is an opportunity to lock
in a major competitive advantage for decades to come."
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=418687&c=1
US: New York campus bid to be innovation capital
Eileen Travers
15 January 2012 Issue: 204
Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology's winning plan for a $1.5 billion,
environmentally-friendly applied sciences and engineering university in New York could thrust
the city to the forefront of high-tech development. Silicon Valley has been warned to brace itself.
The American-Israeli partnership emerged triumphant last month following a year-long
international competition to build a New York institution to rival Stanford, which withdrew from
the contest at the last minute.
When ground was broken last year for a memorial park at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island, a
sliver of land in the East River connected by cable car and subway to Manhattan, New Yorkers
nodded with approval over the beautification of an island that a century ago housed the city's
orphaned, sick and mentally ill. When the park opens later this year, developers will be poised
anew to begin building the new campus that will bolster higher education in a city looking for a
new cutting edge.
Officially called NYCTech Campus, the project is expected to be completed by 2027. "We are not
going to have an extension of the Technion or Cornell," said Technion President Peretz Lavie. "We
are going to have something new." As the reputable Cornell and Technion schools combine forces
to create this truly new learning space, 185,800 square metres of it, what the project symbolises is
New York City's commitment and willingness to promote technology and research-oriented
development. David Jacobson, of Moody's Investors Service, a credit rating, research and risk
analysis agency, said: "Over the long run of a decade or more, it could provide a new centre of
high-tech growth for the city that would further diversity its image and sources of growth."
In many cities in the United States, higher education and health care sectors account for the largest
employers and directly offer more job growth and more stability than most other industries, he
explained, adding that research universities also offer the opportunity for cities to generate
employment through 'spin-offs' of new technology-based businesses.
In Israel, an estimated
4,000 start-ups have been set up around Technion, creating an area similar to America's Silicon
Valley. "New York City is trying to capitalise on this well-established trend," Jacobson said. "If
successful, the project will enhance the city's reputation as a higher education and research
centre, which will be positive not just for the city, but for other universities in the New York
metropolitan area that are seeking to attract talented faculty and students, as well as private
donors and government research grants."
Because the higher education sector is a comparatively small part of the city's economy now, the
impact will be larger when viewed just from the perspective of higher education rather than from
the city's overall economic position. "The city's economy is already huge and well diversified and
it would take a long time before the Cornell-Technion development would have a major impact on
the city's economy," said Jacobson. At any rate, the project is expected to generate more than $23
billion in economic activity and $1.4 billion in tax revenue. Crunching the numbers, the project
also means a boost in jobs and what Jacobson called spin-offs, with an estimated 20,000
construction jobs, 8,000 permanent jobs and 600 new businesses that would create an additional
30,000 jobs.
A game-changer New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was thrilled to announce the winning bid.
"Today will be remembered as a defining moment," he said. "In a word, this project is going to be
transformative. It really is a game-changer." Cornell President David Skorton agreed, saying he
hoped the campus would turn New York into the innovation capital of the world. "This is not a
moment for a touchdown dance for Cornell or Technion. This is a moment for a touchdown dance
for New York City." The nuts and bolts of the proposal led the mayor to select it over other plans
submitted by six higher education institutions. The eye-catching campus, which will host 2,500
students and 280 professors, will feature sloping metallic panels that look like giant silver
dominoes, built to generate solar power, and shadowed by state-of-the-art research towers.
Environmental experts have already praised the plans for their ingenuity. The Cornell-Technion
proposal would combine cutting edge technologies to create one of the most environmentally
friendly and energy efficient campuses in the world. The proposed phase one academic building, if
completed today, would be the largest net-zero energy building in the eastern United States,
meaning that it will harvest as much energy from solar power and geothermal wells as it
consumes on an annual basis. A solar array will generate 1.8 megawatts and a 400 well
geothermal field, cooling buildings in summer and heating them in winter. The campus will
employ some of the most sophisticated environmental technology in the world and help develop
them, serving as a living laboratory for the built environment hub.
Organised around three interdisciplinary hubs, the campus will feature connective media,
healthier life and the built environment. Cornell will immediately offer masters and doctoral
degrees in areas such as computer science, electrical and computer engineering, and information
science and engineering. In addition, after receiving the required accreditation, the campus will
offer innovative Cornell-Technion dual master of applied sciences degrees.
Bold plan won the contest It was Cornell and Technion's bold and assertive plan for such a
campus that won them the contract, with Bloomberg saying that the team triumphed because the
proposal would be able to accommodate the most students and in most aggressive time frame.
What amounted to a bidding war saw Cornell and Technion fight off stiff competition from
institutions including Stanford University, Columbia University, New York University and Carnegie
Mellon University. In a neck-and-neck finish, Cornell-Technion announced the receipt of a $350
million gift from alumnus Charles Feeney, cofounder of Duty Free Shopper, just a few hours after
Stanford University said it was withdrawing from the competition. Moody's stated that Stanford's
withdrawal was a positive move as a non-New York State university. Cornell had established a
presence in the city, where its campuses already served students, alumni and a donor base.
Likewise Technion, an Israeli science college that saw one of its professors Dan Schechtman
awarded a Nobel Prize in chemistry this year.
"This is a momentous day catapulting New York City into the forefront of the 21st century
economy and burnishing its place as the high-tech centre of the east," said US Senator Charles E
Schumer. He said this was just the first step, the end of the beginning, of what needs to be an
ongoing, multi-year effort to make New York not just one of, but the high tech center for
innovation. "Look out Silicon Valley, look out Boston," Schumer said. "New York will be second to
none." Whether that challenge will materialise now rests on Cornell and Technion.
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20120113202823324
A City Is A Startup: The Rise Of The Mayor-Entrepreneur
Jon Bischke
Saturday, January 14th, 2012
Editor’s note: This post is authored by guest contributor Jon Bischke. Jon is a founder of RG Labs and
is an advisor to several startups. You can follow Jon on Twitter here.
On stage at last month’s Le Web conference Shervin Pishevar, a Managing Director at Menlo
Ventures, stated “The World is a Startup.” It’s an interesting perspective, and I think what’s true
for the world is also true for countries, states and municipalities. With developments like last
month’s announcement that Cornell was selected to build a new tech campus in New York City, it
seems to follow that if “a city is a startup,” then the best mayors are the ones who are looking at
their cities in much the same way as entrepreneurs look at the companies they have founded.
The ingredients for a successful startup and a successful city are remarkably similar. You need to
build stuff that people want. You need to attract quality talent. You have to have enough capital to
get your fledgling ideas to a point of sustainability. And you need to create a world-class culture
that not only attracts the best possible people, but encourages them to stick around even when
things aren’t going so great.
Paul Graham has written extensively on this topic in essays like How to Be Silicon Valley and Why
Startups Condense in America. Much of his thinking no doubt played into the decision to base Y
Combinator entirely in Silicon Valley. Boston’s loss was the Bay Area’s gain and a striking example
of why it’s important for mayors to view their cities through an entrepreneurial lens. Paul viewed
Y Combinator through that lens and it led him to believe that Silicon Valley simply had more of the
ingredients that would make his companies successful than Boston did.
So let’s take a look at those ingredients. Making products and services people want to buy has to
be at the top of the list of any forward-thinking mayor. Extensive research by the Kauffman
Foundation shows that virtually all job creation comes from companies less than five years old. So
if you’re running a city and want to increase the number of jobs in your city, you should be doing
whatever you can to encourage more viable startups. It’s something that Ed Lee, San Francisco’s
newly-inaugurated mayor seems to understand, telling TechCrunch back in November “I want
them [tech companies] to start here in San Francisco, and I want them to stay and to grow.”
Talent is another important factor and lies at the heart of Bloomberg’s efforts in New York City.
Creating a world-class engineering campus in New York can be thought of as the municipal
equivalent to Facebook’s acquisition of FriendFeed or Gowalla. By having more talented people in
the city, New York is better able to compete with other cities in the same way that Facebook better
competes with rivals by having more talented engineers under its roof. (What’s more, Facebook
recently announced that it will open an NYC engineering office in 2012.)
Of course, getting top engineers and designers to actually work for a city might prove challenging
(with a notable exception to be seen in the success of the Code for America program), but mayors
can have a significant impact on helping a city to attract the best and brightest.
I recently spoke with Daniel Huttenlocher, the dean of the Faculty of Computing and Information
Science (CIS) at Cornell University, who played an integral role in Cornell’s bid for the Roosevelt
Island campus (read more about this effort in Eric Eldon’s interview with Huttenlocher).
His observation that Bloomberg’s history as both a technologist and an entrepreneur helped him
and others in his office to better understand the need for New York to increasingly be a hub for the
best technologists on the planet. Bloomberg is to New York City as John Calipari is to Kentucky
basketball, intuitively adhering to Vinod Khosla’s notion that CEOs should be spending a very high
percentage of their time recruiting.
Capital is another necessity for a city’s success. In some cases this might mean mayors actively
courting angel investors and venture capitalists. The success of the Silicon Valley ecosystem is due,
in no small part, to the availability of early-stage capital and its density of investors. Other metro
areas have historically struggled to replicate this investment ecosystem but more attempts are
underway.
Sergio Fernández de Córdova, the founder of Fuel Outdoor and chairman of New York
Entrepreneur Week, pointed me to an effort underway in the state of Connecticut to provide more
funding to early-stage companies in the state. In addition, New York City announced $150 million
in funding solely devoted to startups in the city as part of the tech campus announcement. While
these efforts might pale in comparison to the latest billion-dollar fund raised by a Silicon Valley
venture firm, they are a step in the right direction for states and municipalities trying to spur
innovation.
A final ingredient is culture which can loosely be translated to livability when we think about
cities. This was impressed upon me recently during a meeting with Eric Garcetti, the former Los
Angeles City Council President and leading contender to become the city’s next mayor. Garcetti
recognizes the challenges that LA has when competing against the Bay Area to be the home base
for the next great technology company. Indeed, Los Angeles has lost a number of its most
promising companies to the north such as Lookout and Yammer (born out of Los Angeles-based
Geni).
Still, Los Angeles is one of the most desirable cities in the country to live in and the recent Silicon
Beach resurgence is due in part to this. Listening to Garcetti talk about LA’s strong points reminds
you of Larry and Sergei discussing why Google’s culture made it possible for them to attract so
many outstanding engineers or Tony Hsieh sharing why Zappos’ quirky, fun work environment
helped them retain top performers. By emphasizing LA’s strengths, Garcetti hopes to retain
talented USC, UCLA and Cal Tech grads who might not be so keen on spending “Junuary” in San
Francisco.
As we roll into an election year, many cities are in a state of crisis. Budgets are a mess and job
growth has been minimal for a good swath of the country. Cities in need don’t just need strong
leadership, they require transformational leadership. It’s no easy feat but it’s likely that the more
that mayors view their cities through an entrepreneurial lens, the better they will be able to adapt
to a rapidly-changing world.
Bloomberg seems to be leading this charge with his efforts in New York City and mayor’s offices
around the country are taking notice. Others like Ed Lee, Garcetti and Newark mayor Cory Booker
appear to be taking a similar tone in their respective cities. Perhaps these are the first examples in
what will become a long line of mayor-entrepreneurs.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/14/a-city-is-a-startup-the-rise-of-the-mayor-entrepreneur/
In New York, Growing a Technology Hub
Bruce Katz and Judith Rodin
Mark Brynes
This week, The Atlantic Cities has partnered with the Brookings-Rockefeller Project on State and
Metropolitan Innovation to explore local solutions to national problems. You can find the rest of the
series here.
New York City has long been known as a hub of innovation and opportunity, a place where
creativity and sheer force of will can produce achievements previously unimagined. Companies
that have changed how we experience the world - from Alexander Graham Bell’s Bell Laboratories
to Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records - all got their start in the city that never sleeps.
However, despite a burgeoning community of tech entrepreneurs, over 100 academic and
research institutions, and more than 626,000 post-secondary students, New York City still lags the
Bay Area in tech capacity and research commercialization. Silicon Valley remains the foremost
location for dot-com entrepreneurialism and technological innovation—home to tech legends
Apple and Google, social media giants Facebook and Twitter, the social philanthropy innovators at
Kiva and the design visionaries at IDEO, among many, many others.
The Bloomberg administration wants to change all that. Its Applied Sciences NYC initiative aims to
boost tech R&D, spark job growth, foster entrepreneurial endeavors and diversify the area
economy by establishing a state-of-the-art applied sciences and engineering campus in the heart
of New York City. To support this project, the city has pledged up to $100 million as well as a 99year lease for nominal rent at one of three city-owned sites— the Goldwater Hospital Campus on
Roosevelt Island, the Navy Hospital Campus at the Brooklyn Navy Yard or historic buildings and
property on Governors Island. Applicants were to be judged based on proposed support for
research commercialization and job creation, academic program strength, plans for community
engagement, sustainability of design, and sensitivity to existing neighborhoods and surroundings.
In late December, the city announced its decision to partner with Cornell University and the
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to create the “NYCTech” campus on Roosevelt Island.
Phase one of the campus build-out will develop 300,000 square feet by 2017, though the two
universities aim to start classes at a temporary site this September. By the project’s culmination in
2043, NYCTech will encompass two million square feet with 280 faculty members and up to 2,500
graduate students. Cornell and Technion also plan to contribute to area K-12 education by training
200 science teachers each year.
Based on current projections, the city expects that the new campus will create up to 20,000
construction jobs; up to 8,000 permanent, well-paying jobs for a broad range of skill levels; 600
new companies; and billions in additional economic activity. For Cornell President David Skorton,
the prospect of job creation is especially compelling. "The most exciting thing to me in this election
season is that we don’t have to roll over and die for lack of a way to create jobs. This is an example
of a public-private governmental partnership: it’s government, it’s private industry and higher
education," he says. "I think this could be a model that could be replicated across the country."
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2012/01/new-york-growing-technologyhub/950/
Cornell ponies up for tech campus
The university's agreement with the Bloomberg administration starts with a $10 million
payment and calls for penalties if the project is delayed.
By Daniel Massey@masseydaniel
January 9, 2012 3:54 p.m.
Cornell University will pay the city $10 million by next week as the first step in getting its new
Roosevelt Island tech campus off the ground, according to a lease and funding agreement released
Monday by the city.
The Ithaca, N.Y.-based university must submit a $5 million pre-development deposit and a $5
million security deposit to the city by Jan. 17, the agreement states.
The deal includes stiff penalties if Cornell does not adhere to a detailed timetable to get the
project—a signature of the Bloomberg administration—off the ground quickly. Cornell has until
Nov. 10 to submit its Uniform Land Use Review Procedure application, or face fines of $1,000 a
day, increasing to $6,000 a day after 10 months. A late draft environmental impact statement
would cost it another $1 million.
“We have always said that project feasibility was a major criteria in our selection process, and this
innovative agreement shows that our purpose is to get this game-changing project in the ground
quickly while getting the most benefits for taxpayer dollars,” said a spokesman for the city's
Economic Development Corp.
The deal calls for three phases of construction, with the first commencing Jan. 1, 2015, and
including 300,000 square feet of space to be built by June 30, 2017. By the time the third phase is
completed in 2037, the campus will encompass some 1.8 million square feet of buildings.
To accelerate the project, the agreement includes many provisions that are typically negotiated at
a later phase. Construction workers must be paid at prevailing wage or via approved project labor
agreements and there must be so-called M/WBE participation to ensure minorities and women
are included in the construction process.
Cornell, teaming up with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and will get $100 million from
the city to help defray infrastructure costs. The mayor has not ruled out selecting a runner-up or
runners-up from among several remaining contenders.
Read more:
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20120109/ECONOMY/120109918#ixzz1j04BCfv5
The story behind Cornell's New York City technology campus
By Jamie Keeneon December 29, 2011 02:42 pm 26Comments
Cornell University has won the bidding process to build a new technology campus in New York
City, beating six other rivals including Columbia, Carnegie Mellon, New York University, and the
India-based Amity University. The project is designed to draw promising talent towards NYC in a
bid to make it the epicenter of new technology startups, and position the city as a major rival to
Silicon Valley and Boston, home of MIT. The choice was made by a panel of university presidents,
venture capitalists, city Mayoral staff, and local entrepreneurs, who ultimately selected Cornell
based on its commitment to the project and apparent hunger to succeed. The new campus, a
partnership with Technion-Israel institute of Technology, will be built on Eleanor Roosevelt Island
in 2015.
The shock of the selection process came as Stanford withdrew its bid late on, despite being a clear
forerunner at the outset. Selection committee member Charlie Kim told Wired that the Stanford
bid "was inherently conflicted from day one," and that "if you want to be number one, Silicon
Valley has to be number two." This conflict ultimately meant that it would be difficult for Stanford
to commit to the project without jeopardising the status and reputation of its California campus.
This desire to compete with Silicon Valley and Boston is inspired by what's perceived as a decline
in new startups in Boston and a stagnation in California. New York sees this as an opportunity, and
its ambitions don't stop at the Cornell campus. The long term goal, as New York Mayor Michael
Bloomberg said at a press conference, is that some of the other proposals may still be realized in
future.
http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/29/2667778/cornell-technology-campus-new-york-city
How Cornell Beat Stanford (And Everybody Else) for NYC
Tech Campus
By Tim Carmody
December 28, 2011 |
2:40 pm |
Next Jump CEO Charlie Kim with Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Photo courtesy of Next Jump.
New York-based Next Jump is a data-driven rewards and offers company working at the juncture
of three quintessentially New York City businesses: advertising, publishing and commerce.
Between its annual Silicon Valley 500 event and other efforts, Founder and CEO Charlie Kim
estimates that he and his company probably have invested more in recruiting software engineers
out of college than any company on the east coast.
“If Boston has gone down [as a center for startups] and Silicon Valley has stayed flat, then New
York is going up,” Kim says.
Kim knows Boston’s tech scene well, having started Next Jump in his dorm room at Tufts. After
settling in New York, he resisted pressure to take Next Jump out of the city for easy venture capital
money in California through two different tech booms in the ’90s and ’00s. He’s an ambassador for
the city, proof New York is a place where you can build a successful, lasting technology business.
So when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg convened an advisory committee of university
presidents, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and other experts to evaluate seven proposals to
build an applied science and technology campus in the city to help attract and retain new tech
talent and businesses, Kim was a natural choice.
A joint proposal by Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology won the initial
competition. Cornell, which already has a substantial footprint in Manhattan, will begin hiring and
admitting students as early as next year while it works to build a new campus on city-donated
land on Roosevelt Island.
Among other proposals, Cornell and Technion beat — or at least outlasted — Stanford University,
the school whose marriage of high-tech smarts and entrepreneurial verve in Silicon Valley
Bloomberg wanted to reinvent in New York. Stanford unexpectedly withdrew its bid shortly
before the results were announced.
“Stanford was inherently conflicted from day one,” Kim told Wired. After all, Mayor Bloomberg
didn’t propose that New York would match or follow Silicon Valley or Boston-Cambridge as hightech hubs. He proposed to make New York City the best in the world.
“If you want to be number one, Silicon Valley has to be number two,” Kim says.
It was harder for Stanford to commit itself and its resources to that vision than Cornell or many of
the other bidders. Not without causing serious agita back home in Palo Alto.
The New York Times‘ Richard Pérez-Peña has a fine play-by-play of how Cornell and Technion
partnered up, more or less under everyone’s radar, to win the bid. Cornell and Technion each
offered something the other didn’t: Cornell’s stateside prestige, endowment and experience in
New York, and Technion’s proven ability to spark high-tech business development.
But if Pérez-Peña’s story helps to tell part of the universities’ side of the story, Kim was able to
show Wired something of how the mayor’s office and advisers approached the proposals.
Continue reading ‘How Cornell Beat Stanford (And Everybody Else) For NYC Tech Campus‘ …
The advisory committee was convened for the first time in July, just after Bloomberg officially
solicited bids, and again shortly after the proposal deadline at the end of October. Each member of
the committee received and reviewed over 10,000 pages between the seven proposals. Over four
hours, the committee analyzed and debated every application. Committee members also had oneon-one meetings with representatives from each university or university partnership. Finally, two
weeks ago, just before the announcement — but just after Stanford surprisingly withdrew its bid
— the committee met again to deliberate and deliver its final report and recommendation to the
mayor’s office.
The narrative floated that Stanford’s sudden withdrawal and Cornell’s last-minute alumni gift of
$350 million turned the process on its head simply doesn’t seem to be true. According to Kim,
while all the proposals were strong, both he and a plurality of the committee recommended
Cornell’s application as the top proposal from the beginning of the process.
Cornell and Technion “kept putting on more and more attractive aspects to what was already
quite a good proposal,” deputy mayor Robert K. Steel told the Times.
Kim says that for his part, he evaluated the proposals in the same way he evaluates hiring a new
engineer. Besides looking for natural talent and innovative ideas, he poses four questions:
• Who has the most hunger?
• Who has the most humility?
• Who will fail quickly and iterate?
• Who will stick with it?
Stanford’s proposal, headed up by its President John L. Hennessy, was overwhelmingly strong,
Kim says: rich in historic knowledge, past accomplishments and detailed plans for the future.
Committee members with university backgrounds, who knew Stanford and Hennessy well, were
particularly impressed. And the VCs and CEOs were struck by Stanford’s die-hard loyalty to
entrepreneurs and their needs. As deputy mayor Steel says of Stanford, “they’re a bit like lining up
against the Yankees.”
But when Kim and the other committee members reached beyond the university Presidents to
speak to the faculty and student body of the different universities, Cornell’s hunger for the project,
its humility in its approach, and its clear, unconflicted commitment to the project stood out.
And even though they didn’t ultimately win this round, Kim also singled out Carnegie Mellon
University, who’d proposed to build a new campus based in the Brooklyn Navy Yard as part of a
partnership with video production company Steiner Studios. Like Cornell, the Pittsburgh-based
technology university has something unique to offer New York, and vice versa.
The hope, voiced by Mayor Bloomberg at the press conference announcing the Cornell-Technion
campus, is that additional proposals can be fulfilled in whole or part, from an expansion of
Columbia in Harlem to Carnegie Mellon and NYU’s proposals in Brooklyn.
Schools and faculty from different parts of the country each offer something unique, Kim says.
There are well-known stereotypes that have a whiff of truth.
For instance, Boston/Cambridge engineers are often excellent on developing architecture for the
backend; California engineers focus on the user interface and experience; and New York City
produces business-minded pragmatists, the ones most likely to think in terms of the gestalt and
ask “what’s the real problem?”
Just as Silicon Valley isn’t just Stanford and Boston-Cambridge isn’t just MIT, the synergy of
multiple technology, design and science programs working together, along with the CUNY and
SUNY systems and other New York-area universities, creates something more than the sum of its
parts.
After all, there’s a nationwide shortage of engineers and other people with strong math and
technology skills — and as it attracts more technology startups and satellites, there’s perhaps a
particular shortage of this talent in New York.
The running joke among the entrepreneurs on the committee, Kim says, laughing, was that
“whichever university brings in the new engineers, we can just go ahead and hire all of them.”
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/12/how-cornell-beat-everybody-nyc/all/1
NY Times: Alliance Formed Secretly to Win Deal for Campus
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
December 25, 2011
The first secret meeting took place last March, in a place no one would suspect: Beijing. For the
second, in July, they holed up in the Cornell Club of New York, rather than a hotel where they
might be noticed by outsiders.
Over three days, more than a dozen top officials from Cornell University and the Technion-Israel
Institute of Technology barely ventured out of that 14-story clubhouse near Grand Central
Terminal.
The object of discussion was the tantalizing $400 million in real estate and infrastructure
upgrades that the Bloomberg administration was dangling for someone to build a new graduate
school of applied sciences. A reporter from The Chronicle of Higher Education, having learned that
Peretz Lavie, Technion’s president, was in the country, could not pry loose his location or purpose.
The veil of secrecy held.
It was not until summer’s end that David J. Skorton, Cornell’s president, told Robert K. Steel, the
deputy mayor for economic development who was overseeing the contest for the science campus,
that an alliance had been hammered out. “I wasn’t aware that they were dating,” Mr. Steel recalled,
“and he called me up and said, ‘Good news, we’re getting married.’ ”
And the two universities waited until Oct. 18 — 10 days before the city’s deadline for proposals —
to announce the union publicly. Last Monday, when their joint bid was crowned the winner of the
city’s year-long, international competition, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg made it clear that the
synergy between the two institutions was a critical factor.
The unsuspected marriage, according to interviews with university and city officials, was one of
many juicy pieces of the proposal that its architects unveiled strategically, to keep competitors in
the dark and make the maximum impression on city officials.
The delivery of tens of thousands of alumni signatures supporting Cornell’s bid, the release of
ambitious energy efficiency plans for a campus on Roosevelt Island, a stunning $350 million gift to
underwrite construction, a $150 million venture fund for start-up businesses — each was leaked
on a carefully constructed timetable.
“They kept putting on more and more attractive aspects to what was already quite a good
proposal,” Mr. Steel said.
But the most advantageous surprise was the partnership that Cornell, thought by many to be the
likely bridesmaid to front-running Stanford University, forged with Technion, a winner of Nobel
prizes and incubator of high-tech businesses that was one of the few overseas institutions the city
explicitly invited to participate.
Separated by 6,000 miles, the two universities do not appear to have much in common. Technion
is a public university whose programs focus on science, engineering, medicine and architecture,
where Israelis pay tuition of less than $6,000 a year. Cornell, originally a land-grant university
whose upstate campus is well known for programs in hotel management, labor relations and
forestry, is part of the storied Ivy League, with the full range of liberal-arts majors, a $5 billion
endowment and an undergraduate sticker price topping $52,000.
But they quickly found that they had similar visions for the new graduate school — and
complementary assets.
Cornell’s engineering and computer science programs rank among the nation’s top 10, it has deep
financial resources, and it knows New York City, home to its medical school and an array of other
programs. Technion has the main asset Cornell lacked, especially when compared with Stanford: It
is the engine of one of the world’s great high-tech business zones, with alumni running hundreds
of companies near its Haifa campus.
“What we bring to the table is our experience in educating generations of engineers who are also
entrepreneurs and have changed the Israeli economy,” Dr. Lavie said.
Even before the mayor announced the competition in December 2010, the two universities were
planting seeds of collaboration. That summer, Dr. Skorton had visited Technion during a tour of
the Middle East. In their first meeting, Dr. Lavie, an effusive sabra who is an expert on sleep
disorders, and Dr. Skorton, a buttoned-down Californian who is an accomplished jazz musician,
“hit it off really well and became friends,” Dr. Skorton said.
“Since both of us come from a medical background,” Dr. Lavie added, “we had a common
language.”
It turned out that a surprising number of professors at each institution had studied or taught at
the other. They shared major benefactors, including Irwin Jacobs, a co-founder of the
telecommunications technology firm Qualcomm, whose advice they would seek on the project. Dr.
Lavie said another common donor, whom he would not name, had spent two hours telling him to
bid with Cornell.
Despite its prestige, local advantage and engineering prowess, Cornell was considered a bit of an
underdog in the competition. In fact, given their New York pedigrees, Columbia and Cornell
officials were somewhat offended by the whole notion of the open competition, which many saw
as a cover to court Stanford or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When M.I.T. chose not to
participate, Stanford became an immediate favorite.
“Listen, Stanford is Stanford,” Mr. Steel said. “They’re a bit like lining up against the Yankees.”
But Cornell was primed for the project in less obvious ways. In 2009-10, Dr. Skorton led a state
task force on economic partnerships between businesses and universities, which dwelt at length
on the role of technology.
An expert in cardiac imaging technology, Dr. Skorton once taught electrical and computer
engineering and spends more than 20 percent of his time in Manhattan, where his wife teaches at
Cornell’s medical school and the university provides an apartment for him. Cornell’s provost, W.
Kent Fuchs, is a former engineering school dean.
In 2010, the university wrote a strategic plan calling for “a stronger footprint or base for Cornell’s
education, research and outreach programs in New York City,” acknowledging the decades-old
concerns over the limitations of its home upstate. While graduates of Stanford, M.I.T. and
Columbia — and for that matter, Technion — have helped spawn robust high-tech corridors near
their campuses that became hubs for talent and venture capital, few of Cornell’s alumni
entrepreneurs choose to settle in Ithaca, which has a population of 30,000 and is known more for
harsh winters than for start-ups. (Indeed, some 50,000 Cornell alumni live in the New York
metropolitan area.)
Mr. Bloomberg’s contest allowed Cornell to accelerate its dreams beyond anything it had dared
contemplate. Similarly, Technion wanted to expand beyond Israel, and New York, home to its
American fund-raising arm, was a natural choice.
Dr. Lavie was pleasantly surprised when the city invited Technion to join the contest, but he knew
that his institution could not muster the resources to act alone. Early on, he said, Technion talked
briefly with Columbia about collaboration, but their visions did not match up.
In February, when city officials invited universities to tour potential campus sites, Mr. Fuchs,
Cornell’s provost, and Paul D. Feigin, Technion’s senior executive vice president, started a series of
conversations about working together.
But the schools submitted separate “expressions of interest” in March, two of 18 the city received,
so as not to tip their hand.
Soon afterward, Dr. Lavie and Mr. Fuchs were both in China for a celebration of Tsinghua
University’s centennial. There, they had the first intensive discussion of collaboration, and
Technion agreed to show Cornell its expression of interest.
“Boy, we found a lot of similarities,” Mr. Fuchs said. The schools shared an interest in Roosevelt
Island, in organizing around flexible “hubs” rather than the usual departments, in programs for
city youth, and in a master’s program in applied sciences that would blur traditional boundaries
between disciplines.
A flurry of conversations by phone and Skype ensued, Cornell showed Technion its preliminary
plan, and at that three-day July gathering at the Cornell Club on 44th Street they forged the
outlines of a deal.
Cornell would pay for construction and have ultimate control of the site, but they would
collaborate in designing curriculum, selecting students and supplying faculty.
By their own account and that of city officials, the schools’ leaders believed that their plan needed
to be clearly better than Stanford’s to win — that if things were roughly equal, Stanford would
prevail.
The city asked for at least 250,000 square feet in the first phase, and a million over 25 years.
Cornell-Technion proposed 400,000 and 2.1 million, with space for 2,500 students and 280
professors. Others said classes would start in September 2013; Cornell-Technion promised
September 2012.
The plan was tailored to New York, focusing on technology for fields in which the city is a leader,
like medicine, urban planning, finance and advertising. The schools stressed Cornell’s strong
alumni presence in New York, especially its burgeoning technology sector.
They were also determined to be the most agreeable: When the city asked bidders to “mark up”
drafts of legal agreements, signaling their objections, Mr. Steel recalled, the edits from Cornell and
Technion “were much lighter than those from other institutions.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Skorton had been cultivating Cornell’s major benefactors, including Charles F.
Feeney, the billionaire founder of Duty Free Shoppers who created the Atlantic Philanthropies to
give away his fortune. They talked at length about the Roosevelt Island project several times, Dr.
Skorton said, beginning in late spring or early summer. But it was not until after the proposals
were submitted on Oct. 28 that Mr. Feeney revealed the scope of his generosity, a gift more than
double the size of the largest in the university’s history.
Dr. Skorton saved that information for just the right moment. After Thanksgiving, the city invited
five contenders to make detailed presentations. Cornell and Technion went last, on Dec. 3.
“President Skorton ended it by saying ‘I want to tell you all that we have a $350 million gift,’ ” Mr.
Fuchs recalled. “You could have heard a pin drop in that room.”
Mr. Steel said, “It’s pretty breathtaking when other schools are talking about the challenges of
fund-raising, and one of your strongest competitors says on the first phase financing: done.”
In negotiations, the city tried to sweeten the bids. Stanford balked at some conditions, while Dr.
Skorton sought more ammunition from Cornell’s trustees at a Dec. 8 meeting.
“I asked if they would be willing to take $100 million of the endowment for start-up companies,”
he recalled. “And they said, ‘How about $150 million?’ ”
No other school offered a venture fund, something that Seth W. Pinsky, president of the city’s
Economic Development Corporation, called “particularly attractive to us.”
By the time Stanford shocked everyone involved by dropping out Dec. 16, city officials said,
Cornell and Technion had all but won. Mr. Bloomberg made it official three days later.
“Of all the applications we received, Cornell and the Technion was far and away the boldest and
most ambitious,” the mayor said. A big part of its appeal, he added, was “a tantalizing,
groundbreaking partnership.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/education/in-cornell-deal-for-roosevelt-island-campusan-unlikely-partnership.html?_r=1&hp
Interior Fly Through of Cornell-Technion Campus Makes It
Look Like Magic, Basically [VIDEO]
By Nitasha Tiku 5:45pm
In case the aerial fly over video of what Cornell and the Technion’s gleaming campus on Roosevelt
Island will look like from the outside wasn’t enough real estate porn for you, the architecture firm
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) has released an interior fly over spot today as well.
The description is as epic as the images: “In 2012, in the year of the Technion’s cornestone
centenary, a third millennium cornerstone is to be laid.”
But before the futuristic beauty inspires you to cryogenically freeze yourself until 2037 (the
estimated date of completion for the full 2 million sq. ft. build-out), here’s a dash of realism from
Mike Caprio at Startup-o-Rama, “I hearby cynically predict it will be very late, very over budget, &
less than 1/2 as green as it appears in the video.” He was talking about the exterior shots, but the
point still stands. As the commenters over at Hacker News pointed out about our campus
confidential feature, just because you promise more, doesn’t mean it can be delivered, especially
not in New York City’s thorny development regulations.
For now, however, why not just let the soothing sounds whiiiiiiiiiisk you away.
http://www.betabeat.com/2011/12/22/interior-fly-through-cornell-technion-campus-rooseveltisland-som-video-12222011/
OPINION
New York Observer: City Hall Picks a Winner
By The Editors 12/20 7:17pm
Cornell University and its partner, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, have won a highly
competitive, global competition to develop a 21st-century engineering school on Roosevelt Island.
But that’s not the only good news to emerge from Mayor Bloomberg’s visionary plan to transform
the city into a hub of 21st-, and 22nd-, century technology.
Along with details of Cornell-Technion’s winning bid, the mayor announced that, in essence, he’s
not done yet. The city still is negotiating with several other academic institutions, including
Columbia University, Carnegie-Mellon and a consortium that includes New York University, to
develop other initiatives in applied science in Harlem, the Brooklyn Navy Yard and downtown
Brooklyn, respectively.
The mayor was not exaggerating when he described these developments as a “defining moment”
that will prove to be “transformative” as the city recreates and reimagines itself as a leader in the
technologies that will define the next century—and beyond.
That transformation, it would appear, will not be restricted to Roosevelt Island. If negotiations
with the other academic institutions prove productive, huge swaths of the city could benefit from
the financial and intellectual investments inspired by the mayor’s Applied Sciences initiative.
That said, there’s no question that Cornell-Technion will be leading the way. Thanks in part to the
generosity of Cornell alumnus Charles Feeney, the famously reclusive billionaire and
philanthropist who donated $350 million to support the partnership’s bid, Cornell-Technion will
get to work immediately on a plan to construct 300,000 square feet of space by 2017—with the
eventual goal of two million square feet by 2037 (this surely is a long-term project). When
completed, the facility will be home to 2,500 graduate students and nearly 300 faculty members.
Incredibly, the Cornell-Technion plan calls for classes to begin in the fall, albeit in a temporary
location. The program’s future students will have the benefit not only of Cornell’s expertise and
reputation, but that of Technion’s as well. Although Cornell’s partner may not have instant name
recognition in New York, it is a leader in Israel’s high-technology industry and has a proven record
as an incubator of cutting-edge research and development.
Overall, the Cornell-Technion plan calls for an investment of some $2 billion. That includes $150
million dedicated to supporting local businesses as well as math and science programs for 10,000
city kids. The plan will create 20,000 construction jobs and tens of thousands of other jobs in
hundreds of new businesses that will be created as a result of the Cornell-Technion investment.
The cost to the city? Some $100 million in infrastructure improvements and the value of the land
on Roosevelt Island that the partnership will occupy. Not a bad deal.
New York overtook its commercial rivals in the early years of the 19th century because it had the
vision and determination to build the Erie Canal. Now, two centuries later, the city once again is
seizing an opportunity to not simply gain a competitive advantage over rivals, but to reimagine
itself. The days when Roosevelt Island was an afterthought, indeed, a place of exile for sick and the
discarded, are long over. The days when the Brooklyn Navy Yard employed thousands of bluecollar workers similarly belong to the city’s industrial past.
Now, these locations—and perhaps others—are on the verge of a radical and welcome (and long
overdue) transformation thanks to the vision of political, academic and business leaders.
It’s often said that we simply don’t have the kind of leaders who made New York great so many
decades ago. But 50 years from now, New Yorkers will look back with awe and affection when
they consider the creativity and daring of those leaders who, in 2011, saw the future and made
certain that New York was not simply a part of it, but helped to shape it.
http://www.observer.com/2011/12/city-hall-picks-a-winner/
Cornell's New York City Bid Got Help From a Low-Key
Billionaire
Charles Feeney is the billionaire and Cornell alumnus whose foundation pledged $350-million to help
Cornell U. win the competition to build a new applied-science campus in New York City.
By Lawrence Biemiller
Charles F. Feeney, the billionaire whose foundation pledged $350-million to help Cornell
University win the competition to build a new applied-science campus in New York City, is a
Cornell alumnus who is believed to have given nearly a billion dollars to the university while
supporting a variety of other education, health, and human-rights efforts.
He is known as a man with a sharp eye for retail opportunities, but also for living modestly, having
turned over all but about $5-million of his fortune to his foundation in the early 1980s—long
before Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett began urging the wealthy to give more of their
money away. Now 80, he continues to fly in coach class and owns neither a home nor a car, his
foundation says.
According to a biography produced for Irish television, Mr. Feeney grew up in an Irish-American
neighborhood in Elizabeth, N.J., where he attended a Roman Catholic school before enlisting in the
Air Force during the Korean War. He attended Cornell on the G.I. Bill, graduating from the
university's School of Hotel Administration in 1956. In 1960 he helped found Duty Free Shoppers,
a retail chain catering to travelers. The company made him rich even before he sold his interest in
it in 1996.
By the early 1980s, however, he was earning so much that his wealth began to worry him, and in
1982 he created the precursor to what is now the Atlantic Philanthropies, which so far has given
away more than $5.5-billion. In 2010, for instance, it gave $285-million in the United States,
Australia, Bermuda, Ireland, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Vietnam, concentrating on
programs related to children, aging, health, and social justice.
For years, Mr. Feeney kept his philanthropic activities secret, and even last week the
announcement that Cornell had received $350-million described the grant as having been made
anonymously, though Mr. Feeney's involvement became public on Monday.
In 1997, fearing that a lawsuit by a former business partner would reveal the source of many
anonymous gifts, he took credit for them by calling the beneficiaries and The New York Times. In
recent years, Mr. Feeney has authorized an autobiography—The Billionaire Who Wasn't: How
Chuck Feeney Secretly Made and Gave Away a Fortune, published in 2007—and has urged other
wealthy people to give away their money while they're still alive.
Among other higher-education institutions benefiting from Atlantic Philanthropies grants over the
years have been Ithaca College, Portland State University, the University of California at San
Francisco Medical Center, and the University of Pennsylvania. Overseas beneficiaries include
Dublin City University and Trinity College, in Ireland, and the University of the Western Cape, in
South Africa. The organization says it intends to spend all of its assets by 2017.
http://chronicle.com/article/Cornells-New-York-City-Bid/130142/
(main feature on homepage)
Meet Charles Feeney, Cornell's $350 Million Donor
The New York Times has unmasked 80-year-old Cornell alum Charles F. Feeney as the anonymous
donor who gave the school a $350 million donation to construct a new technology-based satellite
campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Officials at The Atlantic Philanthropies, the
foundation started by Feeney in 1982, confirmed to the paper last night that he was the one who
made the gift for the project, which is expected to generate an extra $1.4 billion in tax revenue for
the city, plus 20,000 construction jobs and as many as 30,000 new jobs once the facility is up and
running.
Which leads to the inevitable question: who is this guy? To begin with, he's a very rich guy. He cofounded Duty Free Shoppers Group in the early 1960s, and sold his stake in the company to LVMH
Moet Hennessy-Louis Vuitton for $2.47 billion in 1996. At the time, The Times noted Feeney's "net
worth far exceeds the $975 million estimated by Forbes magazine." After the sale, The Times
reported estimated that the proceeds, paired with other funds Feeney turned over to the
foundation "left the charity with $3.5 billion, even after the $610 million that has already been
distributed to charities."
To that point, he'd be donating anonymously, but it was Judith Miller of The New York Times who
coaxed Feeney into discussing his donations with a member of the press for the first time in 1997,
though he wouldn't pose for a picture.
In addition to donating to universities and hospitals, Feeney told Miller that he's also made
personal contributions to Sinn Fein, the IRA's political arm, worth up to $280,000, which made
him the organization's biggest American donor (Feeny holds dual citizenship.) As of 1997, the
foundation's largest grant was $30 million, a figure that Feeney has dwarfed in recent years. In
2009, he gave $125 million to build a new medical center for the University of California-San
Francisco that would treat women, children, and cancer patients. Over the course of the last
decade, he's given more than €46m to the University of Limerick in Ireland. His total donations for
Cornell over the years -- not counting the latest $350 hit -- exceed $600 million.
Perhaps not surprisingly, he took the "Giving Pledge" created by Bill and Melinda Gates earlier this
year, vowing to give away everything in the Atlantic Properties coffers by 2020. As Dealbook
noted at the time, the rapid timetable illustrates Feeney's specific brand of philanthropy, which
eschews trusts and foundations for what he calls "giving while living," in which the
philanthropist's goal is to become flat broke before his own death.
Nearly every profile makes note of how unimpressed Feeney is with what his wealth can buy him,
noting that he flies coach, wears a $15 watch, and doesn't own a house or a car. When Miller asked
him why he decided to give everything away, Feeney replied, "I simply decided I had enough
money."
In 2007, when The New York Times convinced him to sit for a profile again, Jim Dwyer said, not
inaccurately, that Feeney was "what Donald Trump would be if he led his life backward."
PM Netanyahu congratulates Technion on New York campus
decision
20 December 2011
(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, along with Cornell University, have been chosen to
build an applied science and engineering campus in New York City.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Technion Executive Vice President and director
General Dr. Avital Stein and congratulated her on the selection of the Technion, along with Cornell
University, to build an applied science and engineering campus in New York City.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said, "This is an additional achievement for the Technion less than ten
days after Professor Dan Shechtman won the Nobel Prize. This is additional proof of the
accomplishments of local technology, and a source of pride for both higher education and the
entire State of Israel."
About the project
New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Cornell University President David J. Skorton, and
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology President Peretz Lavie on Monday, December 19,
announced an historic partnership to build a two-million-square-foot applied science and
engineering campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City. "Thanks to this outstanding
partnership and groundbreaking proposal from Cornell and the Technion, New York City's goal of
becoming the global leader in technological innovation is now within sight," said Mayor
Bloomberg.
The campus will be organized around three interdisciplinary hubs: Connective Media, Healthier
Life, and the Built Environment. Cornell will immediately offer Master and Doctoral degrees in
areas such as Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Information Science
and Engineering. In addition, after receiving the required accreditation, the campus will also offer
innovative Technion-Cornell dual Master of Applied Sciences degrees.
The NYCTech Campus will host entrepreneurs-in-residence, organize business competitions,
provide legal support for startups, reach out to existing companies to form research partnerships
and sponsor research, and establish a pre-seed financing program to support promising research.
The NYCTech Campus will also establish a $150 million revolving financing fund that will be solely
devoted to start-up businesses in the City.
Cornell is widely known as a global leader in the fields of applied science, engineering, technology
and research, as well as commercialization and entrepreneurship. Cornell is home to the top-rated
Ivy League engineering program and is one of only a handful of institutions with top-10 programs
in the key disciplines that drive today's tech sector: Computer Science, Electrical and Computer
Engineering, Materials Science and Nanotechnology, and Information Science.
Like Cornell, the Technion also has a world-class track-record in research, development and
entrepreneurship. The Technion's departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
are considered to be among the best in the world. The Technion boasts top ranking faculty
members including Nobel laureates -the most recent, Professor Dan Shechtman - who just last
week accepted the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Professor Shechtman is also well-known for his
course on entrepreneurship, now in its 26th year and boasting 10,000 graduates. The Technion
has long been considered a driving force behind Israel's emergence as one of the world's great
centers of technology.
Israel today has one of the highest concentrations of high-tech start-up companies globally. In
partnership with a strong community of incubators, private investors, venture capitalists, angel
groups and entrepreneurs, the Technion's tech transfer arm, Technion Technology Transfer (T3),
has filed an average of 300 new patents each year and annually nurtures innovative startups in
sectors such as clean-tech, cell therapy, drug delivery, nanotechnology and others. Companies
including Intel, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Yahoo! and Hewlett-Packard have
established major operations near or on the Technion campus, where they can take advantage of
the world-class research and students and faculty members of the Technion.
The Technion graduates currently head nearly half of the 121 Israeli companies on the NASDAQ,
which have a combined market value of over $28 billion. More than 70 percent of the Technion
graduates are employed in the high technology sectors that drive Israel's economic growth.
Presently, Israeli companies headed by the Technion graduates employ 85 percent of Israel's
technical workforce. According to a recent article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, there are
approximately 4,000 start-up companies located around the Technion's home campus.
With the selection of Cornell/Technion now complete, the project is scheduled to move into the
environmental and land use review process, expected to be completed by the fall of 2013.
Groundbreaking on the first phase of the Roosevelt Island campus is expected by the beginning of
2015. A temporary off-site campus will be open in 2012.
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/InnovativeIsrael/PM_congratulates_Technion_New_York_campus_20
-Dec-2011.htm?DisplayMode=print
Cornell Wins Bid for New York City Tech Campus
Cornell University has been chosen by New York City to build a technology campus on Roosevelt
Island with a grant of city-owned land and $100 million.
The campus Cornell proposed will occupy 2.1 million square feet, accommodate up to 2,500
students and cost more than $2 billion to build. A $350 million gift from an anonymous donor, the
largest in Cornell’s history, will help foot the bill.
Other schools that expressed interest in New York City’s tech campus offer include Columbia
University, Carnegie Mellon, and a consortium led by New York University and Stanford, which
dropped its bid Friday. But Cornell, an anonymous source told The New York Times, has been the
school of choice for a while. And it might not be the last.
“This is the first selection announcement for the Applied Sciences NYC initiative,” says a statement
released by the city. “Productive discussions are ongoing with other respondents…and the
possibility of additional science and engineering partnerships in the City is still open.”
Cornell plans to open an off-site location of the campus by 2012, with the first phase of permanent
Roosevelt Island opening by 2017. The university will lease the land from the city for 100 years,
after which it will have the opportunity to purchase it for $1.
SEE ALSO: NYC Startup Scene Celebrated in 2012 Calendar [PHOTOS]
It’s potentially a mutually beneficial plan. Plotting a tech branch in New York City is an
opportunity for Cornell to become the Stanford of the East Coast — an incubator for new
businesses (and their patents). Attracting prestigious technology-education institutions is another
step in New York City’s relentless efforts to become the Silicon Valley of the East Coast.
“This is a momentous day catapulting New York City into the forefront of the 21st century
economy and burnishing its place as the high-tech center of the East,” U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer
said in a release.
Cornell University and The Technion Partner
to Expand in New York City
DECEMBER 19, 2011
On Monday, New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that Cornell University (rated
Aa1) and The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have been selected as partners to establish
an applied sciences and engineering campus in New York City. The campus is intended to expand
innovative research activity and spur technology commercialization in the city (Aa2 New York City
G.O. rating). Cornell’s President David Skorton stated, “Our proposal for a multidisciplinary
institution combining world-class applied science research, entrepreneurship and
commercialization will accelerate New York City's transformation into a world leader in
technology innovation.”
This announcement follows on the heels of California-based Stanford University’s (rated Aaa)
surprising withdrawal from the bidding process last Friday. (Please see Moody’s report Stanford
University Drops Its Bid to Expand in New York City, a Credit Positive, December 2011.)
The competition has been evolving over the past year and multiple teams of universities applied,
including teams led by Columbia University (Aaa) and New York University (Aa3). Additional
winners with plans to develop campuses in other parts of the city could be announced in the
future.
On Friday, Cornell announced an anonymous $350 million gift to support its bid to establish the
new campus and support certain operating expenses. The donation represents the largest gift to
Cornell in its history, and we expect that such a high profile project will likely attract additional
philanthropic support. Cornell, which has its main campus located in Ithaca, NY, already has an
established presence in New York City, including its Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell
Cooperative Extension-New York City and other programs located throughout Manhattan. Thus,
Cornell already has a large number of employees and alumni living in New York City and a vested
interest in economic development in the city.
Although the expansion presents near and medium term credit risks, we expect that construction
of the campus will be split into multiple phases to mitigate construction and start-up risks, with
funding secured for the first phase. We expect to opine on the near-term rating impact of the
planned project, when full details of the transaction have been reviewed.
Nevertheless, we anticipate that this joint venture will likely be a long-term credit positive for
Cornell. We expect it will enhance the university’s already strong market and research reputations
and contribute to revenue diversification, through growth of technology transfer and research
commercialization. Cornell is partnering with The Technion, a leading research university with a
very strong technology transfer arm, based in Haifa, Israel.
Silicon Island: What Cornell’s New York City Tech Campus
Will Look Like [Images]
Eric Eldon
Monday, December 19th, 2011
New York City refers to its tech scene as “Silicon Alley,” but now it’s getting a giant new Cornell
tech campus… on an island, between Manhattan and Queens. I’m going to leave the naming issue
for the locals and share some images from the new campus — which is going to be quite
impressive, judging by the few details available in an October article from architecture web site
Arch Daily.
Beyond the larger goal of making the city more of a tech hub, the focus will be creating a
“sustainable landmark” on the 2 mile by .15 mile landmass on the East River, the article explains. A
quarter of the 2 million square foot campus will be green space available to the public, while the
sun-oriented layout will include the largest solar panel array in the city. That’s not all on the
environmental front. There’ll be four acres of geothermal wells, and a 150,000 square foot main
academic building with a net-zero energy footprint.
In terms of transportation, the island is also going to be getting some upgrades, with the city
already providing $100 million for improvements. Ferries, a tram line, a one-way bridge exit, and a
single subway stop are the main ways to get on and off of it now. As The Atlantic explores today,
maybe could even be a pedestrian and bicycle bridge to Manhattan?
With that, on to the renderings of the new campus by the prestigious architecture firm that Cornell
has hired, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill
LLP
And the dreamed-of bike bridge
Published 21:45 19.12.11
Israeli university wins joint bid for new N.Y. science campus
By Revital Hovel and The Associated Press Tags: Israel education
Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology will partner to build an applied
sciences campus in New York City that officials hope will transform the metropolis into a center
for entrepreneurship and technology innovation to rival California's Silicon Valley.
Want to learn more about Israeli higher education? Join the discussion on Haaretz.com's official
Facebook page
In a news conference on Monday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the schools' proposal
had been selected in the multi-billion-dollar competition, according to a person familiar with the
decision who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made.
The city is not ruling out the possibility that one of the other proposals will also be approved later
on, a New York official added.
The news conference was viewed live in the Technion campus in Haifa, in a crowd that included
the recipient of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, Prof Dan Schechtman, who teaches at the Israeli
university.
Seven universities and consortiums submitted bids to build a campus in exchange for nearly free
city land and up to $100 million in city improvements. California's Stanford University withdrew
its proposal on Friday, saying it had failed to find a way to ensure the success of its proposed
campus in its talks with the city.
Cornell said Friday it had received $350 million from an anonymous donor for its plan — the
largest gift in the university's history. In a statement, Cornell President David Skorton said the
project would "fuel the city's growing tech sector."
Cornell and Technion have promised city officials the program will be up and running before the
end of 2012, in existing city space.
TheTechnion is home to three Israeli Nobel laureates chemistry: In 2004 professors Avraham
Hershko and Aharon Ciechanover won the prize with their American colleague, Irwin Rose, 78, for
discovering a central method in which cells destroy unwanted proteins, joined in 2011 by Dan
Schechtman who was awarded the prize for his discovery of patterns in atoms called
quasicrystals, a chemical structure that researchers previously thought was impossible.
In a statement by Israel's New York Consul General Ido Aharoni, the Israeli official said the State of
Israel was "grateful for the opportunity to introduce Israel's creative spirit to New York City's new
technological center through this unique Technion-Cornell partnership."
" This is more than a just a collaboration between organizations; but rather an alliance of leading
young minds and we will do our best to turn this endeavor into a major success. We are looking
forward to the innovations that this dynamic partnership will create,” said, for Israel," Aharoni
said.
Read this article in Hebrew
Cornell and Technion-Israel to create super science school
Campus will be boon to New York’s economic future
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, December 20 2011, 4:10 AM
Craig Warga/New York Daily News
Mayor Bloomberg gives the good news to presidents of Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (l.)
and Cornell.
And the winner is . . . New York City.
Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology will establish a world-class, hightech graduate school in the five boroughs as the winners of a global competition.
Congratulations to both powerhouse institutions.
Congratulations to Mayor Bloomberg for inviting the best minds to open an applied sciences
school.
Congratulations to all the digital geniuses who made a run for the designation.
This school will not simply be a school. As envisioned, it will be an academic center that puts New
York where the city must be — at the forefront of the electronic revolution that is remaking global
business.
Here is a watershed moment of economic reinvention for the city.
A new analysis forecasts that the school will generate $23 billion in economic activity over the
next three decades, 20,000 construction jobs and 8,000 permanent positions. It is also expected to
generate 600 new companies with up to 30,000 permanent jobs.
The campus research capacity will give the city’s existing industries — finance, real estate, media,
entertainment, health care — a source of new ideas for facing a world that now changes by the
hour and day.
Some 27 institutions responded to the city’s first request for expressions of interest, a number
that was whittled down over time to a select few. Among the big names were Silicon Valley’s
Stanford University, a sudden dropout last week, and Columbia, New York University and
Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University.
Bloomberg said the city is exploring avenues for helping some of them open additional science
programs — and that is wise, because many of their ideas would be further boons to the city.
New York State’s own Cornell, already a major presence in the city, will team with Technion, on
the cutting edge in Israel, to accept the first brainiacs in 2012 and then to spend $2 billion building
facilities on Roosevelt Island. Cornell got a major boost toward that goal with an astonishing $350
million gift from a donor who prefers to remain anonymous.
Plans call for eventually accommodating 2,500 master’s and Ph.D. candidates taught by 280
faculty members in a curriculum that integrates high-tech studies with media, health care,
architecture and engineering.
The NYCTech Campus will also welcome entrepreneurs in residence and seek research
partnerships with existing companies.
A $150 million revolving financing fund connected to the school will be devoted solely to startup
businesses in the city.
Bloomberg bought all this with vacant land on Roosevelt Island and a commitment of $100 million
in funding for the construction of sewers, roads and the like. Call it some of the best-spent money
in a long time.
Look out, future, here comes New York.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/cornell-technion-israel-create-superscience-school-article-1.994124#ixzz1h5dtQ0qY
Cornell wins NYC science-campus competition
·
DECEMBER 19, 2011, 10:45 P.M. ET
NEW YORK — Cornell University and a science and technology university in Israel will partner to
build an applied sciences campus in New York City that officials hope will transform the city into a
center for entrepreneurship and technology innovation to rival California's Silicon Valley, Mayor
Michael Bloomberg announced Monday.
The plan "promises to create a beehive of innovation and discovery, attracting and nurturing the
kind of technical talent that will spawn new companies, create new jobs and propel our city's
economy to new frontiers," Bloomberg said.
Cornell and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, will spend more than $2
billion to build 2.1 million square feet of facility space on Roosevelt Island, a 2-mile-long stretch of
land just east of Manhattan. Up to 2,500 students at a time are expected to enroll in masters and
doctoral programs with a focus in areas including engineering and computer science.
Students will begin enrolling in the program and studying at pre-existing space in the city next
year, although the permanent home of the campus is not expected to be finished until 2043.
Bloomberg said he hoped the new academic programs would help address what he has said is a
major stumbling block in the city's effort to unseat Silicon Valley as the world capital of technology
startups.
"No matter who I talk to, they can't find enough engineers," he said. "Particularly in New York."
The new campus will increase the number of full-time, graduate-level engineering students in the
city by about 70 percent, and it will create a $150 million financing fund for New York City
startups, the mayor's office said. Ultimately, officials say, the 600 spin-off companies expected to
be generated by the school over the next 30 years could create 30,000 permanent jobs, and the
new campus could generate more than $23 billion in economic activity over that time.
Seth Pinsky, president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, equated the
creation of the campus to the opening of the Erie Canal, a shift that helped make New York City a
world financial capital. The technology revolution for which New York officials hope could
similarly define the city for generations, he said.
"Technology is not only a growing field in of itself, but it's critical to all industries in which New
York competes globally. And if we're not a world leader in technology, we're not going to be a
world economic leader, it's that simple," Pinsky said.
Campus facilities, including startup incubator space, will be built on city-owned land that
currently houses a hospital already slated for closure. The campus development will transform the
tiny island sandwiched between Manhattan and Queens — currently home to a single subway stop
and a number of residential developments.
Officials hope that students and graduates who launch their own businesses will set up their
offices just to the east in Queens' Long Island City neighborhood, possibly transforming that
community as well.
The plan was one of seven proposals by institutions and consortiums vying for access to cityowned land and city infrastructure improvements worth up to $100 million. That $100 million has
been committed to the project announced Monday, but officials said the city still hopes to reach
agreement by next month with one or more of the other teams to launch at least one more, smaller
campus.
Still in the running are projects proposed by Columbia University near its Morningside Heights
campus, a campus proposed for downtown Brooklyn by an international consortium led by New
York University, and a bid by Carnegie Mellon University and Steiner Studios, a Brooklyn film and
television production complex, for a campus at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
California's Stanford University withdrew its proposal for a campus on Friday, saying it had failed
to find a way to ensure the success of its proposed campus in its talks with the city.
The same day, Cornell announced it had received $350 million from an anonymous donor for its
plan — the largest gift in the university's history. On Monday, the donor was revealed to be
Atlantic Philanthropies founder Charles F. Feeney, a Cornell alumnus who made his millions
through the Duty Free Shopping Group.
"This is a once in a generation opportunity for Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of
Technology, together with the City of New York, to create economic and educational opportunity
on a transformational scale," Feeney said in a statement.
http://online.wsj.com/article/APfa8d9fd1b8bd43aa9f86ca3482a23318.html
Interview: Cornell’s Dean Huttenlocher, On Expanding Into
NYC And Building A Tech Ecosystem
Cornell University has won the bid to build the big new technology campus on Roosevelt Island
that New York City has been looking to create. The plan is to foster a strong technology ecosystem
by bringing in lots of talented technical people and have them focus on building innovative
businesses on top of the traditional industries in the city.
So I got on the phone with Daniel Huttenlocher after the press conference in New York earlier
today, to get some more details about what his university is aiming to accomplish.
As the dean of the Faculty of Computing and Information Science (CIS), and a distinguished
computer science professor at the University, he’s been in the middle of the effort to get the new
campus. In the extensive interview below, he provides more details on the types of students that the
school will be looking for, and how he sees it adding to the development of a strong technology
ecosystem in the city. As he explains, no one fully understands what makes an ecosystem form, but
good technical schools are clearly a component — that New York could use more of.
Huttenlocher has the right background for the job ahead. His research spans computer vision,
autonomous vehicles, social networking communication, and software development management.
He has 22 patents and more than 50 published papers. He’s also been involved with a few tech
companies throughout his career. You can find out more about him here.
Officially called the NYCTech Campus, the facilities will be a joint effort with Technion-Israel
Institute of Technology. The plan is to begin moving in by 2017, and finish constructing 1.3 million
of the 2 million square foot facility by 2027. In 20 years or so, the campus is expected to have 2,500
students and 280 professors.
The expectations are high, and reflect the city’s efforts to iterate beyond its traditional industries like
finance and advertising. A new study by New York City projects that the campus will generate
above $23 billion in economic activity, along with $1.4 billion in tax revenue over the coming 30
years. In terms of job creation, construction will account for 20,000 near-term jobs, and the
campus will provide 8,000 permanent ones. The study also estimates that some 600 companies will
be spun out, that create another 30,000 jobs. To boost all of this, the campus will also introduce a
$150 million fund for New York City startups. (Official announcement here, and more campus
images here.)
TechCrunch: Now that the deal is finalized, can you tell me more about the steps Cornell is
taking to help New York’s tech ecosystem?
Daniel Huttenlocher: Any successful tech ecosystem in any city has its own characteristics. There’s
already a fairly vibrant one in New York but it’s “adolescent” in the sense that it’s not at the scale of
Silicon Valley or even Seattle or Boston. But there’s definitely a lot here.
Our approach is to take what we think is unique and look at what kind of role we can play. In terms
of the unique parts of the ecosystem, the tech world is undergoing major shifts. Historically, the new
technologies that have driven things have been pure tech plays. Increasingly, the value of tech is not
coming as much from the pure tech side, and much more from people who deeply understand who
to take it and transform something.
Amazon is my favorite example. It’s a tech company and a retailer, and you can’t separate the two.
In New York City, that’s really the huge advantage — the presence of all these other industries.
TechCrunch: Can you tell me more specifically how Cornell’s academic programs are going
to be playing a part in all this?
Daniel Huttenlocher: Academically, we’re looking at shifting away from traditional university
campus disciplines. There’ll be key disciplines involved — computer science, electrical engineering,
operations research, applied math — but those disciplines need to be in the context of other
disciplines where tech is being applied…. hubs that combine tech and other fields. In media, for
instance, there are relevant areas of the social sciences, like sociology and psychology.
It’s about building interdisciplinary groupings that focus on these domains — Connective Media,
Healthier Life, and the Built Environment. That second one isn’t just health care, but things like
lifestyle types of apps. The third is about smart building technology, green buildings.
If you look at startup companies in New York, there’s certainly media. That’s a big, active area in the
city’s economy.
For health, you’re seeing some startups there. But I’d say it’s the leading edge of the startup world.
Then with green tech, that’s the bleeding edge, and there are relatively few companies. There’s a lot
of growth potential in all these areas from a jobs perspective, and we see the academic areas that
support them are not pure tech.
The degrees offered — masters and PhDs — will require students to apply to the New York campus,
based mainly on their interests in terms of faculty and programs. They’ll have significant
entrepreneurship and business requirements. Students need to be interested in that. For those who
want pure tech, there’s Ithaca [Cornell’s home campus].
The faculty is also going to be a mix of those only in the city and some who are spending time on
each campus. I’m personally spending a lot of time in the city and may end up there.
One of the defining features is that students will have mentors. There are 50,000 alumni in the New
York, with a significant portion in businesses where tech is playing an increasingly important role.
Each students will have a local mentor working in business just like a student on a campus has a
faculty advisers. We want students to come up with new ways of thinking based on things they’ve
learned very recently, that have commercial potential.
TechCrunch: What have you learned from already having the medical college in New York?
Daniel Huttenlocher: It really helped give us confidence in the practicality of all of this. The number
of faculty who own joint appointments in both places, that have labs in both places — we realized
we could do the same for technical fields.
We’re also operating other large academic institutions in New York City, and we’re experienced with
other aspects — constructing buildings, fundraising, etc.
When talking to the mayor [Michael Bloomberg], one of the big components is that we’d have an
academic vision tailored to the city. Our alumni are also unbelievably supportive of it. [Deputy
Mayor for Economic Development Robert K. Steel] has joked that out of our 50,000 local alumni,
most have called him already to encourage the deal.
TechCrunch: Do you know why Stanford pulled out?
Daniel Huttenlocher: While this all turned in to a competition — at least to some people — every
school that’s participated is great. It’s about finding the right match, not about which is better. I
have a lot of really good friends at Stanford. And they may also end up here some day.
TechCrunch: How are you going to define success in terms of the New York innovation
ecosystem? It’s not always obvious how academic work translates to new companies. And
looking at Silicon Valley, it wasn’t just Stanford that made the place what it is — there were
people experimenting with radio in the 20s, and the semiconductor industry in the 50s.
Daniel Huttenlocher: I know quite a bit about that. I worked at Xerox PARC in the late 80s and early
90s. What’s interesting about tech in Silicon Valley is that a lot of innovation comes outside of some
corporate entities. Xerox, Fairchild Semiconductor and Paypal have all been incredible cauldrons of
innovation, with literally dozens of companies spinning out of each.
What causes those things to happen? I don’t think anybody understands yet. Some of it comes from
having the right universities around. Some of it comes from companies. The whole ecosystem
creation process is, frankly, very poorly understood. What we think is clearly absent in New York
City right now is enough of the right kind of engineering talent.
Everyone has a hard time hiring good software engineers — in the valley and everywhere else. New
York has that problem much more than elsewhere in the country, it really needs that kind of tech
talent. That’s what we view we’ll bring to the table very quickly.
Develpoing a vibrant ecosystem comes from having multiple companies at multiple stages of
development, and will come from places you don’t expect.
[At this point in the phone interview, Huttenlocher is interrupted by his partners at Technion
leaving the room, and I overhear them say an appropriate departing line: "now we start the real
work."]
TechCrunch: So tell me about classes starting next September. That seems like an aggressive
schedule.
Daniel Huttenlocher:The plan is to start operating more or less immiediately. We’re starting to look
for new [temporary] space, with some leased already, and some possibilities for others. Cornell has
a lot of operations in the city already, including the medical college and architecture school. It’ll
probably involve leasing additional space. We need to start attracting the good engineering talent,
and we need a neutral meeting ground for all of the companies.
That’s an important role that Stanford plays in the Valley. It helps people come together outside of
the domain of one corporate entity or venture firm. We want to play that role quickly. We’ll start
having students down here as soon as we find space, and certainly by the fall.
Some of that will depend on admissions and other things that take time. Some students will already
be at Cornell, who it’d make sense to bring down and start working with companies.
Although, a lot of the young startups in the city already have Cornell engaged with them. I’ve
personally had meetings with more than 200 people in the local tech industry in the last few
months. So it’s a matter of how do we really start to engage with the companies, and get them
hooked up?
TechCrunch: Any parting thoughts?
Daniel Huttenlocher: Yeah. We’ve gotten ourselves as a world into a place where we’re not creating
enough good jobs. This isn’t really just about New York. It’s really about global innovation. Every
city has its own flavor, that people identify with, and that helps to create great new companies. I
mean, this won’t stop me from spending quality time in Silicon Valley…. If we can get a bunch of
tech-oriented cities, that’s good for everyone.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/19/interview-cornells-dean-huttenlocher-on-expanding-intonyc-and-building-a-tech-ecosystem/
Cornell and Technion to Invigorate Tech Startups with New
NYC Campus
·
Dec 19, 2011 5:29 PM EST
By Michael J. Miller
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced today that Cornell University, in partnership
with the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, has been selected to build a new graduate
engineering school on an 11-acre site at Roosevelt Island. Bloomberg aims to make New York City
"the world's leading city in technological innovation."
Bloomberg said the two schools were picked out of seven applications from consortiums of multiple
schools as part of the city's applied sciences initiative. They were selected based on their plans for
the site, economic impact, and speed of development. The new campus, which will be run as a joint
venture by the two universities, is expected to eventually host 2,000 graduate students and 300
faculty members. (The selection of the Cornell-Technion group wasn't a surprise, as Stanford
University dropped out of the running on Friday, meanwhile Cornell announced it had received a
$350 million donation to help build the new campus.)
The new school plans to start operation off-site next year. The first phase of the development will be
completed in 2017, with 300 students and 70 faculty members on the campus in 2018. Bloomberg
said the project will create up to 20,000 construction jobs and up to 8,000 permanent jobs. He
expects that over the next three decades, it will spawn 600 new companies, which will result in
30,000 new jobs.
Technion President Peretz Lavie said the new facility, known as the NYC Tech Campus, is "not an
extension of the Technion or Cornell, but something new." It will be built around the concept of
applied sciences and based on various hubs including Connecting Media, Healthier Life, and Built
Environment—all of which are in turn based on computer science, electrical engineering,
information sciences, economics, and business.
The future belongs not to technology for its own sake, but rather technology in the service of
business and industry, explained Cornell President David J. Skorton. He discussed the sustainable
campus planned for the site.
Bloomberg said three other schools—New York University, Columbia University, and Carnegie
Mellon University—remain in negotiations to build new high-tech facilities as part of the Applied
Sciences Initiative. These facilities would be built in other locations in the city.
Bloomberg called the plan a "game-changer," and said the push for more applied sciences in the city
would "prime the economic pump for generations to come." A university has the power to be "a
magnet for economic innovation and growth," Bloomberg said, citing the influence of land-grant
colleges such as Cornell in the 19th century. To prove the point, he called up Tumblr founder David
Karp, who confirmed the difficulty of recruiting talented engineers.
Obviously, we won't know how successful this plan is for many years, but I'm always a fan of higher
education, and in particular, more science and engineering students. (Full disclosure: I've long been
a supporter of the Technion.) One of the best parts of the plan is a commitment to work with the
public schools on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. Whether in New
York, or indeed, anywhere in the country, improved technology education can only help.
http://forwardthinking.pcmag.com/news-events/291887-cornell-and-technion-to-invigoratetech-startups-with-new-nyc-campus
Technion wins joint bid for NY campus
Israel Institute of Technology to partner with Cornell University in new entrepreneurship,
technology center
David Shear
The Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and Cornell University have won a joint bid to build an
applied sciences campus in New York that officials hope will be the first step to building an east
coast rival to California's Silicon Valley.
The winners of the multi-billion dollar project were officially announced by New York Mayor
Michael Bloomberg on Monday.
Seven universities and consortium submitted bids to build the high-tech campus. The city of New
York has promised nearly free city land and up to $100 million in city improvements in exchange.
Cornell announced on Friday that it had received $350 million from an anonymous donor for its
plan should they be awarded. This gift is the largest ever given to Cornell in the university's history.
According to their proposals, Cornell and Technion have committed to having the program up and
running before the end of 2012 in existing city space and moving it to the newly built campus once
ready.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4164401,00.html
Cornell, Technion win NYCTech campus project
The Technion and Cornell will build a two-million square-foot applied science and
engineering campus on Roosevelt Island.
20 December 11 10:17, Globes' correspondent
Cornell University and Technion - Israel Institute of Technology yesterday announced that New
York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg selected Cornell University chose them to build his vision for a
cutting-edge NYC Tech Campus that will serve as a global magnet for tech talent and
entrepreneurship.
The campus will have two million square-feet of applied science and engineering buildings on
Roosevelt Island in the East River. The Tech Campus is a milestone in New York City's Applied
Sciences NYC initiative, which seeks to increase New York's capacity for applied sciences and
dramatically transform its economy. New York City will provide $100 million for the site's site
infrastructure, construction, and related costs. Construction of the first phase of campus is
scheduled to begin in 2015.
The campus will be organized around three interdisciplinary hubs: Connective Media, Healthier
Life, and the Built Environment. Cornell will immediately offer Master and Doctoral degrees in
areas such as Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Information Science
and Engineering. In addition, after receiving the required accreditation, the campus will also offer
innovative Technion-Cornell dual Master of Applied Sciences degrees.
The NYCTech Campus will host entrepreneurs-in-residence, organize business competitions,
provide legal support for startups, reach out to existing companies to form research partnerships
and sponsor research, and establish a pre-seed financing program to support promising research.
In addition, the campus will structure its tech transfer office, which will be on-site, to facilitate
startup formation and technology licensing. The NYCTech Campus will also establish a $150 million
revolving financing fund that will be solely devoted to start-up businesses in New York City.
New York City is also in talks with other the participants in the tender - Carnegie Mellon University,
Columbia University and a New York University - for possibly adding science and engineering
partnerships.
Cornell and the Technion were selected due to the large scale and vision of their proposal, the long
and impressive track-record of both institutions in generating applied science breakthroughs and
spinning out new businesses, the financing capacity of the consortium, the focus of the consortium
on the collaboration between academia and the private sector, and the overall capacity of the
partnership to execute the project.
According to a new analysis by New York City Economic Development Corporation, the NYCTech
Campus will generate an even greater economic impact than was initially projected when the City
published the request for proposals earlier this year. It projects that the new campus will generate
more than $7.5 billion net present value and over $23 billion nominal in overall economic activity
over the next 30 years, as well as $1.4 billion in nominal tax revenues. The campus alone will help
create up to 20,000 construction jobs and 8,000 permanent jobs. More importantly, the campus is
expected to generate nearly 600 spin-off companies over the projection period, which is projected
to create up 30,000 additional permanent jobs.
The NYCTech Campus will combine cutting-edge technologies to create one of the most
environmentally friendly and energy efficient campuses in the world. The proposed phase one
academic building, if completed today, would be the largest net-zero energy building in eastern US; it
will harvest as much energy from solar power and geothermal wells as it consumes on an annual
basis. The campus will include a solar array that will generate 1.8 megawatts at daily peak and a
400 well geothermal field, which uses the constant temperature of the earth to cool buildings in the
summer and heat them in the winter. The well field and solar array would each be largest in New
York City. The campus's Built Environment hub will also help develop the environmental
technologies that it will use.
Plans for community involvement in New York City include the creation of education enhancement
programs that will impact a minimum of 10,000 New York City students and 200 New York City
teachers per year, including working with the local schools on Roosevelt Island. The campus will
also help preserve the historic murals at Goldwater Hospital on the island when the hospital is
moved to Manhattan.
Technion President Lavie said, "Our pride and our hopes for the future are shared by the whole
Technion community of students, faculty, friends and supporters, including the very successful
American Technion Society. Together, we have the means, ingenuity and willpower to make our
world a better place by joining with Cornell University and the great people of New York City for
this innovative new center of learning and enterprise."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, "Thanks to this outstanding partnership and groundbreaking
proposal from Cornell and the Technion, New York City's goal of becoming the global leader in
technological innovation is now within sight. By adding a new state-of-the-art institution to our
landscape, we will educate tomorrow's entrepreneurs and create the jobs of the future. This
partnership has so much promise because we share the same goal: to make New York City home to
the world's most talented workforce."
"Cornell University and our extraordinary partner, The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, are
deeply gratified to have the opportunity to realize Mayor Bloomberg's vision for New York City: to
prepare tomorrow's expanding talent pool of tech leaders and entrepreneurs to work with the city's
key industries in growing tomorrow's innovation ecosystem," said Cornell President Skorton.
"Starting today, we are going to put our plan to work, tapping into our extensive connections
throughout the city and build a truly 21st Century campus to fuel the creation of new businesses
and new industries throughout the city for decades to come.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 20, 2011
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000708218&fid=942
The Red Wrap
New York’s Huge successes
December 20, 2011 | 10:30 am by Erik Ipsen
Thank you, Michael Bloomberg. As 2011 draws to a close, the mayor has given us all something to
cheer about, a future a little less dominated by an old industry, and one paced a bit more by a new
one. The formal announcement Monday of the new Cornell tech campus on Roosevelt Island is
terrific news for the city. That school promises to be the gift that keeps on giving as the institution
starts turning out a whole new generation of people with the skills needed to fuel the growth of New
York’s growing crop of technology companies, and graduates likely to start a few of their own such
outfits the road. From the tech corridor in midtown south to Brooklyn’s DUMBO, where fastgrowing companies with unfamiliar names like Huge, Etsy and Red Antler are crying out for more
talent, according to The Wall Street Journal, the new Cornell school, its talented staff and legions of
future graduates will provide a much-needed lift.
That cheery year-end picture of a small but growing virtuous circle in the tech sector contrasts
starkly with what’s happening in the city’s largest industry, finance, which is on the descendent as
both an employer and space user. Look no further than the once-unassailable/invincible Goldman
Sachs—spawner of not just vast profits, but of secretaries of the Treasury and captains of finance
and industry. Goldman didn’t have an awful 2011. It will make money this year, though its profit will
likely be at a new low for the millennium. But the key number is its stock price, the number that
points to how investors assay the bank’s future. That number is ugly. So far this year, the value of
America’s most powerful financial firm has been almost exactly halved.
Read more: http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/blogs/red-wrap/2011/12/new-yorks-hugesuccesses/#ixzz1h5oAX3xj
FIRST BELL
Dec. 20, 2011, 7:59 a.m.
By MARY ANN GIORDANO
Richard Perez-Pena in The Times breaks some interesting news this Tuesday involving the new
high-tech campus that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is planning for Roosevelt Island: the name of
the donor whose gift helped Cornell University’s bid to become the city’s partner. He writes:
The donor whose $350 million gift will be critical in building Cornell University’s new high-tech
graduate school on Roosevelt Island is Atlantic Philanthropies, whose founder, Charles F. Feeney, is a
Cornell alumnus who made billions of dollars through the Duty Free Shoppers Group.
In a statement from Atlantic Philanthropies, Mr. Feeney said: “This is a once-in-a-generation
opportunity to create economic and educational opportunity on a transformational scale.”
That should transform into educational opportunity for today’s city elementary, middle and high
school students, with some classes scheduled to start in September and the campus to be built by
2017, The Times reports.
On The Learning Network on Tuesday, in response to two recent articles about young people and
the law, the student question is:
Have You Ever Interacted With the Police?
And we are sure the schools are alive with the sounds of seasonal music and festivities. Post your
photos, videos and reports on your school’s SchoolBook page — or e-mail them
to SchoolBook@nytimes.com.
Mary Ann Giordano is the editor of SchoolBook. Follow her on Twitter @magiorNYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2011/12/20/six-hours-of-state-tests-coming-this-spring/
Cornell Wins NYC Science-campus Competition
Monday, Dec 19, 2011 10:05 AM EST
Cornell Wins NYC Science-campus Competition
By Samantha Gross, Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology will
partner to build an applied sciences campus in New York City that officials hope will transform the
metropolis into a center for entrepreneurship and technology innovation to rival California’s
Silicon Valley.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg scheduled an announcement Monday that the schools’ proposal had
been selected in the multi-billion-dollar competition.
The city is not ruling out the possibility that another of the proposals will also be approved later
on.
Seven universities and consortiums submitted bids to build a campus in exchange for nearly free
city land and up to $100 million in city improvements. California’s Stanford University withdrew
its proposal on Friday, saying it had failed to find a way to ensure the success of its proposed
campus in its talks with the city.
Cornell said Friday it had received $350 million from an anonymous donor for its plan — the
largest gift in the university’s history. In a statement, Cornell President David Skorton said the
project would “fuel the city’s growing tech sector.”
Cornell and Technion have promised city officials the program will be up and running before the
end of 2012, in existing city space.
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/19/cornell_wins_nyc_science_campus_competition_2/
Cornell wins ‘genius’ contest, to team with Technion for N.Y.
campus
December 19, 2011
Cornell University President David J. Skorton and Technion-Israel inStitute of Technology President
Peretz Lavie attend a news conference at Cornell University in New York on Dec. 19. Photo by
REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Cornell University will collaborate with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology for a new
science campus after winning a competition to build New York City’s next “genius” school.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg was expected to make Cornell’s victory official on Monday at the Weill
Cornell Medical College in Manhattan.
The Ivy League school will receive free land on New York’s Roosevelt Island, as well as $100 million
in city subsidies, to build a state-of-the-art science campus with Technion. The program is
scheduled to begin in September at a temporary location.The campus is expected to take more than
a generation to build.
Cornell, which received an anonymous $350 million grant, beat out six other universities and
consortiums that submitted bids.
The campus will accommodate 2,000 students and include 2.1 million square feet of building space
with classrooms, science laboratories, a conference center, housing and other facilities. It will
feature environmentally friendly solar energy and geothermal wells.
“I am thankful and proud that this extraordinary individual gift will support Cornell’s goal to
realize Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s vision for New York City,” Cornell President David Skorton said.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/scitech/article/cornell_wins_genius_contest_to_team_with_technion_for_ny_campus_20111219/
Atlantic Philanthropies and Charles F. Feeney: How Wealth-inAction Redeems Us All
Todd Essig, Contributor
12/20/2011 @ 11:01AM |33 views
Wealth-in-action can be a beautiful thing, with resonance far beyond the scope of the original gift.
Consider Charles F. Feeney and his Atlantic Philanthropies, in the news yesterday for being
identified as the anonymous donor of $350 to Cornell thereby helping them win the competition to
build a technology and innovation campus in NYC. But did you know Feeney and Atlantic also made
a donation 9 years ago that helped put our understanding of well-being, of how to psychologically
flourish, on scientific ground? That they actually helped change how people go about trying to live a
good life?
First, a quick review of the recent news:
Cornell announced it had received $350 million from an anonymous donor for its plan – the largest
gift in the university’s history. On Monday, the donor was revealed to be Atlantic Philanthropies
founder Charles F. Feeney, a Cornell alumnus who made his millions through the Duty Free
Shopping Group.
“This is a once in a generation opportunity for Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of
Technology, together with the City of New York, to create economic and educational opportunity on
a transformational scale,” Feeney said in a statement.
Cornell and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, will spend more than $2 billion
to build 2.1 million square feet of facility space on Roosevelt Island, a 2-mile-long stretch of land just
east of Manhattan. Up to 2,500 students at a time are expected to enroll in masters and doctoral
programs with a focus in areas including engineering and computer science.
Pretty impressive. $350 million dollars. A few years from now when start-ups are humming and
talent flocks to NYC because it’s a center of technological innovation — as well as the center of
finance, the arts, publishing, and everything else worthwhile (OK, I admit it, I’m a bit NYC-centric)
— will we remember Feeney? I hope so, what an example he is. But maybe not. He’s rarely cited for
other contributions, such as for having helped launch “positive psychology.”
At the beginning of his recent book Flourish, Martin Seligman, who is one of the key, if not the key,
founder of positive psychology, tells the story of how it was started with essential help from Charles
F. Feeney. He describes some rather secretive under-the-radar meeting with trustees who
seemingly had no other agenda other than to do good work. Following a successful conference they
funded for him about ethno-political warfare and genocide they call him back. And he then
mentions an interest in positive psychology:
“What is this positive psychology?” they asked. After about ten minutes of explanation, they
ushered me out and said, “When you get back to your office, would you send us a three-pager? And
don’t forget to include a budget.” A month later, a check for $1.5 million appeared.
And then, after some other complications with other projects Seligman writes how he contacted
the Atlantic again and to their surprise did not ask for anything:
“I called only to say thank you and to ask you to convey my deepest gratitude to Mr. Feeney,” I began.
“You came along at just the right time and made just the right investment in the offbeat idea of a
psychology about what makes life worth living. You helped us when we were newborn, and now we
don’t need any further funding because positive psychology is now self-supporting. But it would not
have happened without Atlantic.”
What positive psychology does is reverse the basic questions that have animated clinical
psychology from the beginning. Instead of asking what’s wrong and how can we help, it asks what’s
right and how can we make it stronger.
In Flourish Seligman tries to move the study of positive psychology forward, in part to answer often
poorly-informed critics that mischaracterize the effort as simple-minded “happiness studies.” But
there is a core of truth in that critique, that researchers know well. Seligman’s response it to
reformulate the topic of positive psychology away from happiness with an intervention goal of
increasing life satisfaction. Instead, he’s moving the field to the much broader (and deeper) topic of
well-being. With well-being rather than happiness as the topic, interventions are now to be
designed to increase flourishing, and not just life satisfaction, by increasing positive emotions,
engagement with activities, meaning, positive relationships, and accomplishment.
Thanks to Feeney, psychology as practiced is very different, and dare I say for many life as lived is
different. For example, have you ever written in a gratitude journal? More broadly, there are
changes in how psychology is taught and practiced in clinical settings, the business world,
classrooms, and even with the military where trauma-protective resilience is now taught. As both a
psychologist and psychoanalyst I’ve been influenced by how traditionally important concepts like
ego-strength have been refined by empirical research, and by how humanistic psychology’s
celebration of potential and freedom has found a scientific home.
Might Cornell still have won without Feeney and Atlantic Philanthropies? Might NYC still look
forward to a bright techno-future? Might Positive Psychology, since in retrospect it is one of those
really really good ideas waiting to be developed, also have become influential and useful? Perhaps.
But who cares. It’s an irrelevant “angels on the head of a pin” question. Because the bottom line is
that in addition to the specific good being done, wealth-in-action can do tremendous good when
philanthropically deployed: giver, recipient, those who benefit, and even those who just learn about
the giving.
And finally, since the world is a strange and wonderful place sometimes, while writing this piece an
email came from some friends of mine with their Xmas gift: a donation in my name to Doctors
Without Borders. It really doesn’t matter how many zeros there are, wealth-in-action redeems us
all.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddessig/2011/12/20/atlantic-philanthropies-and-charles-ffeeney-how-wealth-in-action-redeems-us-all/
Mystery Donor Named In Cornell Tech Campus Bid
By: NY1 News
[VIDEO]
The person who made an anonymous $350 million donation to Cornell University for an applied
sciences campus in the city has been identified.
Billionaire philanthropist and Cornell alumnus Charles Feeney granted the money to the upstate
university.
Feeney made his fortune by building duty free airport shops before anybody had even heard of duty
free shops.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday announced that Cornell and Israel's Technion Institute won
the city's competition to build the campus on Roosevelt Island.
The mayor says the plan was chosen because of the its scale and the schools' reputations for science
breakthroughs and entrepreneurship.
"It promises to create a beehive of innovation and discovery, attracting the kind of technical talent
that will spawn new companies and new jobs, and propel our city's economy to new frontiers,"
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at an Upper East Side press conference announcing the venture.
"This is not the moment for a touchdown dance for Cornell or for Technion," said David Skorton of
Cornell University. "This is a time for a touchdown dance for New York City."
Estimates say the campus project will create thousands of jobs and 600 new companies over the
next 30 years.
http://manhattan.ny1.com/content/top_stories/152830/mystery-donor-named-in-cornell-techcampus-bid
Cornell to build New York science campus
Graduate school will focus on health care, sustainability and connective media.
· Brendan Borrell
20 December 2011
Look out Boston and San Francisco. These traditional hubs of innovation have a challenger in the
shape of New York City, which has just signed off on a US$2-billion graduate science and
engineering school to stimulate the region’s technology industry and inspire a flood of start-up
companies.
After a year-long competition that brought in 7 proposals from 17 leading institutions around the
world, mayor Michael Bloomberg’s team selected a bid from Cornell University and the TechnionIsrael Institute of Technology in Haifa to build a new science campus on Roosevelt Island in New
York's East River. The first phase of building is scheduled for completion by 2017, with the campus
due to open its doors to 75 full-time faculty members and 300 graduate students. Yet enrolments
could begin as soon as next September, with the school slated to kick off its first classes at a
temporary off-site location.
The graduate science campus will be built on Roosevelt Island in New York City and operated by
Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
“Of all the applications we received, Cornell and Technion’s was far and away the boldest and most
ambitious,” Bloomberg said at a press conference at the Weill Cornell Medical College in midtown
Manhattan, just across the East River from Roosevelt Island. The new campus, he said, will be a
“beehive of innovation and discovery”.
With $100 million in city funding for infrastructure upgrades and a $350-million donation to
Cornell already in hand, work on the campus should begin apace, involving levelling of an old
hospital and remediation of polluted land before the school's trapezoid glass buildings can be
erected. The initial phase will draw in computer scientists, electrical engineers, economists and
entrepreneurs, who will develop programmes around three multidisciplinary themes: healthier life,
the built environment and connective media. Students will be able to work towards either a
master's in applied sciences or a master's or PhD in traditional disciplines.
Over the next three decades, Cornell and Technion plan to expand the school to include 280 faculty
and 2,500 graduate students, which will almost double the number of graduate engineering students
in the city. The facility will offer incubator and spin-out space for start-up companies and a $150million fund for start-ups that stay in the city for three years. Scientists and engineers at the campus
will also work with mathematics and science teachers at local schools.
“I am excited for New York and I am excited for science,” says Jay Walker, a Cornell graduate and
inventor who is chairman of Walker Digital, a privately owned research and development lab in
Stamford, Connecticut. “You are a product of your environment, and New York as an environment is
an extraordinary, challenging place to think differently, adapt quickly and be global.”
The press conference came one month earlier than expected and just three days after another
front-runner, Stanford University in California, withdrew its application. Bloomberg said that the
Stanford proposal “didn’t fit for the time being”, but believes that the university would still benefit
from “having a branch in New York City”. Bloomberg and his team will continue to mull proposals
from Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University and New York University for other, more
modest science and engineering campuses in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Harlem.
Back on Cornell’s home turf of Ithaca, some 350 kilometres away in upstate New York, faculty
members were surprised by the sudden turn of events. “It’s been a big topic of conversation around
the department,” says Cornell computer scientist David Bindel. One big question is how the school
plans to get graduate students recruited and classes up and running by the September deadline. He
speculates that some Ithaca-based faculty members could spend part of their year in New York City.
“It’s a tremendous logistical challenge,” he says.
Nevertheless, Bindel is excited at the prospect of strengthening academic and industrial
collaborations and exploring new funding opportunities in the
city.http://www.nature.com/news/cornell-to-build-new-york-science-campus-1.9685
Start Up City: Technion-Cornell Consortium to Lead NYC
Science Center
DECEMBER 20, 2011 8:37 AM 0 COMMENTS
Author:Maxine Dovere
An international academic partnership slated to thrust New York City into the forefront of twenty
first century science and technology was announced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a news
conference on Manhattan’s Upper East Side on December 19th. The consortium of Cornell
University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology was named as builder of an 11-acre state-ofthe-art technical campus on Roosevelt Island. The Mayor, Cornell President David J. Skorton, and
Technion President Peretz Lavie revealed plans to build a two-million-square-foot applied science
and engineering campus on the East River atoll. The City is providing both the site and $100
million in infrastructure development.
The “Applied Sciences NYC” initiative will “increase New York City’s capacity for applied sciences
and dramatically transform the City’s economy,” noted the Mayor. The consortium will lead New
York City’s push into new century technology. Each of the consortium partners is renowned for its
prowess in both scientific development and practical application, i.e., the creation of new
technology based businesses “born” on each of their campuses.
City and federal politicians added their praise. “Thanks to this outstanding partnership and
groundbreaking proposal from Cornell and the Technion, New York City’s goal of becoming the
global leader in technological innovation is now within sight,” said Bloomberg. “We will educate
tomorrow’s entrepreneurs and create the jobs of the future.” U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer added
his enthusiasm. “Look out Silicon Valley, look out Boston: New York will be second to none!”
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand applauded the Cornell-Technion partnership saying it “will bolster the
city’s potential to spark new industries, attract businesses, and create thousands of jobs.”
Congresswoman Maloney thanked Mayor Bloomberg for his “vision” and “wisdom” saying the
Roosevelt Island location afforded every city advantage yet was “separate enough to have a smalltown feel.”
Said City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, “I’m thrilled for what this means for the future of our
city, and its economic growth. This historic partnership is a milestone for the City.” Manhattan
Borough President Scott Stringer noted that the Center said “will help ensure that New York City
leads the world’s innovation in the 21st century.”
Ido Aharoni, Consul General for Israel, praised the consortium and the “innovations that this
dynamic partnership will create.” “We are grateful for the opportunity to introduce Israel’s creative
spirit to New York City’s new technological center through this unique Technion-Cornell
partnership. This is …an alliance of leading young minds. We will do our best to turn this endeavor
into a major success.”
“Our pride and our hopes for the future are shared by the whole Technion community of students,
faculty, friends and supporters, including the very successful American Technion Society,” said the
Technion President Peretz Lavie. “Together, we have the means, ingenuity and will power to make
our world a better place by joining with Cornell University and the great people of New York City for
this innovative new center of learning and enterprise.” (Sources have indicated to the Algemeiner
that it was the Technion that sought the partnership of Cornell University. The Israeli technical
center was invited to submit its proposal and designated an American partner. To successfully
compete and win, the Technion needed a local Partner. Technion’s President Lavie considered “6000
miles, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean – too far.”
“Cornell University and our extraordinary partner, The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, are
deeply gratified to have the opportunity to realize Mayor Bloomberg’s vision for New York City,”
said Cornell President Skorton. “Starting today, we are going to put our plan to work, tapping into
our extensive connections throughout the city and build a truly 21st Century campus to fuel the
creation of new businesses and new industries.”
The first 300,000 square foot segment of the 2 million square foot project – slated for completion in
2043 – will open in 2017. (An off-site facility will open in 2012.) At its completion, the center will
increase the number of full-time, graduate engineering students in leading New York City Master’s
and Ph.D. programs by approximately 70 percent. The campus will be organized around three
interdisciplinary hubs: Connective Media, Healthier Life, and the Built Environment. Cornell will
immediately offer Master and Doctoral degrees and a Technion-Cornell dual Master of Applied
Sciences degree. The new campus will be an economic generator of great importance, instigating
entrepreneurial activity and providing support for start-ups including technical, financial and legal
applications.
By the time the Campus is formally complete, more than “$7.5 billion (NPV) and more than $23
billion (nominal) in overall economic activity is expected. $1.4 billion (nominal) in total tax revenue
is anticipated. 20,000 construction jobs and up to 8,000 permanent jobs will be created. The center
will help make New York a Start Up City: 600 spin-off companies (are)…projected to create 30,000
permanent jobs.” (NYC provided statistics)
The Technion is recognized as “a driving force behind Israel’s emergence as one of the world’s
great centers of technology” itself filling some 300 patents annually and fostering technological
growth throughout Israel. Haaretz has reported that approximately 4,000 start-up companies are
located around the Technion’s campus in Haifa. Both universities are considered “world-class” in
research, development and entrepreneurship. Of practical importance, both universities have also
proven ability with fundraising and development –both in New York City and beyond – that will
enhance their ability to complete this massive undertaking.
Cornell announced the receipt of a $350 million gift from Atlantic Philanthropies and founder
Charles F. Feeney, a Cornell alumnus and creator of the Duty Free Shoppers Group. The gift is
considered “critical in building Cornell University’s new high-tech graduate school.”
http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/12/20/start-up-city-technion-cornell-consortium-to-lead-nycscience-center/
Charles Feeney Revealed As Cornell's $350 Million Donor For
NYC Tech Campus
First Posted: 12/20/11 11:58 AM ET Updated: 12/20/11 11:58 AM ET
The donor behind Cornell's record setting, $350 million gift has been revealed to be businessman
and philanthropist Charles Feeney, an alumni from the university's class of 1956.
Feeney's donation, made through his charity Atlantic Philanthropies, is Cornell's single largest in its
history and proved to be the critical push that ultimately won Cornell a $100 million bid to build an
unprecedented technology and engineering campus on Roosevelt Island slated for completion
in 2043.
The 80-year old alumni from the university's School of Management made his fortune building
the Duty Free Shoppers Group and has been known for his philanthropy.
Earlier this year, Feeney became the 59th signatory of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet's
effort, the Giving Pledge, which aims to encourage the wealthy to committing at least half of their
wealth to philanthropic purposes.
Cornell officials disclosed that over the years, Atlantic Philanthropie's donations to the school had
already totaled $600 million.
President David Skorton of Cornell praised the significance of Feeney's generous contribution:
The Atlantic Philanthropies' generous $350 million educational gift will not only anchor the
academic mission Cornell and its partner, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, are
undertaking in the city, but it will also prove to be a key milestone in the economic future for all
New Yorkers.
Feeney said in a statement that his donation would help build a "once in a generation
opportunity"for both Cornell and New York City in order to create groundbreaking opportunities
on a "transformational scale."
News of the donation followed Stanford University's shocking announcement that it was dropping
its own bid last Friday. Both Stanford and Cornell were widely perceived as the two frontrunners
vying for the coveted proposal to build the "genius" school.
The WSJ reported that a part of Stanford's decision to withdraw from the competition stemmed
from a speech made by Mayor Bloomberg at MIT a few weeks prior, where Bloomberg touted that
Stanford was "desperate" to win. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/20/charles-feeney-
revealed-a_n_1160398.html?ref=new-york
Cornell Bid Formally Chosen for Science School in City
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Published: December 19, 2011
Heralding the project as a “game-changer,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced on Monday
that he had chosen Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to build a $2
billion graduate school of applied sciences on Roosevelt Island, which, he said, would “spawn new
companies, create new jobs and propel our city’s economy to new frontiers.”
“History will write that this was a game-changing time in New York City,” Mr. Bloomberg said at an
afternoon news conference that capped an intense yearlong competition for a project that is seen
as a potential cornerstone of his legacy. “In a word, this project is going to be transformative.”
Mr. Bloomberg said city officials spent two months poring over 10,000 pages of documents
submitted in 7 proposals from 17 institutions. The Cornell-Technion plan was “far and away the
boldest and most ambitious, ” he said.
The school, which will not be fully built for 30 years, calls for 2,000 students, 300 faculty members
and two million square feet on a patch of city-owned land that now houses a little-known hospital.
In addition, the universities are offering a $150 million fund for startups begun on the campus that
remain in New York for three years.
And, Mr. Bloomberg noted, it calls for “an incredibly aggressive schedule,” with classes starting in
September at a leased off-site facility, and 300 students and 75 faculty on site by 2018.
“In this day and age, great universities know they have to expand,” he said. “They have to expand
their locations, they have to expand their horizons, they have to expand their faculty interests.”
The announcement came three days after Stanford University, long seen as the one to beat
because of its success as an incubator for Silicon Valley, pulled out of the contest, and Cornell
announced a $350 million gift, the largest in its history, to help finance its proposal.
Cornell’s plan calls for 500,000 square feet of public space and partnerships with the public school
system, including math and science support for at least 10,000 students.
Cornell’s president, David J. Skorton, said, “This is a story of connectivity — of connectivity
between people and their ideas, between researchers and business people, between students and
their dreams.”
“This,” he added, “is an exercise in inclusion and having all the ships rise in this fine city. New York
City is positioned to become the new technological capital of the world.”
Mr. Bloomberg emphasized that the city was still negotiating with three remaining applicants who
had proposed building science schools elsewhere: Columbia University, which has declined the
city’s offer of free land and instead wants to devote part of its West Harlem expansion to the
project; Carnegie Mellon University, whose joint proposal with Steiner Studios is for a parcel the
city offered in the Brooklyn Navy Yard; and a consortium led by New York University and focused
on real estate the city had not offered, a building in Downtown Brooklyn.
Lynne Brown, senior vice president of N.Y.U., said in a statement that the university “and its
partners are enthusiastically continuing our talks with the city on establishing a new applied
sciences institute in Brooklyn.”
She added, “We believe our Center for Urban Science and Progress will have a transformative
impact on the tech sector in Brooklyn, and — along with Cornell’s new institute — make New York
a world leader in innovation and technology.”
Doug Steiner, chairman of Steiner Studios, also released a statement congratulating Cornell and
saying the company remained “committed to bringing Carnegie Mellon and its Advanced Digital
Media Lab to Steiner Studios as part of our vision to create a 50-acre master-planned media
campus furthering New York City’s explosive growth and vast potential in content creation and
distribution.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/nyregion/cornell-and-technion-israel-chosen-to-buildscience-school-in-new-york-city.html?smid=tw-nytmetro&seid=auto
The inside story of Cornell's tech campus win
How the underdog from Ithaca prevailed over mighty Stanford University in the Bloomberg
administration's competition for a new applied sciences graduate school on Roosevelt Island.
By Daniel Massey @masseydaniel
December 19, 2011 8:48 a.m.
Cornell University completed its unlikely climb to the top of the city's tech campus competition
Monday as Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the Ithaca-based institution as his choice to
build a $2 billion applied sciences school on Roosevelt Island.
Cornell, which is teaming up with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, emerged as the
frontrunner Friday when Stanford University withdrew. As recently as Thursday, Stanford was the
mayor's preference, a source familiar with the process said, but negotiations faltered and the Palo
Alto-based engineering giant bowed out.
It's still possible that the administration could make a deal for one or more additional tech
campuses. The city is continuing to negotiate with New York University, Columbia University and
Carnegie Mellon University, a city official familiar with the process said.
A consortium led by NYU proposed a campus at 370 Jay St. in downtown Brooklyn, a city-owned
building leased by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Columbia wants to build a campus
as part of its expansion in Morningside Heights. Carnegie Mellon's bid was in partnership with
Steiner Studios for a site at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
But Cornell is clearly the big winner in the competition. It will receive all of the $100 million the
city had set aside for infrastructure improvements at the winning project or projects, leaving any
other winner to find alternative ways to fund such work.
Cornell's financial obligations, though, are substantial. The school, which formed a 50-50
partnership with Technion, is assuming financial responsibility for the construction of the campus.
The project is budget to cost more than $2 billion and will require substantial fundraising by the
schools.
When Stanford announced Friday that it was withdrawing, the mayor's representatives—perhaps
sensing Cornell's newfound leverage—moved quickly to sew up a deal, finalizing an agreement
over the weekend.
“I think the secret weapon here is Technion, one of the premier engineering schools in the world,”
said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban planning and policy at New York University. “The
combination of Cornell and Technion is very, very hard to equal.”
Cornell and Technion plan to start a new full-scale campus beginning in 2012, either in leased
space or existing Cornell facilities in the city. The Roosevelt Island campus would eventually grow
to more than 2 million square feet and accommodate some 2,000 graduate students and 250
faculty members.
From the start of the competition, Cornell was viewed as an underdog to mighty Stanford, which is
richer and more prestigious in technology and academic circles. The mayor wants to create Silicon
Valley 2.0 in New York City, and Stanford had already played a vital role in the growth of the
original tech hub on the West Coast.
But Cornell outhustled its West Coast rival. From the get-go, Cornell took aggressive steps to try to
close the gap, hiring powerhouse public relations firm BerlinRosen and Suri Kasirer, the highest
grossing lobbyist in the city. Cornell packed the Crain's luncheon last summer, at which the mayor
kicked off the competition, with notable alumni and top-level faculty.
It organized several packed forums where senior faculty drummed up support for the proposal
among alumni, resulting in an online petition backing the bid that amassed more than 21,000
signatures. Cornell officials met with and won support from local groups like the Queens Chamber
of Commerce for its plan to spin off companies in western Queens. And it announced its campus
would include the largest net-zero energy building in the eastern United States.
While Stanford trumpeted a partnership with the City University of New York, Cornell one-upped
its competition, forging an alliance with Technion that chipped away at Stanford's advantage as a
creator of startups. Cornell President David Skorton described an “economic miracle” in Israel
based in large part on Technion's role in giving birth to technology companies.
Once formal negotiations began, it was Stanford that had to play from behind. Stanford “could not
or would not keep up” with Cornell in the negotiations, and the administration grew concerned
about the feasibility of the school's project and its financial commitment, according to a city
official familiar with the negotiations.
Cornell, which has experience building complex projects in the city, appeared more comfortable
and familiar with the city's negotiating style. But, more importantly, sources familiar with the
negotiations said, the Ithaca-based institution seemed more driven than Stanford. One observer
familiar with the process compared Cornell to a baseball team willing to spend whatever it took to
reel in a high-priced free agent.
“Stanford wanted it only if made sense to Stanford,” one close observer said. “Cornell wanted it at
any price.”
As late as Thursday, Stanford remained the mayor's top choice, a source familiar with the
negotiations said, but Stanford officials began to take issue last week with some of the city's
negotiating tactics and its lawyers would not sign off on promises the city was seeking.
Stanford sensed a “bait and switch” was in the works, according to a source familiar with the
school's decision to withdraw. The source said Stanford was asked to do without the $100 million
in public funding the city had set aside; to accede to penalties for construction delays, regardless
of cause; and to indemnify the city and take full responsibility for environmental remediation of
the site.
City officials have said Cornell had already become the frontrunner. And it does appear the
institution was willing to go further than Stanford to lower the city's costs and risk. It wasn't
immediately clear if there were material differences in the schools' proposals for job creation, the
cornerstone of the entire competition.
Hours after Stanford bowed out, Cornell played a trump card, announcing an anonymous gift of
$350 million toward its project, the largest donation in the school's history. The one-time
underdog had become the overwhelming favorite.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20111219/EDUCATION/111219897#ixzz1h1OQcB5f
Technion, Cornell chosen to launch NYC sciences grad school
By JORDANA HORN, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
12/19/2011 23:50
Bloomberg: Thanks to them, city’s goal of becoming the global leader in technological innovation
is now within sight.
NEW YORK – A partnership between Cornell University and the Technion won a first-time
competition to launch an applied sciences graduate school on Roosevelt Island off Manhattan, New
York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Monday.
Bloomberg joined Cornell President
David Skorton and Technion President Peretz Lavie at Cornell’s Weill Cornell Medical College
Monday to announce the new applied sciences campus, to be called the NYCTech
Campus.
“Thanks to this outstanding partnership and groundbreaking proposal from Cornell
and the Technion, New York City’s goal of becoming the global leader in technological innovation
is now within sight,” said Bloomberg. “By adding a new state-of-the-art institution to our
landscape, we will educate tomorrow’s entrepreneurs and create the jobs of the future. This
partnership has so much promise because we share the same goal: to make New York City home
to the world’s most talented workforce.”
Flanked by American, Israeli and New York State flags,
officials announced that the temporary off-site campus will open next year, and that the first phase
of the permanent campus on Roosevelt Island will be completed no later than 2017.
The Cornell Technion consortium was selected, officials said, due to a variety of factors, including
the track records of the respective institutions and the largescale vision of their proposal.
“Cornell University and our extraordinary partner, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology,
are deeply gratified to have the opportunity to realize Mayor Bloomberg’s vision for New York
City: to prepare tomorrow’s expanding talent pool of tech leaders and entrepreneurs to work with
the city’s key industries in growing tomorrow’s innovation ecosystem,” Skorton said. “Starting
today, we are going to put our plan to work, tapping into our extensive connections throughout
the city and build a truly 21st Century campus to fuel the creation of new businesses and new
industries throughout the city for decades to come.”
“Our pride and our hopes for the future are shared by the whole Technion community of students,
faculty, friends and supporters, including the very successful American Technion Society,” Lavie
said.“Together, we have the means, ingenuity and will-power to make our world a better place by
joining with Cornell University and the great people of New York City for this innovative new
center of learning and enterprise.”
After receiving its accreditation, the campus will offer innovative Technion-Cornell dual Master of
Applied Sciences degrees, among other graduate degrees.
The NYCTech Campus, it was announced, will also serve as a veritable hub for technologyrelated business opportunities in New York, by hosting entrepreneurs-in-residence, organizing
business competitions, providing legal support for startups and forming research partnerships.
The NYCTech Campus will also create a $150 million revolving financing fund devoted exclusively
to startup businesses.
The Cornell-Technion proposal beat out other university teams including Stanford, NYU, Columbia
and Carnegie Mellon to win the right to free land and $100m. of city subsidies for infrastructure
improvements.
In July, Bloomberg invited proposals for a world-class campus for engineering and applied
sciences which would create new companies and bring new jobs to the area.
The presence of such a campus, Bloomberg said at the time, would help to diversify New York’s
Wall Street-based economy. Bloomberg predicted such a campus would generate up to $6 billion
in economic activity by creating up to 400 new companies and thousands of permanent jobs in its
first 30 years of existence.
Projections are now for it to spur on 600 new companies.
Stanford, another front-runner, dropped out of the competition without explanation on Friday, as
it became known that Cornell had received an anonymous $350m. donation to back its bid for the
campus.
The $350m. gift is among the largest individual gifts to American higher education.
“We are grateful for the opportunity to introduce Israel’s creative spirit to New York City’s new
technological center through this unique Technion-Cornell partnership.
This is more than a just a collaboration between organizations; but rather an alliance of leading
young minds and we will do our best to turn this endeavor into a major success,” Israeli Consul
General Ido Aharoni said.
“I am looking forward to the innovations that this dynamic partnership will create,” he added.
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=250150
Cornell Wins Bloomberg's NYC Tech Campus: Here's What
The 2 Million Square Foot School Will Look Like
Alyson Shontell, provided by
Monday, December 19, 2011
Michael Bloomberg is about to announce that Cornell and Technion will be jointly building a New
York City engineering school on Roosevelt Island. Press are waiting for him to come on stage right
now at Weill Cornell Medical Center on the upper east side of Manhattan.
Cornell was facing tough competition fromStanford University, but Stanford unexpectedly
dropped out of the race last week. Apparently Stanford wasn't willing to put in as much money as
Cornell and it was having trouble negotiating with Bloomberg's team.
Cornell has posted a few photos from its proposal. Here are some of the key features of the
campus it will build:
·
NYC will give Cornell the land to build the Roosevelt Island campus. It will also contribute
$100 million in city-financed projects for the school.
·
A 2 million square foot campus; a 150,000 sq ft main academic building with net-zero energy
building
·
4 acres of geothermal wells (a total of 400 wells) which will be used to heat and cool the
campus
·
500,000 square feet of green space open to the public, with views of the Manhattan and
Queens waterfronts.
The original headline stated that the campus will be 150,000 feet, but that's actually the size of the
main building alone. The campus will be 2 million square feet.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/cornell-wins-bloombergs-nyc-tech-campus-hereswhat-the-2-million-square-foot-school-will-look-like-2011-12#ixzz1h1KkvbXH
Cornell wins ‘genius’ contest, to team with Technion for N.Y.
campus
December 19, 2011
NEW YORK (JTA) – Cornell University will collaborate with the Technion-Israel Institute of
Technology for a new science campus after winning a competition to build New York City’s next
“genius” school.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg was expected to make Cornell's victory official on Monday at the Weill
Cornell Medical College in Manhattan.
The Ivy League school will receive free land on New York’s Roosevelt Island, as well as $100
million in city subsidies, to build a state-of-the-art science campus with Technion. The program is
scheduled to begin in September at a temporary location.The campus is expected to take more
than a generation to build.
Cornell, which received an anonymous $350 million grant, beat out six other universities and
consortiums that submitted bids.
The campus will accommodate 2,000 students and include 2.1 million square feet of building
space with classrooms, science laboratories, a conference center, housing and other facilities. It
will feature environmentally friendly solar energy and geothermal wells.
“I am thankful and proud that this extraordinary individual gift will support Cornell’s goal to
realize Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s vision for New York City,” Cornell President David Skorton
said.
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/12/19/3090816/cornell-wins-new-york-citys-geniusschool-competition
NYC's innovation campus hopes to rival Silicon Valley
December 20, 2011
Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology will partner to build an applied
sciences campus in New York City that officials hope will transform the metropolis into a center
for entrepreneurship and technology innovation to rival California's Silicon Valley.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg scheduled an announcement Monday that the schools'
proposal had been selected in the multi-billion-dollar competition.
The city is not ruling out the possibility that another of the proposals will also be approved later
on.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Seven universities and consortiums submitted bids to build a campus in exchange for nearly free
city land and up to US$100 million in city improvements. California's Stanford University
withdrew its proposal on Friday, saying it had failed to find a way to ensure the success of its
proposed campus in its talks with the city.
Cornell said Friday it had received US$350 million from an anonymous donor for its plan - the
largest gift in the university's history. In a statement, Cornell President David Skorton said the
project would "fuel the city's growing tech sector."
Cornell and Technion have promised city officials the program will be up and running before the
end of 2012, in existing city space.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/nycs-innovation-campus-hopes-to-rivalsilicon-valley-20111220-1p2ym.html#ixzz1jwz7RZOc
Cornell Wins Bid For Roosevelt Island Tech Campus
By: NY1 News
Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday announced Cornell University and the Technion Israel
Institute of Technology won the city's competition to build a new science and engineering campus
in the city.
Bloomberg says the plan was chosen because of the its scale and the schools' reputations for
science breakthroughs and entrepreneurship.
Estimates say it will create 20,000 construction jobs, 8,000 permanent jobs, and 600 new
companies over the next 30 years.
The 2,000 student campus including labs, housing, and incubator space for startups will sit on the
11-acre site of the former Goldwater Hospital.
"It promises to create a beehive of innovation and discovery attracting and nurturing the kind of
technical talent that will spawn new companies, create new jobs, and propel our city's economy to
new frontiers," Bloomberg said.
"This is not a moment for a touchdown dance for Cornell or for Technion. This is a time for a
touchdown dance for New York City," said Cornell President David Skorton.
Bloomberg says the universities plan to open an initial program next year, and have the first phase
of the campus open no later than 2017.
Plans are also in the works to immediately establish a $150 million dollar fund for startup
companies in the city.
[Video]
http://www.ny1.com/content/news_beats/political_news/152760/cornell-wins-bid-forroosevelt-island-tech-campus
Cornell Wins $100 Million Bid to Build Campus on Roosevelt
Island
December 19, 2011 2:56pm
(Cornell University)
By Jill Colvin and Ben Fractenberg
DNAinfo Staff
UPPER EAST SIDE — After months of speculation and behind-the-scenes wrangling, Cornell
University has been named the winner of the city's $100 million competition to build a state-of-the
art engineering and applied science graduate school on city land, Mayor Michael Bloomberg
announced Monday.
"Thanks to this outstanding partnership and groundbreaking proposal from Cornell and Technion,
New York CIty's goal of becoming the global leader in technological innovation is now within
sight," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement ahead of a packed press conference at the
New York/Weill Cornell Medical Center on the Upper East Side.
The city also announced Monday that, while Cornell will be awarded the million-dollar prize, it has
not ruled out the possibility of addition partnerships with other applicants, including Columbia
University, which hopes to expand its footprint uptown with a new Institute for Data Sciences and
Engineering as part of its $6 billion Manhattanville expansion, and New York University, which
applied to build a Center for Urban Science and Progress in Downtown Brooklyn's Metrotech
Center.
A rendering of the inside of winning bid to build a new tech campus in the city with $100 million
in city funding. (Cornell University)
The announcement comes just days after Stanford, considered one of the frontrunners in the
hotly-watched race among a handful of elite universities including Columbia and Carnegie Mellon,
made a surprise decision to bow out of the competition.
Shortly after Stanford dropped out, Cornell announced it had received a $350 million anonymous
donation to put towards its tech campus efforts — the largest in the university's history.
The moves appear to have cemented a decision by the city, which had not been expected to
announce its pick until the coming year.
Cornell, which teamed up with Israeli heavyweight Technion, is planning to build a two million
square foot campus for approximately 2,500 students, with facilities including classroom, housing,
research space and a conference center, with a price tag of more than $2 billion.
The eco-friendly campus, which would be the east coast's largest net-zero energy building,
reportedly includes the use of solar panels and geothermal wells, and would be housed at the site
of Goldwater Hospital, which is slated to close in 2014.
The school announced that it plans to open an off-site location in 2012 — far earlier than expected
— with the first phase of the new Roosevelt campus set to open no later than 2017.
"Our vision is to build a truly 21st century campus that will fuel the city's growing tech sector and
spur the creation of new businesses and new industries for decades to come," said university
president David Skoryon in a statement announcing the $350 million donation.
"Our proposal for a multidisciplinary institution combining world class applied science research,
entrepreneurship and commercialization will accelerate New York City's transformation into a
world leader in technology innovation."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the competition for the new school in July as part of a plan
to make the city a tech center on par with Silicon Valley.
Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20111219/midtown/cornell-wins-100-million-bid-buildcampus-on-roosevelt-island#ixzz1h1MgKNPi
Cornell wins on its bid to become the Stanford of the
East Coast
December 19, 2011 | Jolie O'Dell
Cornell University is erecting a massive, majorly important new science and engineering campus
on New York’s Roosevelt Island, just half a bridge away from Manhattan.
The two million square foot campus will be built with around $100 million of capital from New
York City. The full, permanent campus should be completed by 2017 and is expected to house as
many as 2,500 students and almost 280 faculty.
“New York City’s goal of becoming the global leader in technological innovation is now within
sight,” said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a release today.
“By adding a new state-of-the-art institution to our landscape, we will educate tomorrow’s
entrepreneurs and create the jobs of the future. This partnership has so much promise because we
share the same goal: to make New York City home to the world’s most talented workforce.”
The campus is expected to bring tens of thousands of jobs to Roosevelt Island.
The city’s Applied Sciences NYC initiative received bids from a range of institutions to build a
world-class technology campus for New York City. Cornell partnered with Technion – Israel
Institute of Technology to make a strong bid for the city’s partnership and funding.
Cornell/Technion were competing against Columbia University, Carnegie Mellon University, New
York University and (until a few days ago) Stanford University. In winning the bid to build the
campus, Cornell/Technion are now charged with reclaiming the East Coast’s long history of
technological innovation and keeping pace with the rapid growth seen in California’s Silicon
Valley.
In today’s announcement, we learn that the Cornell/Technion bid was chosen “due to the large
scale and vision of their proposal, the long and impressive track-record of both institutions in
generating applied science breakthroughs and spinning out new businesses, the financing capacity
of the consortium, the focus of the consortium on the collaboration between academia and the
private sector and the overall capacity of the partnership to execute the project,” a Cornell rep
stated in a release.
In addition to the $100 million of city money, Cornell will be using a recently received $350
million gift from an anonymous donor to fund the new campus. Cornell/Technion has signed a 99year lease for the Roosevelt Island campus site, at the end of which the consortium can purchase
the land for $1.
http://www.dnainfo.com/20111219/midtown/cornell-wins-100-million-bid-build-campus-onroosevelt-island
DECEMBER 19, 2011
—Michael Howard Saul, Jacob Gershman and Andrew Grossman
Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to announce on Monday that Cornell University won the highprofile competition to build a new applied-science campus in New York City, people familiar with
the decision confirmed Sunday.
The announcement comes three days after Stanford University unexpectedly withdrew from the
competition following tense negotiations with the Bloomberg administration. Stanford's sudden
exit left Cornell as the clear favorite, and Mr. Bloomberg plans Monday afternoon to make it
official.
On Friday, in a huge sign of support for Cornell's bid, the university said it had received a $350
million anonymous donation toward building the campus, the largest gift in the university's
history.
Cornell University won a high-profile competition to build a new applied-science campus in New
York City, Aaron Rutkoff reports on digits. Photo: Getty Images.
Mayoral advisers are hopeful the campus will be a legacy project for Mr. Bloomberg, who has
struggled in his third term with a series of setbacks that has damaged his reputation.
When Stanford withdrew from the competition, several people familiar with the negotiations said
the university preferred to quit than lose. Stanford officials saw the "writing on the wall," said one
person familiar with the negotiations.
Stu Loeser, a spokesman for the mayor, declined to comment. Officials at Cornell did not respond
on Sunday to a request for comment.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204879004577107190097493490.html
opinion
Cornell’s the One When it Comes To New York’s Tech Campus
By The Editors 11/01/11 6:57pm
Mayor Bloomberg’s vision of creating a new engineering and applied science campus in New York
has inspired no shortage of interest and exciting proposals from world-class universities across
the nation and, indeed, the globe. It seems clear that this visionary plan will be shaping the city’s
economy not just in the 21st century, but in the 22nd as well.
It’s not often that a city has the confidence and resources to plan so far ahead. But that’s New York
for you.
Plans submitted by Stanford, Columbia and Rockefeller universities, along with a consortium led
by N.Y.U., all have merit and wonderful possibilities. But the plan envisioned by Cornell University
in partnership with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology is, we think, the best. We urge the
mayor to choose the Cornell-led plan when he announces his decision in January.
Cornell and Technion would base their campus on Roosevelt Island (a vision they share with
several competitors). They hope to construct two million square feet of campus space, enough to
serve nearly 2,000 students. The main building on Roosevelt Island would be 150,000 square feet,
and would be heated and cooled from 400 geothermal wells. The facility would be the ultimate in
green technology.
The Cornell plan has its neighbors in mind, too. The plan calls for creation of 500,000 square feet
of green space on the island featuring great views of midtown and the Upper East Side.
While both N.Y.U. and Columbia obviously are hometown institutions, Cornell’s proposal is
stronger, and let’s not forget, Cornell’s roots are in New York as well. The creative partnership
with Technion is another strong selling point. Cornell president David Skorton noted that
Technion has been “the driving force behind the miracle of Israel’s technology economy.”
That’s precisely the role that Mr. Bloomberg believes the new school will play in the city’s
economy. The mayor has argued that the city needs a cutting-edge science and engineering
campus to create the Silicon Valley of the future. He’s willing to invest $100 million in public funds
for infrastructure improvements in and around the site of the new campus, in hopes that the
project will create 400 new companies and more than 20,000 jobs over the next 30 years.
This is precisely the kind of bold, forward-looking thinking that vaulted New York over its
competitors in the 19th century. Now, in the early years of the 21st century, Mr. Bloomberg is
looking for people and innovators who can reimagine New York’s economy for the marketplace of
the near and distant future.
The mayor discovered that there is no shortage of institutional talent eager to implement his
vision. The Cornell-Technion proposal happens to be the strongest plan in a strong and exciting
field.
Cornell president says own university's plan is best bet to win
Bloomberg's contest for tech school
By Rich Schapiro / DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, October 27 2011, 4:00 AM
Marc A. Hermann for News
Cornell President David Skorton said his university is a perfect fit for city's
"genius" school.
Two days before proposals are due for the city's "genius school," Cornell's president trumpeted
his university as the "most logical choice to win this competition."
David Skorton said the Ivy League powerhouse's deep ties to the city, innovative curriculum and
partnership with Israel's elite Technion university gives his school the edge over its competitors.
"We think the mayor has the right vision - that is, to increase the talent pool by bringing the right
kind of school to the city - and we think we're in a good position to do that," Skorton said in a
meeting with the Daily News Editorial Board.
Cornell has launched a media blitz in recent weeks, unveiling several details of its plan to build a
state-of-the-art tech campus on Roosevelt Island.
Lured by the promise of free land and a $100 million grant, Cornell is among an impressive roster
of top universities vying to set up an applied-sciences campus in the city.
The deadline for proposals is Thursday, and Mayor Bloomberg is expected to announce the winner
by year's end.
The Cornell-Technion plan calls for a 2 million-square-foot campus, containing 4 acres of
geothermal wells, 500,000 square feet of public green space and a 150,000-square-foot building
that, if built today, would be the largest net-zero energy building on the East Coast.
Skorton said the university would spend more than $1 billion on the high-tech grad school.
Technion President Peretz Lavie, speaking via videoconference, said he believes such a campus
would prompt several tech giants, including IBM, Microsoft and Google, to set up offices on
Roosevelt Island.
"We believe Roosevelt Island will become a magnet for such companies," Lavie said.
Also yesterday, Stanford University revealed details of its plan to transform the same piece of land
into a beacon of tech innovation.
The proposed $2.5 billion, 1.9million-square-foot campus would house more than 200 faculty
members and more than 2,000 students - roughly the same numbers as the Cornell plan.
If Stanford's proposal is selected, the California school said it will commit $200 million upfront
and launch a $1.5 billion, 10-year fund-raising campaign to finance the campus and build the
endowment.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/cornell-president-universityplan-best-best-win-bloomberg-contest-tech-school-article-1.968172#ixzz1jwx9mrkA
Environmental Features in Science Campus Plans
Photo illustration by Cornell University, photograph by Getty Images
An artist's rendering of Cornell University's proposal for a graduate school on Roosevelt Island.
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Published: October 23, 2011
If Cornell University were to win the city’s competition to build a new science graduate school, it
would install on Roosevelt Island almost four acres of solar panels, 500 geothermal wells, and
buildings with the rare distinction of generating as much power as they use.
Stanford University’s proposal for the island calls for minimizing energy use, creating a marsh to
filter water, and recycling water from storm runoff and sinks, and possibly from toilets as well.
In an expansion under way in West Harlem that would house Columbia’s proposed graduate
school, the university is recycling more than 90 percent of the material in buildings it is
demolishing, and taking unusual steps to minimize construction pollution.
The Bloomberg administration’s contest to create a school of applied sciences sets high
environmental standards, but some competing universities are going much further to out-green
one another.
As the Oct. 28 deadline for proposals was approaching, several of the top contenders discussed
their environmental plans as part of a public relations war intended to impress city officials who
will decide which institution wins up to $400 million in land and infrastructure improvements.
Stanford and Cornell, vying for the same city-owned site on what some involved in the process
have begun to call Silicon Island, are widely seen as the universities to beat.
Their plans are far grander — two million square feet of space to be built over a generation with
price tags of over $1 billion — and they have proposed more ambitious plans to incorporate
innovative environmental measures.
Cornell officials said their campus would generate up to 1.8 megawatts of power, enough to supply
1,400 American homes, with elements like fuel cells and the city’s biggest solar array.
Two major academic buildings, out of 10 planned structures, would meet a “net zero energy”
standard, meaning that on average, they would consume no more electricity than they produce. On
hot days, when demand is highest, they would actually generate excess power and feed it into the
grid.
Very few large structures meet that standard, according to the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory, a federal agency, and Cornell plans to go a step more: The buildings would be energyneutral even taking into account all the devices plugged into outlets inside.
“From an architectural and sustainability point of view, we’re entering some pretty novel
territory,” said Kent Kleinman, dean of Cornell’s architecture school, who contributed to the plan.
Stanford and Cornell both propose to take advantage of the steady temperature deep
underground, using it to cool air in summer and heat it in winter.
Cornell’s geothermal wells, circulating water through pipes, would make up the largest system of
its kind in the region, university officials said.
Stanford would use ground-source heat pumps that store and release heat without water.
Cornell, hoping to gain a strategic advantage in the increasingly intense competition, shared far
more of its plans than other applicants, including architectural drawings.
Stanford’s renewable energy plans seem less specific: Officials said that the proposal would make
extensive use of solar and geothermal power, but that they could not give figures on either, and
that other innovations were considered possible but not definite.
Stanford’s stated goal is to use 50 percent less energy, and generate 80 percent less in greenhouse
gases, than the efficiency standards set by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and AirConditioning Engineers.
“We’ll look at three or four different combinations of solutions to meet that, and determine how to
go,” Laura Goldstein, Stanford’s director of project management, said.
“A new campus is a big opportunity to look at campus-wide systems, to showcase technologies.”
Whatever the approach, she said, the New York project would be greener than anything on
Stanford’s California campus, where several buildings have won environmental design awards.
Cornell said that its buildings would use 40 percent less energy than the engineers’ society
standard — somewhat higher consumption than Stanford’s goal — but that the campus would
generate so much clean energy that its demands on the grid would be 75 percent below the
standard.
Both Cornell and Stanford promise to include extensive measures to capture and reuse rainfall,
including green roofs — some of Cornell’s structures would be almost entirely hidden under
landscaping — as well as recycling “gray water” that usually goes into storm drains.
But Stanford takes the unusual steps of proposing to build a wetland to filter runoff naturally, and
to recycle “black water” from toilets, if it is feasible.
The graduate school would also be connected to a Roosevelt Island system that collects garbage by
sucking it through tubes at high speed.
Each university also mentions exploring experimental technology, like using the East River for
heat exchange, or harnessing tidal energy.
Both universities say their buildings would be aligned to maximize sun exposure and natural
ventilation.
Cornell’s drawings show structures of various sizes, with rooflines and other surfaces tilted to
catch sunlight.
Both plans would also provide ample open space to the public and gardens for cultivation.
But officials at competing universities cautioned against taking the ambitious plans of Cornell and
Stanford at face value, if only because of cost. They spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying it
would appear unseemly to criticize a competitor’s plans.
“It’s already so expensive to build in New York City, and this stuff adds more,” one said. “It could
all change in negotiations with the city, or as the technology evolves.”
Columbia and a coalition led by New York University want to build in more urban settings,
hemmed in by roads, subways and buildings, with less flexibility and space for parks or solar
panels.
But Columbia is already going beyond required environmental requirements in an enormous
expansion in West Harlem, where construction began a year ago, and where the university
proposes to incorporate a new science school.
Using low-sulfur fuel and particulate filters, the cranes and trucks working on the project do not
belch visible exhaust. Each vehicle leaving the site is sprayed from below by water jets, to keep it
from trailing dirt and dust. The school is splitting a major wastewater pipe under the site into a
separate sewer and a storm drain, to reduce the risk of sewage overflows.
N.Y.U. wants to acquire the old New York City Transit headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn and
overhaul it inside and out. John H. Beckman, a university vice president, said such renovation
could be environmentally preferable to demolition and new construction.
A version of this article appeared in print on October 24, 2011, on page A19 of the New York edition
with the headline: Environmental Features In Science Campus Plans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/education/24science.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
Cornell teams with Israel's Technion university in bid to win
city's 'genius school' campus
BY TRACY CONNOR
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
The city's "genius school" competition heated up Tuesday when Cornell revealed it's teaming with
Israel's Technion university on a proposal for an applied-sciences campus. The New York school's
announcement comes just days after Stanford University beefed up its plan by unveiling a
partnership with CUNY.
The two top-tier schools are among the front-runners in a race for free city land and a $100
million grant to construct a new high-tech grad school.
The deadline for final proposals is Oct. 28 and the rush is on to sweeten proposals.
While out-of-town Stanford hooked up with City College in Harlem to make its package more
attractive, local hopeful Cornell went overseas for an edge.
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology is a globally ranked research university based in Haifa.
Half the Israel companies on the NASDAQ are headed by Technion alumni.
If they win the Bloomberg Administration's contest, Cornell and Technion will create an institute
that eventually will occupy 2 million square feet on Roosevelt Island and be home to 2,000 grad
students and 250 faculty members.
"The Technion is the driving force behind the miracle of Israel's technology economy," Cornell
President David Skorton said in a statement. The grad school would offer students the opportunity
to get dual degrees from both institutions - which is also a hallmark of the Stanford-CUNY
proposal. Technion President Peretz Lavie said his school was among two dozen that submitted
preliminary proposals for the competition - but made it clear it would need a partner.
He said Cornell wasn't the only interested college. "There was some flirting with others, but I
won't go into it," he said. Because Technion is a state-funded entity, Cornell will finance the capital
project. The two institutions will craft the academic program together.
"We would like to be associated with an Ivy League university," Lavie said of his decision to
partner with Cornell.
"And we think our presence in New York will strengthen the relationship between Israeli industry
and U.S. industry."
He said the city consulted with Technion about how to create an applied-science campus months
before it issued its request for proposals.
Does this give the Cornell-Technion plan a boost? "Let's hope this is true," Lavie said.
Stanford and Cornell both say they would spend $1 billion or more on a campus that could
position New York as the next Silicon Valley.