Post by Chris_Wendt on Apr 10, 2014 13:11:59 GMT -5
Tuesday night I had the pleasure of attending the Metropolitan Business Network (MBN) speaker event, “Tech in the City: Cornell-Technion’s Impact on NYC’s Economic Future”. You are familiar with Cornell University. Technion is the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (Haifa, Israel). Cornell-Technion is actually the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute (JTCII), a $2 Billion initiative of the Bloomberg administration, founded by JTCII director Craig Gotsman, PhD, to generate the next generation of entrepreneurial tech talent required to fuel the growth of the tech sector in New York City.
The technology emphasis of this undertaking is focused in the following ways:
“Connective media” includes social media, all media forms over the Internet, and non-Internet digital connections between or among people.
“Healthier Life” implies technology initiatives and applications relevant to lifestyle, health care, medicine and therapies.
“The Built Environment” deals with technology relevant to the buildings and infrastructure of cities, specifically (but not limited to) New York City, which has a lot of old buildings and infrastructure.
To be known as “(NYC) Cornell Tech”, this project is being constructed at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island in the East River and will be operational in 2017. Demolition of existing old structures (including a former hospital) is underway. Preliminary operations, including faculty recruiting, have been established in the Google Building in Manhattan and are ongoing.
Intended to be a game changer for both The City and for the state of applied technologies, Cornell Tech has already made an impact on the economic future of NYC, primarily by stimulating competition with itself in The City:
• Mount Sinai Hospital is developing a major partnership with RPI
• Carnegie Mellon University is developing a major project at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
• NYU is developing the Center for Urban Science and Progress at MetroTech Center, Brooklyn
• NYU already has the Urban Future Lab in its Polytechnic School of Engineering in Brooklyn
• Columbia University is increasing their faculty by 50% (!) and more than doubling their graduate engineering capacity!
Cornell Tech (and these competing technology initiatives) should make NYC a major hub, an epicenter, for technology investing, technology employment, technology education, and applied technology innovations that will continue to improve the quality of life and the real values of NYC (and suburbs) as a good place to live and work.
A major part of what Cornell Tech will feature will be several “co-location” facilities or on-campus incubators for tech entrepreneurs and their start-up companies. Although not a new concept, the scale and focus are unprecedented.
Another important feature of Cornel Tech will be to provide educational opportunities for NYC public schools to participate in learning and developing new technology applications. Also not a new concept, but a seemingly necessary and natural affiliation, this part of the discussion really got my attention.
Afterwards I spoke personally with Professor Gotsman about whether Cornell Tech would provide advanced educational (research) project opportunities for suburban high school students, as SUNY Stony Brook and Brookhaven National Laboratories currently do, or, if suburban students will still need to look west, to Fermilab or to Silicon Valley to find tech research opportunities. He answered without hesitation that Cornell Tech is already thinking about and developing regional opportunities which should include suburban high school students and invited me to contact their office in Manhattan to speak with the person responsible for those programs. I hope to follow-up soon, and once I have better information and direction, will pass that along to the school district. However, I am cognizant of the fact the NYC School System is the largest in the country, with over 1 million students, and competition for advanced research opportunities in The City will be fierce.
The panel of speakers was impressive.
Brian Cohen is an “angel investor” who has invested over $53 million into more than 70 early stage technology companies. He was the first investor in Pinterest. He is an author, an educator, a “disruptive media entrepreneur”; a social media specialist and consultant. Brian is considered one of the fathers of science and technology strategic communication and co-founded Technology Solutions, Inc. in 1983. He advises entrepreneur students at NYU and Columbia.
Seth Pinsky was Director of Mayor Bloomberg’s Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency which managed $20 Billion in climate change impact projects. He also served as President of the NYC Economic Development Corporation where he was the lead negotiator for Yankee Stadium, Citifield and the World Trade Center. He is a graduate of Columbia and Harvard Law and an Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.
Craig Gotsman, PhD holds the Technion Hewlett-Packard Chair in Computer Engineering specializing in computer graphics. He hold 10 U.S. Patents and started two tech companies: Virtue 3D, Inc. in 1997, whose technology was acquired by NVIDIA, and, Estimotion Inc. (2000) which is now ITIS Israel, Ltd. He is a consultant to numerous Fortune 100 companies, including HP, Intel, Nokia, Shell Oil and Disney. He received his PhD from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has published more than 150 papers in the professional literature. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard and ETH Zurich, and a research scientist at MIT.
About the sponsoring organization, MBN: its members are “a select group of business owners and senior level decision makers who represent a cross section of New York enterprises”. I was glad for the invitation to join them for the evening as a guest of one of their distinguished members, Mitchell Weiner, the founder of FSO.
There are lots of people and organizations with loads of money betting on the future of technology education, the advancement and application of technology, and technology jobs in New York. The Wantagh School District needs to be aware of these game-changing develpments in our region. Parents need to be asking:
Do you copy?
Let me know what you think!
Chris Wendt
chriswendt117@gmail.com
The technology emphasis of this undertaking is focused in the following ways:
- This is not about theoretical technology research
- JTCII is about applied technology
- There are three (3) targeted technology areas for the JTCII:
- Connective Media
- Healthier Life (living)
- The Built Environment
- Although a center for learning, JTCII will not be an academic “Ivory Tower”
“Connective media” includes social media, all media forms over the Internet, and non-Internet digital connections between or among people.
“Healthier Life” implies technology initiatives and applications relevant to lifestyle, health care, medicine and therapies.
“The Built Environment” deals with technology relevant to the buildings and infrastructure of cities, specifically (but not limited to) New York City, which has a lot of old buildings and infrastructure.
To be known as “(NYC) Cornell Tech”, this project is being constructed at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island in the East River and will be operational in 2017. Demolition of existing old structures (including a former hospital) is underway. Preliminary operations, including faculty recruiting, have been established in the Google Building in Manhattan and are ongoing.
Intended to be a game changer for both The City and for the state of applied technologies, Cornell Tech has already made an impact on the economic future of NYC, primarily by stimulating competition with itself in The City:
• Mount Sinai Hospital is developing a major partnership with RPI
• Carnegie Mellon University is developing a major project at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
• NYU is developing the Center for Urban Science and Progress at MetroTech Center, Brooklyn
• NYU already has the Urban Future Lab in its Polytechnic School of Engineering in Brooklyn
• Columbia University is increasing their faculty by 50% (!) and more than doubling their graduate engineering capacity!
Cornell Tech (and these competing technology initiatives) should make NYC a major hub, an epicenter, for technology investing, technology employment, technology education, and applied technology innovations that will continue to improve the quality of life and the real values of NYC (and suburbs) as a good place to live and work.
A major part of what Cornell Tech will feature will be several “co-location” facilities or on-campus incubators for tech entrepreneurs and their start-up companies. Although not a new concept, the scale and focus are unprecedented.
Another important feature of Cornel Tech will be to provide educational opportunities for NYC public schools to participate in learning and developing new technology applications. Also not a new concept, but a seemingly necessary and natural affiliation, this part of the discussion really got my attention.
Afterwards I spoke personally with Professor Gotsman about whether Cornell Tech would provide advanced educational (research) project opportunities for suburban high school students, as SUNY Stony Brook and Brookhaven National Laboratories currently do, or, if suburban students will still need to look west, to Fermilab or to Silicon Valley to find tech research opportunities. He answered without hesitation that Cornell Tech is already thinking about and developing regional opportunities which should include suburban high school students and invited me to contact their office in Manhattan to speak with the person responsible for those programs. I hope to follow-up soon, and once I have better information and direction, will pass that along to the school district. However, I am cognizant of the fact the NYC School System is the largest in the country, with over 1 million students, and competition for advanced research opportunities in The City will be fierce.
The panel of speakers was impressive.
Brian Cohen is an “angel investor” who has invested over $53 million into more than 70 early stage technology companies. He was the first investor in Pinterest. He is an author, an educator, a “disruptive media entrepreneur”; a social media specialist and consultant. Brian is considered one of the fathers of science and technology strategic communication and co-founded Technology Solutions, Inc. in 1983. He advises entrepreneur students at NYU and Columbia.
Seth Pinsky was Director of Mayor Bloomberg’s Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency which managed $20 Billion in climate change impact projects. He also served as President of the NYC Economic Development Corporation where he was the lead negotiator for Yankee Stadium, Citifield and the World Trade Center. He is a graduate of Columbia and Harvard Law and an Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.
Craig Gotsman, PhD holds the Technion Hewlett-Packard Chair in Computer Engineering specializing in computer graphics. He hold 10 U.S. Patents and started two tech companies: Virtue 3D, Inc. in 1997, whose technology was acquired by NVIDIA, and, Estimotion Inc. (2000) which is now ITIS Israel, Ltd. He is a consultant to numerous Fortune 100 companies, including HP, Intel, Nokia, Shell Oil and Disney. He received his PhD from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has published more than 150 papers in the professional literature. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard and ETH Zurich, and a research scientist at MIT.
About the sponsoring organization, MBN: its members are “a select group of business owners and senior level decision makers who represent a cross section of New York enterprises”. I was glad for the invitation to join them for the evening as a guest of one of their distinguished members, Mitchell Weiner, the founder of FSO.
There are lots of people and organizations with loads of money betting on the future of technology education, the advancement and application of technology, and technology jobs in New York. The Wantagh School District needs to be aware of these game-changing develpments in our region. Parents need to be asking:
"Where is Wantagh going with Science, Technology, Engineering and Math ("STEM") Education and Research opportunities?" ...for YOUR kids?,and,
"With whom is Wantagh going to partner to provide the best of STEM experiences and opportunities?" ...for YOUR kids?This is a call for academic leadership for the FUTURE!
Do you copy?
Let me know what you think!
Chris Wendt
chriswendt117@gmail.com