Snazzy! (Photo: Cornell Tech)

Classes start in January, but unless Cornell Tech wants to live in Google's spare bedroom forever it's got to get cracking on that splashy Roosevelt Island campus. Last night, the campus plan got the official a-okay from Manhattan Community Board 8, clearing its first hurdle.

A press release that went out this morning trumpets "community support" and frames the approval as the cherry on top of a productive year. Cornell Tech VP Cathy Dove said in the announcement, “Roosevelt Island has a fantastic history of innovation and civic participation, and we were still gratified by the interest and support of so many Islanders from day 1," adding,

“We are appreciative for the support of our new neighbors and assure them that the construction and operation of the campus will be handled in a way that protects, respects and welcomes the rest of the Island."

This is just one stage in the long gauntlet that is the city's public land use review process, which started back in October and typically takes around seven months. Next up, the plan has to clear Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's office, then the City Planning Commission and then the City Council. Rome wasn't built in etc.

However, while most islanders seem pleased with the notion of a prestigious school sitting in their front yard, even the most well thought-out construction plan is likely to create a massive traffic nightmare for the tiny island community. Roosevelt Islander reports that at a recent meeting of the Roosevelt Island Operating Committee, transportation manager Cy Opperman spoke about the island's burgeoning traffic problem, the possibility of adding a bus lane and the havoc a years-long construction project is likely to wreak.

Not much room to maneuver. (Photo: flickr.com/paytonc)

"Traffic is absolutely getting worse, worse and worse," Mr. Opperman said, adding that "We have some future problems coming up, one of which is Cornell." The project will mean dealing with something like 900 construction workers on top of existing problems. Main Street is already crowded in the mornings, he said; adding just another 50 cars is going to bring traffic to a standstill. Then the bus gets stuck.

There's also the fact that, as the New York Times has pointed out, construction managers are planning to bring construction materials in by road, rather than via water. Nothing like a dump truck to liven up the gridlock!

UPDATED: A spokesperson points out that Cornell Tech is considering options for barging construction materials that'll reduce truck trips, and they presented a number of options at last night's a previous meeting. Somebody want to invent them a teleporter right quick?

Maybe the thought of a two-decade traffic jam is what's getting this irate gal's goat, over in the comments on Roosevelt Islander:

There is no more " what the population wants" here anymore. Never really was that way, so what the Hell! Let Pollara come in and take over, build a huge fence to cut out the pie she wants, let Cornell come in and think we all are asleep here and just give them the whole island!

Tell us how you really feel.

But it's worth remembering what Eric Schmidt told the Observer a couple of months ago, when we bumped into him at the opening of the island's FDR memorial: “It’ll be more gentrified, it will be more upscale” as the results of all the changes underway.

What's a little traffic as a trade-off for moving on up?

Professor Estrin.

The Entrepreneurial Egghead

Of all Mike Bloomberg’s many initiatives to turn New York into the Silicon Valley of the 21st century, one stands out as the centerpiece of his master plan: the applied sciences campus. After a battle royale with other schools including Stanford, Cornell emerged the winner with its proposal to build a Roosevelt Island satellite. Now, with classes scheduled to start in January, the city’s techies are left watching and waiting for graduates to fill all their open jobs.

Cornell insists its campus is designed to boost New York’s tech sector, and the school’s choice of open-source advocate Deborah Estrin as its first academic faculty member shows that’s more than mere talk.

The professor was poached from UCLA, where her work on embedded sensing networks landed her on lists like Wired’s “50 People Who Will Change the World” and CNN’s “10 Most Powerful Women in Tech.”

But more important than her research is the tone she’s already setting as a founding faculty member. Her commitment to open source—the principle that the fruits of technological research ought to be shared freely—should pique the interest of even the most reticent founders. “Open source is a shared good from which everyone benefits and on which tremendously successful commercial and social ventures are built,” she told The Observer. It also means even the city’s scrappiest startups might have a chance to build on breakthroughs that emerge from the school’s state-of-the-art labs, without ponying up for pricey licensing fees.

What drew her to the school, she said, was the promise of  “innovation that crosses all sorts of boundaries: the boundaries between academia and industry, theory and application, teaching and research, commercial and social good.” In fact, her current focus—personalized, mobile healthcare—could have implications for that lagging biotech sector city officials are so desperately trying to build.

Next: Ryder Ripps, Jonathan Vingiano and Jules LaPlace, OKFocus: The Merry Pranksters

Back to the beginning. 

(Photo: CornellNYC Tech)

The patent wars rage on in the tech world, but today a couple of big names extended olive branches in hopes of brokering a peace--or at least one between the industry and the notion of patents. This morning, leaders from the Commerce Department and Cornell University announced that there'll be a U.S. Patent Office staffer permanently planted right on campus.

That individual will serve as a kind of liaison between the worlds of tech and intellectual property, working to connect university students and affiliates to whatever resources the Commerce Department has to offer. (Before you private sector devotees scoff, that ranges from IP strategizing to government grants.) It's all in the service of speeding innovations from academic notion to marketable product.

This is the first time the bureau has ever devoted such attention to a particular university campus. How you like dem apples, Stanford?

To make the announcement, acting U.S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank appeared at Google's New York digs with Cornell president David Skorton and a host of local politicos, including both Seth Pinsky and a very tan Charles Schumer.

Secretary Blank quickly clarified there won't be an actual office--wouldn't want the already overworked patent officers besieged by PhD candidates!--but rather just the staffer.

“The resources we’ll provide at Cornell University’s New York City tech campus are a natural extension of the Administration’s commitment to removing the barriers that get in the way of more jobs and more innovation," she said.

It's all part of exploring a new model of university-led innovation, she added, "so we can push even more great American products into the global market."

President Skorton stepped up to say that the program would allow broadening the curriculum to incorporate both academia and industry. Nor will this staffer be kept closeted in the ivory tower--everyone who spoke was very clear the initiative would be available to other schools.

Of course, one wonders how having a patent officer on the grounds of a high-profile tech campus is going to play out, given the rampant problems with patent trolls and the popularity of open source. President Skorton made pointed mention of the discussion, but also said that having a patent point person on campus will help with the process of "figuring out together the sweet spot for IP protection in the software area from trade secrets to patent protection."

It's also probably an indication that CornellNYC won't limit itself to consumer Internet startups, as one doesn't typically wade into biotech without filing some serious paperwork.

Receiving a shout out from Patent and Trademark Office director David Kappos was Stack Exchange. The two have a partnership to get third-party feedback on pending applications and share prior art, with the aim of making patents stronger and more specific. He gave props to the site for having stepped up to the plate. "We're getting discussions going on in Stack Exchange in real time," he said, surely blowing the minds of everyone who's ever attempted to get a straight answer regarding a governmental application process.

Senator Schumer took the floor and first gave props to Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney for wearing the appropriate shade of red. "Almost like rapunzel it takes research and transforms it into jobs and companies," he said of the tech transfer process.

He proceeded to hold up a copper pipe in one hand an iPhone in the other, to illustrate the rapid rate of innovation. Senator Schumer made the point that university founding father Ezra Cornell had held the patent on a pipe-laying machine, making it only appropriate that his should be a leader in the current technological revolution.

The Roosevelt Island Tram sure will be crowded circa 2017.

Artist's rendering. (Image: Cornell University)

The starchitect-designed Roosevelt Island campus won't be ready 'til sometime in 2017, but that doesn't mean the embryonic staff of Cornell NYC Tech plans to sit around for the next half decade, twiddling their thumbs. A rolling stone gathers no moss! Time and tide wait for no man! Haven't you heard there's a tech talent crisis on?

Today Cornell University (with Mayor Bloomberg, naturally) announced that applications are now being accepted for the "beta class" of the school's one-year Master of Engineering in computer science program. Classes commence in January 2013, in space borrowed from Google. So if you've been kicking the tires on a graduate degree, today could very well be your moment of glory. 

Mayor Bloomberg got a little cliche in his excitement:

“There’s simply no better place to further your education and launch your career than New York City. Getting in won’t be easy, but if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.”

God willing, this was followed by a rousing display of jazz hands.

However, before you say "what the hell" and submit some half-assed, tossed-off paperwork, know that Cornell has no intention of priming the pump with lax admission standards. The announcement takes pains to point out that this first class will be "small and highly selective." And a gander at the information for potential applicants suggest that a bit of Code Academy and a couple of courses at General Assembly probably aren't going to cut it:

Successful applicants to Cornell NYC Tech should have excellent academic credentials and strong entrepreneurial interests, leadership skills and a passion for community engagement.  A bachelor’s degree (BA, BS, BE) in computer science or a related technical field is required except in exceptional cases.  All applicants, regardless of their undergraduate degree, should have taken courses on programming, discrete structures, architecture and operating systems.

And judging from the remarks of Daniel Huttenlocher, Dean of the tech campus, the expectations don't stop there:

“Candidates for the beta class must be future tech leaders, with not only the highest academic credentials but also strong entrepreneurial interests, leadership skills and a passion for community engagement.”

Applications are due October 1, so anyone who wants in better start frantically emailing potential recommenders right this minute.

The future.

The latest challenge for the city's grand applied-sciences plans: Some ticked-off East Harlemites, says the Daily News.

As we've mentioned before, building that snazzy billion-dollar campus on Roosevelt Island requires demolishing the antiquated old Coler-Goldwater long-term care hospital. Hundreds of patients--many of them with complex needs and financial situations--have to be relocated before October 2013.

The good news is the city has a plan: The Daily News reports that, in order to squeak in under the deadline, "city officials are racing to erect several facilities in East Harlem that will house as many as 700 Coler-Goldwater patients." But that's going to cost some $300 million and the locals are, frankly, peeved.

The term "hidden subsidy" is bandied about.

Says the Daily News:

They never bothered to ask locals what they wanted done with that land, according Community Board 11, which voted unanimously in mid June to oppose them.

“We’re not against the Cornell school,” said Matthew Washington, chairman of Community Board 11.

“We just believe there has to be more support from the city for our own residents” and a “recognition of the burden” the neighborhood will bear for these projects.”

Community leaders want more construction jobs for locals and, according to the Daily News, believe that "the mayor should assure that Cornell provides special science programs for all East Harlem schools."

However, the city would like to point out that this closure was announced in 2010, before the tech campus competition even started, much less the winner announced. Coler-Goldwater was antiquated and needed to be replaced, regardless.

Another day, another tussle.

Mr. Page and co.

Mayor Bloomberg announced today at Google’s New York headquarters in Chelsea that the company has agreed to provide CornellNYC Tech with 22,000 square feet of free office space while the Roosevelt Island campus is built. The mayor joined Google CEO Larry Page, Cornell President David Skorton and Technion's director Craig Gotsman at a press conference this morning to make the announcement. The value of the space is over $10 million, said Mr. Page.

According to the press release:

The space will allow Cornell to build its presence in New York in close proximity to tech companies and entrepreneurs with whom it will collaborate....Google will initially provide Cornell with 22,000 square feet of office space on July 1, 2012, free of charge for 5 years and 6 months or until the completion of Cornell's campus on Roosevelt Island--whichever occurs first.

Oh good, they opened the conference with this embarrassing video.

CEO Larry Page took the stage following an introduction by Google CIO Ben Fried. The Mayor has “a healthy disregard for the impossible," said Mr. Page. "He sets big ambitious goals and he usually hits them. I’ve learned a lot from Mayor Bloomberg about management and especially his bullpen. I also hear he's learning to code, so I’m hoping I can teach him a thing or two to return the favor."

"When we put the best most innovative minds together today we end up with the best most innovative tomorrow," he added.

Mr. Page then introduced Mayor Bloomberg, "a man who needs no introduction."

"When we envisioned creating such a school in our city and created the compeititon for it, we always expected the school to have close ties to the private sector," said Mayor Bloomberg. "Today Google is certainly getting in on the ground floor."

Of Silicon Valley's tech lead, Mayor Bloomberg joked, "We don’t like to be second to anybody. Google and NYC tech are going to help us seriously close that gap."

"We need to create a new academic model for this time, and this place, and this industry and that's exactly what we're going to do," emphasized Cornell President David Skorton.

In answering a question about whether or not Google would have 'dibs' on Cornell's tech grads, Mr. Page beamed: "I wish."

Mr. Skorton said that the campus would officially open in the fall, and Cornell will be bringing a small number of grad students and professors down from Ithaca to kick off the semester.

One reporter asked who is currently occupying the space. "Did you have trouble renting it out?" he asked.

"Do you know anything about the New York real estate market?" joked Mr. Fried.

"We're going to compact [Googlers] a little more to make room for our friends here at the university," clarified Mr. Page.

(Cornell University)

It's easy to get the impression that literally everyone in New York City is thrilled by the prospect of the Roosevelt Island tech campus. But one population is less than thrilled, and for good reason. That's the long-term residents of Goldwater Hospital, which is due for demolition to make way for construction. DNAInfo spoke to several and found them less than reassured about their futures.

The city first announced that the hospital would close in 2010, long before Cornell-Technion won the tech campus competition. But the proposed location has provided a hard deadline for the relocation, and it's not yet entirely clear where some 400 patients are headed. And this isn't the kind of effort that necessarily goes better with a firm deadline. Advocacy group director Judy Wessler told DNAInfo that there are "a lot of moving pieces, if not worked out well, could be tragic for people." She added, "If the spaces are not available, if they’re not done right — if they’re overcrowded, not adequate or not appropriate— there could be havoc."

All this is exacerbated by the fact some patients have legal situations that could fairly be described as complicated. For example, Armand Xama was paralyzed almost immediately after immigrating to the United States. Because he only has Medicaid, not Social Security, he qualifies for a nursing home, not a less-intense solution like supportive housing. But that's not appealing to the 30-year-old, who doesn't suffer from any mental impairments.

Nor are Goldwater residents the only ones harboring doubts about these ambitious building projcts. Just last week, the Transport Workers Union raised hew and cry over the plan to sell 370 Jay Street for a second proposed applied sciences campus.

Stanford's proposal for Roosevelt Island

In this week's issue of The New Yorker, the illustrious Ken Auletta, who recently profiled Sheryl Sandberg's attempts to "upend Silicon Valley's male-dominated culture," looks at the Bay Area from a different perspective. This time, he analyzes how Stanford became "the farm system for Silicon Valley," and whether the "gold-rush mentality" among both Stanford's students and faculty is good for the university.

Tucked inside the story are also a number of details about why Stanford, which was widely considered a frontrunner to open a its first-ever second campus on Roosevelt Island, abruptly dropped its bid at the last minute.

In our post-mortem about the botched deal in December, Betabeat previously reported how Stanford balked at costly penalties for failure to meet deadlines, even if the factors were outside the university's control, such as toxicity on the Roosevelt Island site. Stanford wasn't the only institution whose legal teams threw up a red flag. Other universities that applied and those familiar with the city's development process cited an alarming vulnerability to legal action. Stanford appeared to be particularly insulted by last-minute attempts to pit Stanford against Cornell in an attempt to see which institution would make more concessions.

(Aggressive negotiating tactics and contracts with onerous demands in the city's favor have been a hallmark of Seth Pinsky's career as president of New York City Economic Development Corporation.)

Mr. Auletta's investigation offers more details and insights along those lines.

According to Mr. Auletta, Stanford President John Hennessy was pissed that the school was being held to impossible deadlines:

On December 16, 2011, Stanford announced that it was withdrawing its bid. Publicly, the university was vague about the decision, and, in a statement, Hennessy praised “the mayor’s bold vision.” But he was seething. In January, he told me that the city had changed the terms of the proposed deal. After seven universities had submitted their bids, he said, the city suddenly wanted Stanford to agree that the campus would be operational, with a full complement of faculty, sooner than Stanford thought was feasible.

Mr. Auletta cites "city lawyers," and not the Mayor's office as responsible for the millions of dollars in penalties sprung on Stanford during negotiations:

The city, according to Debra Zumwalt, Stanford’s general counsel and lead negotiator, added “many millions of dollars in penalties that were not in the original proposal, including penalizing Stanford for failure to obtain approvals on a certain schedule, even if the delays were the fault of the city and not Stanford. . . . I have been a lawyer for over thirty years, and I have never seen negotiations that were handled so poorly by a reputable party.” One demand that particularly infuriated Stanford was a fine of twenty million dollars if the City Council, not Stanford, delayed approval of the project. These demands came from city lawyers, not from the Mayor or from a deputy mayor, Robert Steel, who did not participate in the final round of negotiations with Stanford officials.

Deputy Mayor Robert Steel, who had "an agreeable conversation" with President Hennessy the same week Stanford dropped out, insists that there were no last-minute changes, but in fact schools were pitted against each other to see who would offer the city a better deal, Mr. Aulleta reports.

All the stipulations that Stanford now complains about, he says, were part of the city’s original package. Actually, they weren’t. In the city’s proposal request, the due dates and penalties were left blank. Seth Pinsky, the president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, who was one of the city’s lead negotiators, says that these were to be filled in by each bidder and then discussed in negotiations. “The more aggressive they were on the schedule and the more aggressive they were on the amount, the more favorably” the city looked at the bid, Pinsky told me. In the negotiations, he said, he tried to get each bidder to boost its offer by alerting it of more favorable competing bids.

Along with responsibility for the toxicity of the Roosevelt Island site, Stanford was asked to shoulder penalties as high as $25 million for delays outside of its control:

At one point, Stanford asked about an ambiguous clause in the city’s proposal request: would the university have to indemnify the city if it were sued for, say, polluted water on Roosevelt Island? The city responded that the university would. According to Pinsky, city lawyers said that this was “not likely to produce significant problems,” and that other bidders did not object. To Pinsky and the city, these demands—and the twenty-million-dollar penalty if the City Council’s approval was delayed—were “not uncommon,” since developers often “take liability for public approvals.” To Stanford, the stipulations made it seem as if the goal posts were not fixed.

This may not be the end of Stanford's presence in New York City, however:

Jeff Koseff, who played golf with Hennessy within a few days of Stanford’s withdrawal, recalls, “He was already talking about what we could do next.” One venture that Hennessy was exploring, though there is as yet no concrete plan, is working with the City College of New York to establish a Stanford beachhead in Manhattan. Deputy Mayor Steel says, “I’d be ecstatic.” Still, a Stanford official is dubious: “John’s disillusionment with the city is pretty thorough.”

A partnership with City College was one facet's of Stanford's initial bid for the campus competition.

(Cornell University)

Cornell is revolutionizing education in more ways than one at the new Roosevelt Island tech campus. Grad students will pioneer a new method of "learning by doing" as they're paired with what Cornell is calling "industry mentors."

In an effort to make the transition from classroom to workforce as seamless as possible, Cornell's yet-to-be-built NYCTech will match graduate students with Silicon Alley entrepreneurs. While no formal curriculum has been created, the mentor program is designed to help students integrate into the tech and business communities and build relationships before graduation.

Prof. Lance Collins, dean of Cornell's College of Engineering told The Cornell Daily Sun how vital experience outside of the classroom is. “We feel that connectivity to the business community is really an important part of this whole commercialization focus in New York City. There’s a certain ‘learning by doing’ aspect to commercialization," he said. "It plugs people into others who are really knowledgeable about how to succeed as an entrepreneur.”

The Roosevelt Island program will also require grad students to take entrepreneurial and business classes while applying that knowledge to real-world business challenges through their mentorships. "Professors are great at coming up with projects and problems that help test your understanding of the fundamentals,” Prof. Daniel Huttenlocher, the new dean and vice provost of Cornell NYCTech, told The Sun. “Problems in the real world often have very different aspects to them than the kinds of problem sets or projects or assignments that a professor would come up with.”

This campus is getting more new-fangled by the minute!

Over the next six months, he said, Cornell plans to start a search to find "at least one university from Europe and as many as two from Asia" to boost the applied sciences program's prestige abroad.

“It’s a whole new model,” Fuchs said, adding that the campus will make Cornell the first American university to build a school in the United States with international schools. “We think about going elsewhere — there are many [American] universities that have campuses and partnerships overseas — but not about bringing [international universities] here to the U.S.”

The working motto seems to be "a rising tide lifts all boats," something Cornell president David Skorton said at the press conference announcing Cornell-Technion as the winner of the fierce competition to build on city-owned land.

“If we have more partners in this innovation institute, it raises the reputation, the ranking, the visibility, the prestige of Cornell in the home countries of those universities, just as it would raise their own prestige,” Fuchs said. “If we had a university from Asia, they’re going to have visibility — that’s why they’d be eager to do it.”

Although the move may be aimed at ensuring a competitive applicant pool, Mr. Fuchs emphasized it was not designed to help Cornell shoulder than $2 billion price tag for the 30-year project. He did admit, however, that other schools will “certainly bring resources indirectly.” Considering that the city is only chipping in $100 million, every little bit helps.

According to Mr. Fuchs, this cosmopolitan twist has been part of the plan all along, despite the fact that this wasn't discussed during the heated battle between Cornell and Stanford:

“If I remember correctly, in the agreement with the Technion we talk about creating a global innovation institute and inviting other members,” Fuchs said. “When anyone asks us about this, we certainly tell them.”

Ah, we see. It's just that no one bothered to ask the right questions. Makes you wonder, what else should we be asking Cornell . . .