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. Read More
Cornell NYC Tech, the Ivy League school’s Technion assisted expansion onto Roosevelt Island, just got a huge PR boost from three big names. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Qualcomm Founder Irwin Jacobs, and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt have all been tapped to be advisors to the new tech campus.
Now they’re like the super-important ultra-rich white guy Avengers of Cornell. Read More
This morning, the right honorable Mayor Bloomberg ventured north to the Columbia campus for what was teased on Twitter as a “big announcement.” It turns out that Columbia will not be left out while Cornell-Technion and NYU Polytechnic rake in all the glory, because the Lions are getting their very own tech project, the Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering.
Sound familiar? That’s probably because the project is what the university originally pitched, way back in October, for its very own applied sciences campus. For those keeping score at home, that brings the city’s total up to three tech campuses. Are you excited for science yet? Read More
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. Read More
It was merely mid-morning when Betabeat arrived at enterprise-focused accelerator Tipping Point Parters for a presser, and already everyone in attendance seemed to be wilting. The exception: City Council Speaker (and, let us not forget, mayoral candidate) Christine Quinn, who looked downright jovial. Perhaps she was just that excited about her coming announcement.
Or perhaps she was simply thrilled to be wearing what looked like seersucker, while the rest of us suffered in the heat.
We were gathered into a rather claustrophobic–but very well air-conditioned–startup space, complete with white lighting fixtures and random whiteboard. The occasion: The creation of two new programs meant to feed engineers and other much-needed tech talent into the city’s startup sector. Read More
Earlier this week, Betabeat had the privilege of speaking with Deborah Estrin, the first academic faculty member announced for Cornell and Technion’s $2 billion tech campus. (Coming soon-ish to an island near you!) For an institution concerned with spinning out an army of startups based on the latest technological developments, it’s hard to think of a more fitting hire.
Most recently, Ms. Estrin worked as a professor at UCLA, where she founded the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing. She also heads East with a number of accolades, including being named one of the “Brilliant 10” in Popular Science‘s list of elite researchers. This year, Wired included her on a list of “50 People Who Will Change the World” and CNN called her of the “10 Most Powerful Women in Tech.” That last distinction Ms. Estrin shares with her sister, serial entrepreneur Judy Estrin.
Must be something in the genes: Their mother, Dr. Thelma Estrin, is a pioneer in the field of biomedical engineering. Read More
CornellNYC Tech, the applied sciences campus slated for Roosevelt Island, isn’t wasting anytime establishing its ties to the tech industry. On Monday, Larry Page shlepped out to Chelsea (sans Google glasses, sadly) to announce that Google would gift the campus with 22,000 square feet of office space. And today the school named Greg Pass, Twitter’s first-ever CTO, founding entrepreneurial officer. It’s a much more heavyweight hire than your run-of-the-mill entrepreneur-in-residence.
Former Twitter board member Fred Wilson, for example, has lauded Mr. Pass’ considerable virtues as a technological leader, architect, and recruiter. A serial entrepreneur, Mr. Pass was also cofounder and CTO at Summize before it was acquired by Twitter and started serving as an advisory board member at Obvious Corp after stepping down from Twitter last year. Before playing a pivotal role in scaling Twitter, he spent years as a system architect and software engineer at AOL. Read More
During the press conference naming NYU the second place winner in the city’s tech campus competition, Mayor Bloomberg began his speech by snarking about the number of people who stood behind him. “You can always tell whether something is important by whether people want to participate in the announcement,” he said with a smile, pointing out that “nobody” angled for a spot on a podium when he wanted to ban smoking in public places.
But not everyone is behind El Bloombito’s tech-forward agenda. At a Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) board meeting in Midtown last night, NY1 reports that members of the Transport Workers Union demanded that the board vote down the “all-but-done deal” to hand over the MTA’s former headquarters at 370 Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn to NYU. Read More
This morning, we reported that the second-place winner in the tech campus stakes is NYU. We’ve known since January that the university was the leading contender, but that negotiations were bogged down over financing–specifically, the uncertain costs involved with revamping the MTA-owned 370 Jay Street. But it appears the various parties have reached some sort of agreement: At 1PM, Mayor Bloomberg joins NYU President John Sexton to announce a partnership to build an “applied sciences center in Downtown Brooklyn.” We’re live-blogging that announcement below; you can also catch the livestream here. Read More
UPDATE: Read our liveblog of the Mayor’s press conference about the NYU’s new Brooklyn campus here.
Well that was well-timed! Hours after The New Yorker posted a profile of Stanford that tore at old wounds about the innovation engine’s decision to drop out of building an engineering campus in NYC–blame sour grapes or Seth Pinsky, depending on who you ask–the city is finally ready to make an announcement about a secondary initiative.
According to Mayor Bloomberg’s schedule, it looks like the second-place winner is a bid from NYU and the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly). In its initial proposal, NYU wanted to transform the derelict former MTA headquarters at 370 Jay Street into a Center for Urban Science and Progress. At 1pm this afternoon, the Mayor will be joining NYU President John Sexton to announce a partnership to create a new “applied sciences center in Downtown Brooklyn.” Read More
Affordable Housing or Lack Thereof
