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JULY ISSUE

UPDATE ARCHIVE

EZRA MAGAZINE

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ABOUT

CORNELL'S MONTHLYNEWSLETTER FOR

 ALUMNI & FRIENDS

Cornell has announced that it will answer the call issued by New

York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to create a world-class applied

science and engineering campus in the city. The formal request for 

proposals was released July 19.

Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of Computing and Information Science, at

an event in New York City. Photo by Janet Charles Photography.

Kent Fuchs, Cornell provost.

Growing the 'technology ecosystem' of the future in New York CityBy Anne Ju

Kent Fuchs, provost of Cornell; Lance

Collins, dean of the College of 

Engineering; and Daniel Huttenlocher,

dean of Computing and Information

Science, recently answered questionsabout why Cornell is the right choice for 

developing a New York City technology 

campus.

Q: How committed is Cornell to the

New York City tech campus initiative?

Kent Fuchs: 100 percent. We already

have expertise in key areas for the NewYork City tech sector, and the city itself 

is part of our destiny. We have programs

and initiatives in the city already, andtechnology and applied sciences are

exactly the areas in which we are

committed to growing. The urban environment gives us the ability to create technology transfer, contributeto the state of New York and specifically New York City's economy. The project will allow us to implementthese plans in a much bigger and faster way. This is part of our focus for the future and part of our outreach

mission.

Q: What is a 'technology ecosystem,'

and how is Cornell going to support

one in New York City?

Dan Huttenlocher: By this we mean a

collection of companies at differentstages of development -- [from] very early

startups tying back to things going on inresearch labs and universities [to] larger 

corporations that might be customers or 

potential acquirers for what those smaller companies are doing. The pace of 

developing new companies is gettingfaster and faster, and the key factor is

getting the right people into anenvironment where they can focus on and

solve the most relevant technology

problems. That's what we're looking to do at Cornell, and this is something that I think will be a real benefitto both the university and the city -- to help speed up and fuel that technology ecosystem in New York

City.

Q: What kind of experience does Cornell have in developing and running a remote campus?

Fuchs: Cornell has a history of 

developing programs in New York City,where we have our Weill Cornell MedicalCollege -- now engaged in a $1 billion

capital project that includes a new

medical research facility -- and each of our colleges has academic and research

programs within the urban environmentoffered by New York City. We also have

experience overseas -- our medicalschool in Qatar, which we launched 10

years ago and is the only accredited

medical school in that country.

Q: Why is Cornell well-positioned to

develop a technology campus in New

 York?

Huttenlocher: Cornell is a major source of technology leadership in this country. When you look atcompanies like Amazon, Cisco, Intel and Qualcomm, … key technical leaders are from Cornell. What we

are looking to do with the technology campus in New York is to accelerate the preparation of leaders whowill contribute to creating and managing the largest and most influential technology companies in the

nation. And moreover, we're looking to develop new companies in the city of New York, creating jobs and

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Lance Collins, dean of the College of Engineering, speaks to

prospective students on campus.

Cornell students Raymond DiFelice and

Di Li, part of the Cornell Financial

Engineering Manhattan program, near 

Wall Street in 2009.

stimulating the economy.

Q: How is Cornell poised academically to lead the New York City tech campus initiative?

Lance Collins: We have a top-rated

College of Engineering, a top-ratedComputing and Information Science

program, an outstanding electrical andcomputer engineering department,

expertise in advanced materials, and in

nanotechnology, we are one of thepremier universities in the country. It's

important to have strengths in all theseareas to create new technologies that will

be commercially viable. Also, we have aculture for interdisciplinary research that

we will replicate in New York City. This

culture has developed over decades andinvolves a combination of an

administrative setup and a campuspersonality that allows us to interact in

ways that cannot be found at most universities.

Fuchs: Interdisciplinary research allows an organization to take a breadth of experience and apply it tonew problems. It's those new problems that we are going to tackle with the New York City initiative. We

have our College of Engineering and faculty of Computing and Information Science, but we can contribute

in so many other areas: We have leading faculty in agriculture and life sciences; industrial and labor relations; architecture, art and planning; human ecology; our Johnson Graduate School of Management;

and our law school. It is our strengths in these disciplines, in conjunction with computer science andengineering, that make us uniquely suited for this project.

Q: How do you envision this campus in a few years?

Collins: I expect to see leaders of major corporations and smaller 

and intermediate companies, along with students and faculty,teeming through the campus at all times. It's this kind of activity

that really spurs economic development in the tech sector. It's

these unanticipated connections made between people withdifferent areas of expertise and different backgrounds that will fuel

our tech ecosystem.

Huttenlocher: The right academic partner can serve as ameeting point for investors, entrepreneurs and corporations, and

as a magnet that brings the very smartest and best from aroundthe world. In a few years, I envision a campus full of seasoned

entrepreneurs working with Cornell students, taking their ideas,

getting them in front of lead customers, and iterating those ideasquickly to get them out into the marketplace in the form of new

companies, or new products at existing companies.

Q: What is the most important thing a Cornell-New York

tech campus will accomplish?

Collins: It will generate technology on its own, and that will be

exciting. But what's even more exciting is it will generate trained

students who will go off and start new companies that we couldn't envision on campus while we weretraining them. We also have 50,000 alumni already in New York City. The presence of this campus will

exponentially grow that number, particularly in this vital area of the technology sector.

Fuchs: Cornell has a commitment to economic development in terms of its very foundation laid 150 yearsago. We have a commitment to the state of New York, and the New York City initiative gives us the

opportunity to keep fulfilling that mission. Creating jobs and transferring technologies to the workplace arepart of our objectives as an institution.

Q: What does Cornell have to offer New York City, and how would having a technical campus in

New York also benefit Cornell?

Huttenlocher: Currently New York City

does not have an academic institutionthat produces technology leaders like

Cornell does -- a university that preparesstudents to become leaders of next-

generation technology companies. Thisinvolves not just classroom education,

not just practical experience, but also

deep engagement with the process of formulating and asking and answering

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New York City is home to more than 50,000 Cornell alumni --

including thousands already working in the tech sector -- and about

5,000 Cornell employees. Above, one of the two Campus to Campus

Bus stops in Manhattan that provide direct service between the

Manhattan and Ithaca campuses.

questioning about technology and

technology innovation. And that issomething Cornell does extremely well.

By bringing together Cornell students,faculty, startup companies, venture

capitalists and larger more establishedcompanies into what I'll call this cauldron

of innovation in New York, we will

accelerate the pace of technologyinnovation. And that will be important to

driving the research mission of the university, as well as incredibly important to the creation of new jobs

and new companies in the city of New York.

Related links:

Cornell in New York City

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