A Groundbreaking $100 Million Gift For Cornell Tech

At a groundbreaking ceremony on June 16, Cornell Tech announced a $100 million gift from Bloomberg Philanthropies that will help fund the construction of the campus. The first academic building on the new campus will be named the Bloomberg Center, honoring Emma and Georgina Bloomberg, the daughters of former NY mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Cornell Tech is a partnership between Cornell and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, aimed at promoting high-tech entrepreneurship in New York City. In 2011, Cornell and the Technion won a bid to create an applied sciences institution on Roosevelt Island to foster high tech innovation in New York City.

The campus currently occupies temporary space in Manhattan. The new campus—the first phase of which is slated for completion in 2017—will house approximately 2000 graduate students and hundreds of faculty and staff on Roosevelt Island. The design of the buildings has already garnered attention and praise for innovation and sustainability.

At Cornell Tech, the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute promotes innovation in key areas, including Connective Media, Health Tech and the Built Environment. They also offer an entrepreneurially-focused post-doc program for recent Ph.D.s who are interested in launching their own startups—the Runway Program. Cornell Tech offers degrees in conjunction with Cornell’s Engineering School and its Johnson Graduate School of Management.