Will Roosevelt Island Become Silicon Island? Stanford, MIT, Cornell & Other Top Universities Express Interest In Proposed New York City State Of The Art Applied Sciences School - And It May Be Right Here At Coler Goldwater Site

Image Of Google's Sergey Brin & Larry Page From Red Herring

Will Roosevelt Island follow in the footsteps of San Francisco's Bay area Silicon Valley to become New York City's Silicon Island? How about the next Sergey Brin and Larry Page starting the new Google from right here on Roosevelt Island? Is that possible? Well, hold on to your hats because it may very well happen sometime in the not too distant future.

As reported in earlier post, the Roosevelt Island Coler Goldwater Hospital site is being considered as one of the 4 possible sites for a world class applied sciences academic research facility to be located in New York City according to a plan put forth by Mayor Bloomberg.

... “A new, state-of-the-art applied sciences research school would be a major asset for New York City as we develop a 21st century innovation economy,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “The City is committed to finding the right partner and providing the support needed to establish such a facility because research in the fields of engineering, science and technology is creating the next generation of global business innovations that will propel our economy forward. New York City has all the ingredients to complement an applied science and engineering hub – a highly educated global population, unparalleled financial and business community to provide capital and support for new ventures and existing top-notch institutions performing cutting-edge research. We want to capitalize on those strengths.”...

The San Jose Mercury News reported yesterday, via Curbed, that Stanford University, the birthplace of so many Silicon Valley hi-tech companies, is among the first class educational research institutions interested in creating a New York City campus.

... It is a competitive process, and at least 19 universities have expressed an interest, including ones in India and Israel. The top American contenders, in addition to Stanford, are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell and Purdue....

According to the San Jose Mercury News:

... Stanford and New York officials envision a center focusing on information technology, with one department of computer science and a second in electrical engineering. Its first phase would include 25 faculty, 125 Ph.D. students and 250 or more students seeking master's degrees.

The faculty would initially come primarily from the School of Engineering and the Graduate School of Business, including experts in information technology, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Some new faculty would be hired for the campus. Others would come from the main campus, rotating through for one- to five-year assignments. Biology professor Robert Simoni called the idea "exciting, and very interesting to watch."

Graduate students would earn their degrees in New York, not Palo Alto, although the curricula of the two campuses would be integrated, Hennessy said. Stanford would plan to use its long experience in distance education to allow East Coast and West Coast locations to share courses and support cross-country research collaborations....

The four possible sites being offered by NYC are the Navy Hospital Campus at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the Goldwater Hospital Campus on Roosevelt Island in Manhattan, on Governor’s Island, and at the Farm Colony on Staten Island though other privately owned sites in NYC may be considered.

The Coler Goldwater Site on Roosevelt Island would be the perfect spot for such a campus combing a tranquil and beautiful waterfront location with easy access to the rest of Manhattan and NYC only minutes away by the nearby Tram or F subway train.