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In a recent Nature article, Thomas R. Insel, shares what he has learned from his transition from National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Director to co-founder of the startup Mindstrong Health. In the column, Insel details the quickly growing health tech industry and how tech companies and academia can work together to advance technology.

After watching junior faculty and postdocs put aside traditional academia and launch careers in Silicon Valley, Insel said, “These companies have transformed the worlds of information, entertainment and commerce. But by moving into health care, they face some formidable challenges. In my view, solving them will require deep partnerships between technology companies, clinical experts, patient advocates and academic scientists.”

These partnerships are precisely what the Technion-Cornell Health Tech program seeks to enable by integrating deep technical training alongside broad exposure to the healthcare ecosystem.

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The Internet is democratizing business. You can start a business and boost your bank account by creating a personal brand. (And you can do it all while typing away on your laptop in your pajamas at 11 p.m.)

Gary Vaynerchuk, a man that likely needs no introduction because of the strength of his own personal brand, did just that. Chances are you’ve seen his popular DailyVee and #AskGaryVee videos, read his best-selling business books, or heard him speak. Vaynerchuk’s storytelling has helped him scale his multi-faceted career as an influential serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, best-selling author, and CEO of VaynerMedia and VaynerX. Vaynerchuk shared his famously candid advice for how to build a personal brand with members of the tech community at a CornellTech@Bloomberg event led by Scarlett Fu, the anchor of “Bloomberg Markets.”

Create quality content

Vaynerchuk regularly shares his personal and professional advice with his millions of followers and actively encourages others to develop their own personal brands through storytelling.

His advice? “First figure out if you are capable. Are you good enough at writing, video, or audio to tell your story? You have to find your medium,” Vaynerchuk says. Next, remember to give more than you get back.

“I truly believe that the reason I’ve really popped over the last decade is that I give more to my audience that I ask for in return. I’m putting out the best stuff I’ve got every day. It’s not a top of funnel,” he says adding that creating great content has landed him meetings with media giants like Facebook’s CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg and Tumblr’s CEO and founder David Karp. “It’s ultimate brand arbitrage. It works because so few people do it.”

Do what you know best

Vaynerchuk built his personal brand about subjects that he knows well: the current state of consumer tech, wine, and the New York Jets. Vaynerchuk notes that he prefers to discuss topics unless he is an expert in the subject. Choose a few topics that you want to be known for and make sure you study them and know it extremely well. As Vaynerchuk says, “don’t be a headline reader” meaning instead of skimming the surface, learn as much as you can so you are truly an expert in your subject matter. Instead of trying to learn a bit about a lot of topics, work on thoroughly understanding the topics you are passionate about and want to make the focal point of your personal brand.

Consider starting on the side

You no longer have to work traditional business hours to start a business, Vaynerchuk explained. Whereas previous generations were limited to managing a business during “typical business hours,” the Internet has enabled people to manage businesses online at any hour. “It’s the options that we are now awarded by the infrastructure of scalable technologies that have no cost of entry to build a personal brand or business direct-to-consumer is just fascinating to me.”

Vaynerchuk experienced that himself when he grew his family wine business from $4 million to $60 million, in part become he became a wine expert and started the popular online show, WineLibrary. Vaynerchuk didn’t just want to be known for wine, growing his family business, or his motivational advice. He wanted to be known for his marketing and business advice so he expanded his personal brand by becoming an expert in specific topics and creating valuable content.

Vaynerchuk’s advice can be polarizing, but one thing is clear: a strong personal brand can lead to career success.

Watch the full conversation:

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From left to right: Chen Liming, Zhu Jonathan Jia, Ma Huateng, Yu Gang, Jillian Sue, Technion-Cornell Dual Master’s Degrees in Health Tech ’18. Photo by Peter T Michaelis

Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost, Cornell Tech Dan Huttenlocher welcomes guests. Photo by Peter T Michaelis

From left to right: Chen Liming, Zhu Jonathan Jia, Ma Huateng, Yu Gang. Photo by Peter T Michaelis

Photo by Peter T Michaelis

Photo by Peter T Michaelis

President Martha E. Pollack and the Cornell China Advisory Board. Photo by Peter T Michaelis

Technology is rapidly changing the global economy. As Ma Huateng, the chairman and CEO of Tencent Holdings, explained at a recent intimate discussion with Cornell Tech students, we are currently experiencing what he calls the “Digital Revolution” in which the digital economy will continue to be paramount.

At the event, Ma spoke about China’s economy and his company, Tencent Holdings, a Chinese Internet company that ranks as one of the country’s top businesses by market capital. He was joined by Chen Liming, MS ’89, the chairman of IBM Greater China Group; Yu Gang, MS ’86, co-founder and chairman of New Peak Group’ and Zhu Jonathan Jia Esq, JD ’92, managing director of Bain Capital Asia, all of whom serve on the new Cornell China advisory board which will provide continuous strategic advice about the development of Cornell’s increasing presence in China.

Here are a few highlights from the conversation:

The shift from desktop to mobile

Ma believes that all companies, and especially technology companies, will have to continuously develop technological advances or risk becoming outdated. He used Tencent and it’s rival company, Alibaba, as a case study.

“We know that the penetration of technology in China is smaller than that of the world. Yet, the market capital of Tencent and Alibaba have already exceeded $400 billion which can compete with the major United States technology corporations,” he said. “That’s all because of the mobile Internet.”

Over the past six to seven years, he’s seen a shift from desktop to mobile and companies have had to adapt their technology for the technological trend. In fact, he notes that Tencent survived as a company because of the success of WeChat, their mobile messaging and payment app that reportedly has more than 900 million monthly active users.

Mobile payments and the competition between Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WePay led to new technological innovations and caused the market to grow at rapid speed. According to Ma, China has 50% more mobile transactions than the United States. Ma has noticed that mobile pay has scaled technological platforms that rely on the technology and increased use in “traditional industries” such as education and healthcare.

The impact of artificial intelligence

“The future of Tencent’s development will focus on two terms: the first is technology and the second is culture,” said Ma. “No matter how advanced technology becomes, the culture cannot be replaced.”

He predicts a future in which manual work will be replaced by robots but humans will continue to be responsible for “advanced thinking and innovation.”

Tencent has already started to create machine learning algorithms, but he reiterates that artificial intelligence can’t replace humans. “Whatever is strategic and creative has to be done by a human. Artificial intelligence can support humans,” he said.

Chen also spoke about the impact AI will have on the future of work and, especially the medical industry. He notes that AI can be used to efficiently and effectively conduct research and analyze all of the available medical data to come up with a few possible diagnoses.

The startup scene in China

China used to learn from Western businesses then adapt it for China, according to Yu. “Later we figured out how to adopt Western business models and innovate in terms of business models. We are seeing a lot of businesses with their own models, services, and technology,” he said, “Today we are seeing Chinese businesses with global applications, and I would expect there would be more companies like that as we move forward.”

Cornell Tech students had the opportunity to gain insights into China’s current and future technological advancements and how they will impact China’s economy and the global economy at large. One thing is clear: China will continue to be a leader in the “Digital Revolution.”

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Innovative technology is rapidly changing our personal and professional lives. How we work, stay connected, drive, and educate the next generation of technology talent is evolving. Industry leaders recently convened at Bloomberg’s Sooner Than You Think conference at Cornell Tech’s recently-dedicated campus to discuss disruptive technology’s impact on the future.

Here are three of the technology trends these leaders are keeping an eye on:

“Cognitive computing” — not artificial intelligence

Instead of using the term Artificial Intelligence (AI), IBMusesthe phrase cognitive computing to reduce the fear that machines will replace an abundance of human jobs. “When it comes to complete job replacement, it will be a very small percentage; when it comes to changing a job and what you do, it’ll be 100 percent,” said Ginny Rometty, chairman, president, and CEO of IBM.

Rometty prefers the term cognitive computing because the goal is to help humans “make better decisions in the face of cognitive overload” not to create a dystopian society where it is man versus machine. The goal of IBM’s cognitive computing system, Watson, is to help humans make more efficient and effective decisions. “Watson would be the beginning of a new era where you didn’t program. Machines would look at data, understand, reason over it, and they continue to learn: understand, reason and learn, not program, in my simple definition,” said Rometty.

Humans train Watson to learn an industry, just as you would train a human to learn the necessary skills for an industry like medicine or financial services. Watson quickly analyzes data and provides possible conclusions based on research. To illustrate the impact of Watson, Rometty explained that she met a cancer patient in India. The patient’s doctor had never encountered the type of cancer she had. He used Watson to understand the cancer and find out the treatments recommended by the prestigious doctors who had trained Watson.

5G and the advancement of wireless networks and systems

The fourth industrial revolution will be 5th generation mobile networks or 5th generation wireless systems (5G), according to Lowell McAdam the chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications. McAdam explained that 5G will vastly improve the speed, battery life, and power of individual devices while also increasing the number of devices and capacity of the network. “5G will drive the next generation’s technology,” said Lowell noting that his personal and professional goal is to “use technology to make people’s lives better.”

“That’s what I hope to do at Verizon, by adding better networks and bringing services like telematics and media to make people’s lives better and providing the platform that others can innovate on to make that even more magnified,” Lowell said.

It’s also why he is a strong supporter of Cornell University, from which he earned his bachelor of engineering, and by extension, Cornell Tech. McAdam is a member of the Board of Trustees for Cornell University and the Board of Overseers for Cornell Tech. Verizon also donated a $50 million-naming gift to Cornell Tech.

“Our donation to Cornell Tech is an investment in the future and fits perfectly with our mission to use communications technologies to solve big challenges and make people’s lives better,” McAdam said in a statement, “The Verizon Executive Education Center will be a magnet for developers, entrepreneurs, educators and innovators across all industries, building on the great talent and creativity we already have in the tech sector here in New York City.”

Driverless cars are on their way

When asked when we can expect to see the first public launch of self-driving cars, John Krafcik, the CEO of Waymo Inc. echoed the name of the conference saying they’ll be here “sooner than you think.”

“We are to the point now where the technology is feeling mature and ready,” Krafcik said. Waymo has been spending more time on simulations such as the Early Rider Program, which allows actual families to drive the cars so that the Waymo team understands how people use the technology. “I think that’s the last part for us. Understanding [what people want] as we continue to refine the technology and get ready to deploy,” he said.

Bloomberg and Cornell Tech are continuing to bring industry leaders to The Emma and Georgina Center at Cornell Tech and Bloomberg’s New York City office as part of the Cornell Tech @ Bloomberg speaker series. The upcoming events will continue to explore the technology’s impact on the future.

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by Caitlin Hayes

When we make a transaction, any transaction, we trust that the other party will hold up its end of the bargain. This is easy at the farmer’s market, when we directly exchange money and goods with a vendor. Business conducted over the internet, with strangers often in distant locales, carries more risk and requires more trust.

As more and more of the business of our lives is conducted online and with the rise of sophisticated cybercrime, new technologies are desperately needed to maintain the public’s trust in online systems. Ari Juels, Computer Science, Jacobs Institute at Cornell Tech, is working to create and troubleshoot trustworthy technologies. “Security is all about creating and managing trust relationships,” Juels says.

Continue reading the full story on the Cornell Research website.

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NEW YORK – Cornell Tech today announced that Denise Young Smith, Apple’s Vice President of Inclusion and Diversity, will be the new Executive-in-Residence at Cornell Tech, beginning her role in January 2018. One of the most prominent African-American female executives in Silicon Valley, Smith’s 20-year career at Apple includes leading Human Resources and most recently overseeing the company’s global effort for an inclusive and embracing culture and workforce. As the Executivein-Residence, Smith will work with students to build an early career-stage awareness of the criticality of inclusive leadership and a diverse talent imperative.

“Denise Young Smith is an extremely accomplished executive, and one of the tech industry’s leading voices on inclusion and diversity. We’ve been working with Denise for several months and have seen firsthand how effective she is with our students. We are thrilled that she chose Cornell Tech to launch a broader effort to enhance diversity across the tech sector,” said Dan Huttenlocher, Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost, Cornell Tech. “Reinventing the way we work in the digital age begins with fostering an inclusive environment, and Denise’s approach to training the next generation of leaders is pioneering.”

“I’m taking on this project because it will allow me to address the deep sense of urgency I feel to help evolve the thinking of our current and future tech leaders,” said Denise Young Smith. “By instilling the value of true diversity and inclusion into Cornell Tech’s unique base of students and faculty, we will not only make an impact on the institution but also and most important, to the next generation of leaders as they go out into the world.” This past September, Cornell Tech welcomed Smith for this year’s first “Conversations in the Studio” session, a confidential conversation with renowned leaders who share their thoughts and insights with a collected group of students.

Smith will be Cornell Tech’s second Executive-in-Residence. Judith Spitz, Ph.D., formerly a Verizon CIO, was the inaugural Executive-in-Residence, using that platform to form the Women in Technology Entrepreneurship in New York (WiTNY) program in 2016 and later becoming full-time Program Director. “We’re thrilled to have Denise on board to expand Cornell Tech’s commitment to a more diverse pipeline of tech talent,” said Judith Spitz. “Creating the WiTNY program was an incredible start, and building a framework for educating the next gen workforce about inclusive leadership in technology is crucial.”

Smith’s work with Cornell Tech will be a natural extension of her passion for leading diversity initiatives at prestigious organizations and positively impacting the next generation of business and tech leaders and entrepreneurs. As New York City’s tech hub, Cornell Tech attracts students from across the globe, growing the tech community and inspiring broader impact.

About Cornell Tech 

Cornell Tech brings together faculty, business leaders, tech entrepreneurs and students in a catalytic environment to produce visionary results grounded in significant needs that will reinvent the way we live in the digital age. From 2012-2017, the campus was temporarily located in Google’s New York City building. In fall 2017, 30 world-class faculty and almost 300 graduate students moved to the first phase of Cornell Tech’s permanent campus on Roosevelt Island, continuing to conduct groundbreaking research, collaborate extensively with tech-oriented companies and organizations and pursue their own startups. When fully completed, the campus will include two million square feet of state-of-the-art buildings, over two acres of open space, and will be home to more than 2,000 graduate students and hundreds of faculty and staff.

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By Christina Wallace & Mukti Khaire

As transgressions of civility by business leaders come to light— the fraudulent account scandal at Wells Fargo, the toxic work environment at Uber, the culture of sexual harassment at many organizations—it’s worth a controversial course correction: adding the study of business to the classic liberal arts education.

While business education and a liberal arts training are typically seen as being at odds, if not antithetical, it’s time to place business thinking into the context of larger society.

The perspective that business education and subjects such as literature, political science, and sociology should be separated is rooted in the social realities of the past, when class boundaries firmly separated “tradesmen” from “gentlemen.” But large organizations and businesses are today an integral part of society, providing citizens with the products, services, and resources we need to live, including basic needs such as food, shelter, and clothing. Given this reality, it is curious that a critical examination of business in society has been perceived as oppositional to the goals of liberal arts education.

Most business education today is instead reserved for MBA programs, wherein the entire topic of education is a normative examination of business and markets that is explicitly meant to be prescriptive (as it is in the MBA degree).

Continue reading on Quartz at Work.

Photo credit: Quartz at Work

 

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By Alex Topchishvili, Johnson Cornell Tech MBA ’18

Spring class registration is upon us at the Cornell Tech MBA program and a small but passionate group of us have just registered for the Fintech Intensive — a “package” of classes that dive deep into Fintech business models, blockchains, cryptocurrencies, and crowdfunding. One core reason entrepreneurial MBA’s are interested in this program is the prospect of Initial Coin Offerings.

For those unfamiliar with the space, an ICO is an unregulated means of crowdfunding via the use of cryptocurrency, which can be a source of capital for startup companies. Investors buy “tokens” which are units of digital currency that are typically meant to play a critical role in the business that the startup wants to build. The value of the ICO is arbitrarily determined by the startup team based on what they think their company is worth at present stage. Then, through supply and demand, the value of the token is settled on by the network of participants (owners), rather by a central board or authority. A bit of context to put our excitement into perspective:

Prior to the implementation of the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934, capital markets in the US were effectively governed by the ‘law of the jungle’ – market conditions that led to the stock market crash of 1929. These regulations significantly constrained the ability of non-accredited investors (those without significant income or net worth) to participate in the private capital markets, and completely banned the marketing of non-registered securities to the general public. This had the effect of not only severely restricting access to financing but also reducing the ability of the majority of Americans to invest in these markets.

Startup fundraising methods have historically consisted of obtaining funding from institutional investors, high net worth individuals and investment funds. While still prevalent, this model of financing has been placed under tremendous pressure due to a multitude of factors, including:

1. The Internet, which has provided a platform of communication for every individual with an idea or a dollar to invest.

2. Today’s social media-driven culture, which has allowed for the distribution of idea campaigns and investment opportunities to a much wider audience than was ever previously possible.

3. The dotcom boom and the millennial-driven ‘maker’ movement, which have given rise to thousands, if not millions, of dedicated, internet-savvy entrepreneurs seeking to fund new and innovative ideas.

4. The financial crisis, which drove many traditional investors to turn to safer assets with higher yields and created a significant early-stage funding gap.

5. Blockchain’s promise of facilitating fast, secure, low-cost international payment processing services, which has helped individuals develop a baseline level of comfort with providing a credit or debit card – knowing their cash is safe.

These catalysts proved significant enough to drive the ascent of Initial Coin Offerings — where many smaller investors leverage cryptocurrency and an online platform to gain direct access to blockchain startups; and where innovative ideas can compete to attract funding.

As with any disruptive technology that changes the order of things, ICO’s come with their fair share of risks and downsides. Early ICO’s have attracted high valuations and over-capitalization, and on occasion outright scams. Much of this criminal activity, however, is already being mitigated by self-organized due diligence in the blockchain community, and independent research groups like Smith and Crown and ICO Rating.

While ICO’s are still young and largely unregulated, they have already activated communities of interest and emerged as a new channel for fundraising, product validation, market testing, and customer engagement. By providing the ability to build a loyal community of followers invested in your growth and to “test the water” without a heavy investment to validate a sustainable market, ICO’s offer significant benefits over traditional fundraising. For those entrepreneurial MBA’s looking to start their own companies in the near future, you can bet that we’re going to take a long, hard look at the ICO route.

About the Author:

Alex is an entrepreneur and marketer with an obsession for storytelling and digital strategy. Prior to attending Cornell Tech, Alex served as a managing director at WeFund Health, a healthtech investment platform, and director of marketing at PotBotics, a medical cannabis technology company. A graduate of NYU and a proud New York native, Alex specializes in product marketing, crowdfunding, and demand generation. When he is not working or studying, he can be found exploring the world of blockchain and competing in tennis tournaments across New York City.

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Dr. Fernando Gómez-Baquero Brings More Than a Decade of Experience in Entrepreneurship and Tech Transfer

Four New Runway Startup Postdocs Join the Jacobs Institute to Pursue Companies in Cybersecurity, Health Tech and More

NEW YORK – Cornell Tech and the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute today announced that Dr. Fernando Gómez-Baquero, an award-winning nanomaterials engineer and entrepreneur lauded for bringing energy technologies from academia to market, joined as the new Director of Runway and Spinouts. The institute also announced four new startup postdocs joining the Jacobs Runway Startup Postdoctoral Program, tackling cybersecurity issues, computer network performance, digital drug discovery development and educational technologies.

“We are thrilled to announce Fernando as the new Director of Runway and Spinouts and to welcome the newest cohort of startup postdocs,” saidRon Brachman, Director of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute. “Fernando’s impressive and distinguished record as a thought leader, mentor, entrepreneur and engineer is a great fit for the impactful work stemming from the Runway Startup Postdoctoral Program.”

“As the Studio continues to grow year-over-year, we are excited to have Fernando join Cornell Tech and work directly with students as they embark on their startup founding journey,”saidGreg Pass, founding Chief Entrepreneurial Officer and Professor of Practice at Cornell Tech. “Fernando’s personal experience in bringing deep tech to market is inspirational.”

In his new role, Dr. Gómez-Baquero will help the Runway Postdocs as they turn their cutting-edge research into new companies and products, guiding them as a seasoned entrepreneur, and help Master’s students of all disciplines as they spin new ventures out of the Cornell Tech Studio. With a PhD in nanoscale engineering from the University at Albany SUNY and a background in industrial engineering and economics, Dr. Gómez-Baquero brings to the role his expertise in renewable energy storage and inventing nanomaterials and devices for applications such as semiconductors, energy storage, solar and wind power, and medical implants. Dr. Gómez-Baquero also serves as Board Member of the SUNY Innovation Board, where he has contributed to the intellectual property and licensing strategy and served as Board Member to the largest energy storage consortium in the country, advocating for tools and resources to accelerate the commercialization of academic research.

To date, Runway Startup companies have filed 18 patent applications and provisional patents, raised $19.3 million in venture capital funding and employed 80 people.

The new Runway Startup Postdocs include

  • Dr. Sophie Zaaijer,who earned her PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cancer Research UK London (now the Crick Institute). She is the CEO and co-founder of PlayDNA, an EdTech company that is introducing portable DNA sequencing into curricula for middle and high schoolers, improving STEM education by integrating biology, computer science and arts.
  • Dr. Neel Madhukar,who earned a PhD in Computational Biology and Medicine from Weill-Cornell Medical College. He is developing artificial intelligence platforms to accelerate drug development by efficiently predicting drug targets and clinical effects.
  • Dr. Payman Samadi, who earned a PhD in Photonics from McGill University and had a postdoctoral appointment at Columbia University. He is developing software technologies to perform multi-layer optimization on telecommunication networks, focusing especially on optical networking technology.
  • Sam Scott, who is currently finishing his graduate degree at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is working on solutions to address critical cybersecurity issues.

Currently, there are two programs at Cornell Tech that are responsible for the majority of startups formed on the campus: The Jacobs Runway Startup Postdoctoral Program and Startup Studio. Through Startup Studio, students develop their ideas, products, and pitches, learn to create and tell a compelling startup story, build and demo a prototype, and test their product with users. Some teams go on to be cofounders of these startups after graduation.

The Jacobs Runway Startup Postdoctoral Program ushers recent PhD graduates in digital technology fields through a paradigm shift — from an academic mindset to an entrepreneurial outlook. Startup Postdocs have mastered their academic disciplines but need to learn how to start a company. Previous Startup Postdocs and alumni have created companies whose products include a mobile tool for assessing neurological conditions, a smart baby monitor, an e-commerce platform that promotes shopping locally, a wearable UV radiation tracker for lupus patients, software applications that help design and manage building sustainability, and more.

About Cornell Tech

Cornell Tech brings together faculty, business leaders, tech entrepreneurs and students in a catalytic environment to produce visionary results grounded in significant needs that will reinvent the way we live in the digital age.

From 2012-2017, the campus was temporarily located in Google’s New York City building. In fall 2017, 30 world-class faculty and almost 300 graduate students moved to the first phase of Cornell Tech’s permanent campus on Roosevelt Island, continuing to conduct groundbreaking research, collaborate extensively with tech-oriented companies and organizations and pursue their own startups. When fully completed, the campus will include two million square feet of state-of-the-art buildings, over two acres of open space, and will be home to more than 2,000 graduate students and hundreds of faculty and staff.

Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute

In 2011, Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology won the City of New York‘s competition to create an Applied Sciences graduate school. The Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute embodies the academic partnership between the Technion and Cornell University on the Cornell Tech campus.

The Jacobs Institute degree programs–Health Tech and Connective Media–focus on impacting specific NYC industries instead of traditional disciplines. In addition, recent PhD graduates are building companies at the Jacobs Institute through the Jacobs Runway Startup Postdoctoral program, where postdocs transform their research into new companies and products.

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The New York City technology and startup scene colloquially known as Silicon Alley is thriving. Founders, venture capitalists, and technology talent are all coming to New York City to launch and build startups, invest in tech companies, and work for world-renowned institutions, but there’s still some ground to gain before Silicon Alley can catch up to it’s West Coast counterpart.

Last month, Silicon Alley insiders spoke about why New York City is poised to succeed with Selina Wang, a Bloomberg News reporter, at Bloomberg Live’s Sooner Than You Think conference hosted at the recently opened Cornell Tech campus on New York City’s Roosevelt Island. Google CIO Ben Fried, City of New York CTO Miguel Gamiño, Jr., Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp, and Union Square Ventures partner Andy Weissman joined Wang on the panel, Silicon Alley: Out From Silicon Valley’s Shadow. They shared insights why Silicon Alley’s tech ecosystem is on the rise.

Technology is improving communities in New York City

When Gamiño spoke to Mayor De Blasio about the city’s mission he learned that the mayor’s goal is to use technology to strengthen communities by fostering more inclusive neighborhoods and creating new opportunities for people. “It was never about tech for tech’s sake which changes the dynamic for a technologist when you’re thinking about solving real problems and using technology as a tool for delivering those solutions as opposed to just thinking about technology in the tech silo,” said Gamiño.

When asked about a difference between Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley, he noted that there are diverse people and industries taking advantage of technology, which leads to an increased range of conversations and engagement. “Technology is the future of every industry, not just itself. New York really exemplifies that,” he added.

Silicon Alley is removing friction

How does an idea effectively and efficiently transform into a business? Weissman thinks the answer is removing friction so it’s easier to go turn an idea. “I think ecosystems of entrepreneurial activity are about friction and the lack of friction,” he said noting that Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley lack friction. He added that there is not a lot of friction in New York because there is top talent and an always-expanding community of tech companies and venture capital firms.

Silicon Alley is a tech magnet

Leading technology companies like Google, Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and Verizon have offices in New York City. Karp notes that it’s likely a signal that more companies will “find a home and a center of gravity” in diverse, media-centric cities like New York City.

New York City is also home to a number of New York City-born companies valued at more than $1 billion including Warby Parker, Blue Apron, and OscarHealth. Venture capital firms have also heard the city’s siren song. Some of the top firms are exclusively in New York and almost all have a New York City presence. It’s clear that companies can recruit top talent, grow a customer base, and get funding in Silicon Alley and the companies that choose to do so are increasing.

Fostering the next generation of tech talent

The New York City tech ecosystem has no shortage of advocates, from Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s lofty 2010 competition for an applied sciences campus in 2010 to countless public and private partnerships to encourage innovation. In 2011, Bloomberg said that Cornell Tech would, “educate tomorrow’s entrepreneurs and create the jobs of the future,” and that “this partnership has so much promise because we share the same goal: to make New York City home to the world’s most talented workforce.” Fast forward to 2017 and Fried has already noticed Cornell Tech’s impact.

“It’s no accident that we are here on Cornell Tech’s campus. I think there is an uptick in what will happen in New York,” noted Fried who pointed to the 38 startups that have come from Cornell Tech in just a few years. “Great universities and great education are often the foundation of great technology workforces and entrepreneurs. And it seems to me like there is more and more of that happening,” he said to the crowd convened at Cornell Tech.

Watch the full conversation.

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