Cornell Tech Announces the 2026 Startup Awards and the Inaugural Frontiers of AI Summit

By Grace Stanley

As the 2025–26 academic year comes to a close, Cornell Tech will host a series of events throughout May showcasing student achievement, entrepreneurship, design, and the future of emerging technologies. Held on Cornell Tech’s Roosevelt Island campus in New York City, the events bring together students, faculty, alumni, industry leaders, and the public to experience the interdisciplinary work driving innovation across campus.

This year’s programming includes milestone traditions such as the campus’s flagship Startup Awards, which celebrate graduating students and student-led entrepreneurship. It also introduces major new chapters for Cornell Tech — an invite-only ribbon-cutting marking the opening of new design and architecture, art, and planning facilities, and the launch of the inaugural Frontiers of AI Summit.

“Cornell Tech’s spring events reflect both the traditions that define our community and the new AI initiatives shaping its future,” said Greg Morrisett, Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost at Cornell Tech. “As AI moves rapidly from the lab into the world, it’s critical to pause and examine the foundational research driving these advances, which is what the new Frontiers of AI Summit is designed to do. Together, these events create space to surface new thinking, technical breakthroughs, and responsible approaches that will help shape the AI era.”

All events will take place on the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island. The island is easily accessible by car, subway, tram, bus, or ferry, with convenient connections from Manhattan and Queens. Learn more about transit options by clicking here.

Spring 2026 Startup Awards + Open Studio

Date: Thursday, May 14 (3:00 – 8:00 p.m.)

Location: Outdoor Tent, Tata Innovation Center, and Other Locations on Campus

Cornell Tech’s annual Startup Awards bring together the campus community for an evening of pitches, demonstrations, and celebration of student-led entrepreneurship. Eleven finalist teams will present their startup companies as they compete for up to $100,000 in investment, along with office space and mentorship — the culmination of months of work in Cornell Tech’s rigorous Startup Studio program. The winners will be announced by Cornell alumnus Andrew Ross Sorkin ’99 — award-winning journalist, founder and editor-at-large of The New York Times DealBook, co-anchor of CNBC’s Squawk Box, author of “1929” and “Too Big to Fail,” co-creator of Showtime’s “Billions,” and member of the Cornell Tech council  — followed by a celebratory reception.

This year’s cohort is tackling some of the most consequential challenges in technology today, from AI safety and agentic systems to predictive healthcare, satellite collision risk, and the future of legal and financial decision-making. With more than 1,000 attendees at last year’s event, the Startup Awards continue to be one of the campus’s largest and most anticipated gatherings.

Beyond the pitch competition, attendees will explore Open Studio demonstrations showcasing early-stage technologies and applied research from across the Cornell Tech ecosystem. Highlights include a preview of Valley of Ashes: Archaeology of the American Psyche, an immersive mixed-reality installation built from artifacts of recent disasters and social unrest. Guests can also visit the MakerLAB and Digital Fabrication Lab for hands-on demonstrations of student-built projects and assistive technologies — from spill-proof mugs and adaptive clothing hardware to accessible pill containers and tactile museum experiences for blind and low-vision users. Students from the PiTech Impact Studio and BigCo Studio courses will also present entrepreneurial projects developed with industry, nonprofit, and public-sector partners.

Since the launch of the Startup Awards, more than 128 startups have been founded at Cornell Tech, including Studio spinouts from the Startup Awards and postdoctoral founders through the Runway program at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute. Together, these startups have collectively reached a valuation of more than $1.3 billion and raised over $500 million in venture capital across sectors including AI, digital health, fintech, legal tech, sustainability, and media.

The event is open to the public, but registration is required – click here to learn more.

Celebrating the New Home for Design + Architecture at Cornell Tech

Date: Thursday, May 19, 2026 (8:30 – 10:00 a.m.)

Location: Tata Innovation Center, 4th floor

Held during the 2026 NYCxDESIGN Festival, Cornell Tech will host an invite-only ribbon cutting and guided tour celebrating the opening of new design, architecture, and technology spaces in the Tata Innovation Center.

The event marks the debut of the 16,000-square-foot Gensler Family AAP NYC Center, the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning’s new permanent home in New York City, alongside newly completed labs and studios that bring architecture, design, and emerging technologies together on the Cornell Tech campus.

The spaces are also home to Cornell’s M.S. in Design Technology, a two-year, transdisciplinary, research- and project-based graduate degree program led by renowned architect and designer Jenny Sabin. The program welcomed its inaugural cohort of students to Cornell Tech this fall, after they spent their first semester on Cornell’s Ithaca campus. The program is offered jointly by five Cornell University units: Cornell Tech, Cornell AAP, the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, Cornell Human Ecology, and the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering.

This event is by invitation only. Those interested in attending or arranging interviews should contact news@cornell.edu.

Cornell Tech Frontiers of AI Summit

Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Location: Verizon Executive Education Center

Cornell Tech and the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute will present the inaugural Frontiers of AI Summit on May 27, bringing together leaders from academia, industry, and the public sector to examine the foundational perspectives shaping the future of artificial intelligence.

At a moment of rapid technological acceleration, the summit offers an opportunity for deep dialogue on the technical, societal, and institutional questions surrounding AI. The Summit will feature a closing keynote conversation with award-winning journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin — co-anchor of CNBC’s Squawk Box, author of “1929” and “Too Big to Fail,” co-creator of Showtime’s “Billions,” and member of the Cornell Tech council — and Cornell Provost Kavita Bala, who will discuss the AI bubble.

Additional keynotes will be delivered by leaders from top academic research centers and universities — including Cornell, Princeton, Columbia University, and NYU — alongside philanthropic research organizations such as the Simons Foundation and Biohub, which are driving foundational work at the intersection of AI, mathematics, and the natural sciences. Industry perspectives span enterprise and infrastructure leaders like Bloomberg, as well as emerging AI companies building next‑generation models, developer tools, and agentic systems for science and software. The Frontiers of AI Summit is made possible with generous support from the Secunda Family Foundation.

Those interested must request to attend. More information is available here.