NEW YORK (August 22, 2023) – Cornell Tech announced today that Prof. Israel Cidon – entrepreneur, renowned leader in network engineering and former faculty member and Dean at the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Technion–Israel Institute of Technology – joins Cornell Tech as director of the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell institute. Cidon will succeed Ron Brachman whose appointment began in 2016.

The Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech pushes the boundaries of academia at Cornell Tech, with dual-degree programs in Health Tech, Connective Media, and Urban Tech. Since its founding, the Jacobs Institute has incubated 42 new startup companies, which have filed almost 50 patent applications and secured more than $200 million in private funding. More than 80% of these companies are still operating and, in aggregate, they employ well over 200 employees in New York City.

As the new Director, Cidon will lead the Jacobs Institute’s strategic vision as it continues to grow its interdisciplinary, translational research focused on grand challenges in the digital realm; its innovative dual-degree programs; and its commitment to inclusive entrepreneurship.

“Professor Cidon has led groundbreaking research, co-founded several successful start-ups and developed 65  U.S. patents covering aspects of data networks including mobility, packet switching, security, Internet, and beyond,” said Cornell Tech Dean and Vice Provost Greg Morrisett. “His extensive expertise, start-up and industrial research experience – including at VMWare, one of Silicon Valley’s leading companies – will be fundamental to advancing the Jacobs Institute’s mission of offering a global perspective on research, education, technology transfer, commercialization and entrepreneurship.”

“Professor Israel Cidon is an esteemed computer networking researcher with extensive management experience at the Technion,” said Technion President Professor Uri Sivan. “As Dean he led the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering to significant achievements. Professor Cidon has a rich and successful background in entrepreneurship, and he maintains close relationships with the industry. I am confident that he will contribute significantly to strengthening the collaborations between Technion and Cornell University and advancing research and development at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute.”

“The Jacobs Institute represents the academic partnership between Cornell University and the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology at Cornell Tech,” said Israel Cidon, Head of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute. “It’s a privilege to succeed Ron Brachman as director of the Jacobs Institute and build upon Ron’s leadership, furthering the institute’s innovative approach to research and industry partnership.”

Cidon comes to the Institute from VMware Research, where for over six years he served as Vice President and Researcher working on high-performance, world-wide networks that bridged IoT, data centers, public clouds and more, enabling and optimizing geo-distributed modern applications. Prior to his time at VMware, he worked as a faculty member at The Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, published over 180 peer reviewed papers and served as Dean of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 2006 to 2010. Cidon has cofounded a number of technology companies, including Micronet Ltd., an early mobile data entry pioneer; Actona Technology, which introduced the basic technology for WAN optimization; Viola Networks, a network quality of service testing and diagnosis; and Sookasa, an organizational SaaS security platform.

About Cornell Tech

Cornell Tech is Cornell University’s groundbreaking campus for technology research and education on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Our faculty, students and industry partners work together in an ultra-collaborative environment, pushing inquiry further and developing meaningful technologies for a digital society. Founded in partnership with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the City of New York, Cornell Tech achieves global reach and local impact, extending Cornell University’s long history of leading innovation in computer science and engineering.

About Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology celebrates its first centennial this year. The impact of the Technion on Israel’s economy, society and defense is unmatched. It has long leveraged boundary-crossing collaborations to advance breakthrough research and technologies that impacted the world. Now, with a presence in three countries, the Technion prepares the next generation of global innovators. Technion people, ideas and inventions made immeasurable contributions to the world, innovating in fields from cancer research and sustainable energy to communication theory, quantum technologies, nanotechnology, and computer science.

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The Yang-Tan WorkABILITY Incubator, recently launched through the ILR School’s Center for Applied Research on Work (CAROW), will support innovative applied research projects and collaborations that bring together two or more parts of the university to address important societal issues linked to work.

Funded through the generosity of K. Lisa Yang ’74, the incubator will provide support both to early stage projects and larger initiatives.

“Through applied research and collaboration across Cornell to create tools that will translate into equity and impact for individuals, CAROW and the Yang-Tan WorkABILITY Incubator will enable the ILR School to truly advance the world of work,” Yang said.

The incubator has already launched the Initiative on Home Care and Home Health Care Workers. It will also be the new home of the Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative. Both initiatives build a community of scholars and researchers across Cornell’s campuses.

“The Yang-Tan WorkABILITY Incubator provides CAROW with an engine through which to tackle the big, consequential challenges of our day in the areas of work, employment and labor,” said Ariel Avgar, Ph.D. ’08, the director of CAROW. “The two inaugural initiatives are a perfect case in point. Focusing on the working conditions of low-wage workers in health care and the equitable access to employment opportunities for justice- involved individuals builds on Cornell expertise with the goal of guiding action based on applied research.”

“We owe a great debt to Lisa Yang’s vision and generosity, which have made this effort and approach possible,” Avgar said.

The Initiative on Home Care and Home Health Care Workers will be directed by Weill Cornell Medicine’s Dr. Madeline Sterling ’08. Nicola Dell, associate professor at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, will serve as director of technical innovation.

“This new initiative will drive rigorous interdisciplinary research on the link between working conditions, the home care workforce and the delivery of high-quality patient care with the goal of influencing practice and policy,” said Avgar, ILR’s senior associate dean for outreach and sponsored research.

Sterling is an expert on home care and its impact on the health of patients. Her research focuses on examining how home care services impact the delivery of care and novel ways to leverage the home care workforce to improve both worker and patient outcomes.

Dell studies human-computer interactions, computer security and privacy, and information and communication technologies and development. Dell’s health care work examines the potential for designing technologies that enhance equity for home care workers.

ILR’s Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative will receive funding from the incubator, in addition to its state funding. Directed by Timothy McNutt with Jodi Anderson serving as technical innovation director and Matt Saleh as research director, the initiative provides training on criminal records and employment law to job seekers who have been involved in the criminal legal system. The program also assists employers in developing fair chance hiring, engages in research to study reentry practices and works with policymakers and legislators on criminal justice reform.

McNutt has a background in criminal law, litigation and policy to improve employment opportunities for people with criminal records. He has interacted with hundreds of incarcerated and newly paroled people in the past five years to help them access and correct their criminal records, and get jobs. McNutt broadened the outreach through the incubator to include the Restorative Record Project, which helps job candidates create non-traditional résumés that highlight core competencies and micro-credentials.

Anderson, a Cornell Prison Education Program alumnus who earned a master’s degree from Stanford University, is the developer of Rézme, an app created to support justice-involved job candidates.

Saleh is a senior research associate at the Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability at the ILR School. His research focuses on career pathways for youth with disabilities and on employment barriers such as justice involvement.

Julie Greco is a senior communications specialist for the ILR School.

This story originally appeared in the Cornell Chronicle.

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Recognizing design’s integral role in the development of technologies reshaping the built environment and how we live and work, Cornell has established the multicollege and transdisciplinary Department of Design Tech.

The new department seeks to bridge and enhance design and technology disciplines and departments across the university, complementing and building upon strengths in the design arts, design science, design engineering and design professions.

The College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP) will administer the Department of Design Tech in partnership with the College of Human Ecology (CHE), Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, Cornell Engineering and Cornell Tech in New York City.

The department is the product of more than two years of discussions by the deans of those colleges and a faculty task force that also includes representatives from the College of Arts and Sciences and Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. They were charged by Provost Michael I. Kotlikoff’s Radical Collaboration initiative – which identified Design + Technology as one of 10 strategic areas – to assess how best to strengthen and expand design education and research in emerging technologies at Cornell.

“The relationship between design and technology has never been more important to society,” Kotlikoff said. “The Department of Design Tech will foster collaborations across disciplines and campuses that promise to advance design education and research at Cornell and beyond.”

J. Meejin Yoon, B.Arch. ’95, the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of AAP and lead dean for Design Tech, said the collaborating colleges recognized that each could benefit from, and contribute to, an integrated vision for design and technology that moved beyond disciplinary barriers.

Partnering with Yoon are Rachel Dunifon, the Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean of CHE; Kavita Bala, inaugural dean of Cornell Bowers CIS; Lynden Archer, the Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering; and Greg Morrisett, the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost of Cornell Tech.

“Synergizing advancements in design and technology is not only imperative to design education at Cornell, but critical for preparing the next generation of designers, engineers, scientists, technologists and creatives to take on some of the most complex challenges of our time,” Yoon said. “Design Tech will pose, develop and answer questions with applied design and technology that can define new models for transdisciplinary design and thought.”

Design Tech’s inaugural chair is Jenny Sabin, the Arthur L. and Isabel B. Wiesenberger Professor in Architecture. Sabin co-chaired the 12-member Design + Technology faculty task force with Wendy Ju, associate professor at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech.

From additive manufacturing to artificial intelligence, Sabin said, we are seeing a contemporary paradigm shift and fusion across scales of the digital, physical and biological. In that context, she said, design and technology increasingly rely on each other to innovate.

Examples of Cornell research at the intersection of design and technology, Sabin said, include designing for human behavior in the context of autonomous vehicles; origami-inspired robots; additive manufacturing in space; 3D printing of programmable and sometimes living architectural materials; and the development of wearable interfaces responsive to changes in biodata.

“Design Tech will not only bridge our fields and faculty, but fill gaps in emerging, high-demand areas such as product design, interaction design, materials design and digital media design,” Sabin said. “At Cornell, we are uniquely positioned to be pioneers in this burgeoning space given our expertise in design, robotics, nanotech and materials science, computer science and beyond.”

The department’s first degree offering, pending approval from New York state, will be an interdisciplinary master’s in design technology anticipated for the 2024-25 academic year. Straddling the Ithaca campus and Cornell Tech, the two-year program will build upon AAP’s existing master’s in Matter Design Computation and incorporate lessons learned from “Design and Making Across Disciplines,” a four-year collaboration with Cornell Tech piloting transdisciplinary, studio-based teaching models that intersect with design tech research. Additional degrees and undergraduate courses may be proposed.

During a planning year ahead, a faculty steering committee drawn from the Design + Technology task force will work to launch the department and formalize the new master’s program.

The Radical Collaboration initiative will facilitate hiring by the partner colleges of core faculty members in design, science and engineering who will co-teach courses and engage in collaborative research.

In addition to Sabin and Ju, Design Tech’s inaugural faculty will include Heeju Park, associate professor in the Department of Human Centered Design (CHE); Timur Dogan, associate professor of architecture (AAP); François Guimbretière, professor of information science (Cornell Bowers CIS); and Uli Wiesner, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (Cornell Engineering).

“It’s extremely exciting to realize this new model that is truly transdisciplinary and collaborative with support from the university’s leadership and five colleges that are all aligned,” Sabin said. “We’re grateful to be a part of it.”

This story originally appeared in the Cornell Chronicle.

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By Adam Conner-Simons

New York City mayors past and present – Michael Bloomberg and Eric Adams – attended a June 7 celebration of the 10th anniversary of Cornell Tech, the technology and engineering-focused campus that Cornell launched in 2012 with its academic partner, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

The evening program on Cornell Tech’s Roosevelt Island campus brought together many of the key players who have contributed to its success, including Bloomberg; President Martha E. Pollack; Greg Morrisett, the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost of Cornell Tech; former president David Skorton; founding Cornell Tech dean Dan Huttenlocher; and former Technion president Peretz Lavie.

Since winning then-Mayor Bloomberg’s global competition, Cornell and Technion’s joint institution has grown from a handful of students located in Google’s Manhattan office to more than 1,500 alumni across eight master’s degrees and seven Ph.D. programs. Through its entrepreneurship programs, Cornell Tech has also spun out more than 80 start-ups that have cumulatively raised more than $150 million in funding.

Adams spoke of the importance of institutions like Cornell Tech in helping New York City’s tech sector blossom, and in inspiring more people to launch companies and create careers here.

“New York City is going to be the center of the cybersecurity, life sciences and blockchain industries,” Adams said. “[Cornell Tech] is an amazing seed that was planted and that’s producing a harvest for all of us.”

Bloomberg outlined how his administration’s vision for the campus emerged in the aftermath of the 2008 economic downturn. Its success has inspired similar academic collaborations in other cities and states across the country, he said.

“This school shows what is possible when public and private sectors combine strengths and resources,” Bloomberg said. “It’s an investment in the future, and the next generation to come.”

He also thanked Skorton for his key efforts in helping launch the campus, and Pollack for her “outstanding leadership and commitment to Cornell Tech [that] has been critical to the school’s progress.”

Pollack said she was first drawn to Cornell in part because of its ambitious vision to build what she called “a new model of technology education and leadership.” She spoke of the importance of creating new kinds of technology leaders for the future – people with “not only a drive for innovation, but a deep understanding of the intersections between technology, society and humanity.”

Representing Technion, Lavie recalled his early trepidation about the daunting task of launching a new school, remembering that he at one point even phoned Seth Pinsky, then the president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, to make sure the proposal wasn’t a joke. He thanked Pinsky, Bloomberg and Bob Steel, Bloomberg’s deputy mayor for economic development, for their work and support in “giving us the unique opportunity to build a revolutionary academic institution from scratch.”

Looking ahead to the next 10 years, Morrisett said Cornell Tech plans to begin the second phase of its growth. He said the campus will ultimately expand from 90 faculty and affiliates to roughly 200 faculty, and from 500 to 2,000 students.

“We are poised to become the premier higher-ed institution for tech in New York and beyond,” Morrisett said. “This is only the beginning.”

Organized in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, the event featured an anniversary video as well as a site-specific performance of “The Freedom to Innovate,” a dance piece developed by Ballet Hispánico that honored the nearby Four Freedoms Park and was a collaboration with Cornell Tech researchers.

Adam Conner-Simons is director of communications for Cornell Tech.

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“Over the past decade, Cornell Tech has become a leading model for how to bridge the gap between academia and industry, a highly sustainable and open campus, and a strong community partner on Roosevelt Island,” said Cornell Tech Dean Greg Morrisett. “Cornell Tech’s impact over the last 10 years has exceeded our initial mandate, churning out valuable startups and groundbreaking research, and providing technical education to a diverse array of students, from PhD and master’s level to K-12.”

As a campus specifically built for the digital age, Cornell Tech has demonstrated the viability of its founding vision by bringing together academia and industry to elevate pioneering leaders and transformational new research, products, companies and social ventures. Since inception, the institution has graduated 1,200 highly skilled tech alumni, launched more than 80 startups and raised nearly $1 billion in funding—and in the process has helped make New York City’s startup ecosystem the second most valuable in the world. Roughly 90  percent of its start-ups have remained in New York to continue to build and grow, hiring nearly 400 employees and raising more than $150 million for their companies.

Cornell Tech’s reach also extends far beyond the limits of its physical campus. Its Break Through Tech initiative has helped City University of New York (CUNY) nearly double the number of women pursuing computer science, and expanded to Chicago, Miami and Washington D.C. The K-12 program has educated dozens of teachers on how to teach tech and infuse it into a school’s curriculum, reaching thousands of kids from underserved regions throughout the city.

Cornell Tech’s academic model is unique to both New York City and academia at large in tackling some of today’s most pervasive issues both in the urban and tech realms. For example, the Runway Startup Postdoc Program at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute ushers recent PhD graduates in digital technology fields through a paradigm shift — from an academic mindset to an entrepreneurial outlook. At the Jacobs Institute — which is part business school, part research institution, and part startup incubator — postdocs receive financial support and are mentored by faculty, industry leaders and entrepreneurs. Today, Cornell Tech has become one of the most active startup incubators in the world.

All of this innovative work is happening on a 12-acre campus on Roosevelt Island that recently completed its first phase of construction and features some of the most environmentally friendly and energy-efficient buildings in the world. Cornell assembled a team of award-winning architects to design a highly sustainable and open campus that facilitates the interaction between academia and industry that’s central to Cornell Tech’s mission.

The first phase included:

• The Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Center, the first academic building
• The Tata Innovation Center, housing a mix of cutting-edge companies working alongside Cornell Tech researchers and entrepreneurs
• The House, a residence for faculty, staff and students – and the world‘s first residential passive house high-rise;
• the Verizon Executive Education Center, which holds academic gatherings and industry conferences;
• and the Graduate Roosevelt Island hotel, which includes a restaurant and rooftop bar

The Cornell Tech campus officially opened to students in September 2017, and, when fully completed, will be home to more than 2,000 graduate students and hundreds of faculty and staff.

About Cornell Tech

Cornell Tech is Cornell University’s groundbreaking campus for technology research and education on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Our faculty, students and industry partners work together in an ultra-collaborative environment, pushing inquiry further and developing meaningful technologies for a digital society. Founded in partnership with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the City of New York, Cornell Tech achieves global reach and local impact, extending Cornell University’s long history of leading innovation in computer science and engineering.

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Mitch Julis: Is the Institute helping NYC become a tech city, as was originally envisioned?
Ron Brachman: Definitely. Cornell Tech and the Jacobs Institute are growing the tech workforce and adding entrepreneurial energy to the city. Nearly 70 Jacobs’ master’s students are graduating each year, receiving degrees from both the Technion and Cornell University. Our Runway Startup Postdoc Program has created more than 30 new companies, with almost 200 employees and over $100 million in external investment. Each year we add to these totals. We are still small, but we think that we are having an outsized effect for our numbers.

Can you tell us about the Runway Startup Program?
Runway aims to transform recent Ph.D. graduates with an entrepreneurial passion into successful startup CEOs. We start with the basics and build their understanding of creating and running a company, including the challenges of identifying customers and raising funding. Runway focuses on “deep tech” companies, where a technologically advanced but inexperienced entrepreneur comes in with a product idea based on significant scientific work. Through our program director, Fernando Gómez-Baquero, we have made numerous contacts with high-tech incubators, investors, and entrepreneurs across NYC.

What have been some of Jacobs’ proudest moments?
Runway continues to create exciting startups, such as Nanit (smart baby monitor), which was named one of Time magazine’s 50 best inventions of 2018. Other accomplishments include our outstanding success in hiring excellent faculty and staff. As of July 2021, we will have 11 faculty members, including six women.

We’ve also established the Urban Tech Hub — a master’s degree concentration we hope will revolutionize urban tech studies. In one core course, students focused on pandemic recovery to design approaches to reopening schools, shops, and workplaces. As a sign of the importance of our efforts, we recently received a $15 million gift to support the hub from Stephen Ross, chairman and founder of Related Companies.

What’s next?
Cornell Tech moved into its spectacular Roosevelt Island campus right on schedule, in 2017. In addition to the Bloomberg Center — its academic building — the Tata Innovation Center, and The House, two new buildings are just opening. Phase-two brainstorming is underway, and academic space, including labs, will be the top priority.

In time, we expect to grow Cornell Tech’s faculty to 200 and the student body to nearly 2,000, with Jacobs representing one-third of those numbers. Our innovative hubs turn out graduates who are a step ahead in media, health technology, and urban tech. We want to continue building these existing hubs, but new hubs could include Fintech, cybersecurity, and design.

We keep experimenting, looking for novel ways to prepare students for the job market. It seems we break new ground every day. Because of our approach, the Jacobs Institute and our graduates are major drivers of leading-edge activities for the Technion, Cornell, and New York City.

RELATED LINKS

Mitchell Julis, Donor: https://ats.org/about/faces-of-the-technion/mitchell-julis/ 
Ron Brachman, Faculty: https://ats.org/about/faces-of-the-technion/ron-brachman/

This story originally appeared on the American Technion Society website.

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As Director, Brachman will lead the Jacobs Institute’s strategic vision as it continues to grow its non-traditional, multidisciplinary, cutting-edge faculty research, degree programs, and the Runway startup postdoctoral program. Brachman will become a member of the Computer Science faculty at Cornell University and will succeed Adam Shwartz, who returns to the Technion Israel-Institute of Technology as Senior Executive Vice President. The leadership of the Jacobs Institute is shared by the Technion and Cornell, with the directorship rotating between the two universities. As part of this rotation, Shwartz will become the Chair of the Jacobs Institute Board of Directors.

“We are very excited to welcome Ron to the campus. His distinguished research record, industry and team-building career and multi-faceted experience developing new research initiatives will continue the great work at the Jacobs Institute as we broaden and grow,” said Cornell Tech Dean Dan Huttenlocher. “The Jacobs Institute serves as a sandbox of experimentation at Cornell Tech, with the growing success of its Runway startup program and groundbreaking research in the fields of connective media, health tech, cybersecurity and more.”

“I’m so proud of the Jacobs Institute’s growth and success over the past three years, launching a first-of-its-kind multidisciplinary dual-degree program — and seeing its first graduates — and commercializing impactful, deep research through the Runway startup postdocs program,” said Adam Shwartz, outgoing Director of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute. “Ron’s expertise creating and leading high-level research teams and his work developing successful new initiatives at top industry and government organizations makes him the perfect choice to grow the Institute.”

“The Jacobs Institute is an amazing, unique undertaking, and I am extremely excited about the opportunity to lead it in its next phase of growth and groundbreaking innovation in education, research, and impact. Under the leadership of Adam Shwartz, the Jacobs Institute is already leading the way in showing how academia can drive real-world innovation,” said Brachman. “I am eager to build on this work in developing the Jacobs Institute’s world-class dual degree programs and innovative approach to research and industry partnership.”

Brachman was Yahoo’s Chief Scientist and Head of Yahoo Labs, where he oversaw all of Yahoo’s science activities worldwide, including teams in Haifa and New York, providing leadership at the intersection of research, applied science and academic partnerships. He was one of the founders of Yahoo Research and the creator of Yahoo’s Academic Relations group, and throughout his ten years at Yahoo helped drive the creation of experimental initiatives and hired and managed top talent. As the Director of the Information Processing Technology Office at DARPA, Brachman established the Cognitive Systems initiative, which developed the technology that led to the creation of Siri. At Bell Labs and AT&T Labs, he drove the overall vision and technical direction of multiple research labs and built world-class groups in AI, Machine Learning, HCI, Security, and other critical technology areas. He has won multiple awards, has served as President of AAAI, currently serves on the Board of the Computing Research Association, and is a Fellow of ACM, IEEE, and AAAI. He also advises Segovia Technology, a New York startup that builds software systems for bringing cash payments to the world’s poorest people, working to eliminate poverty in emerging economies and provide humanitarian relief.

“Throughout the search process, we were consistently impressed with Ron’s dedication to breaking new ground, both when creating new partnerships at DARPA and Yahoo Labs and in his research,” said Michael I. Kotlikoff, Provost of Cornell University. “Cornell University is proud to partner with the Technion through the Jacobs Institute at Cornell Tech, and I’m confident that Ron will take the Institute to new levels.”

“Ron worked closely with Israeli research teams, and navigated complex organizations. I trust that he will be able to bring the Technion-Cornell partnership to new levels, and leverage the power of the two universities, and of the two cultures, to move Jacobs Institute as a leader for the digital age: fast moving, flexible and innovative,” said Professor Moshe Sidi, Current Senior Executive Vice President of the Technion Institute.

The Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech is the academic partnership between Cornell and the Technion, and is tasked with pushing the boundaries of academia at Cornell Tech. The Jacobs Institute is named for Dr. Irwin Mark Jacobs, Founding Chairman and CEO Emeritus of Qualcomm, and his wife Joan Klein Jacobs, who donated $133 million to create the Institute in 2013. The Institute has attracted top talent to its faculty, and is part of one of the strongest security and privacy groups in the world. Through a partnership with AOL, the Institute has advanced groundbreaking collaborative research with researchers from Jacobs Institute, Cornell Tech, Technion and AOL, at its AOL Connected Experiences Lab. Since the announcement of the Technion-Cornell historic partnership in 2011, the Institute recruited faculty, Ph.D. students and post-docs, initiated the Runway startup postdoctoral program to commercialize innovative, deep research, opened Masters programs, graduated its first cohort of Connective Media students this year, and will be home to over 50 Masters students — in Connective Media and Health Tech — in the coming academic year.

Why I Chose Cornell Tech and Jacobs by Ron Brachman

Reflecting on the Launch of Jacobs by Adam Shwartz

About Cornell Tech

The Jacobs Institute is a key component of Cornell Tech. Cornell Tech develops pioneering leaders and technologies for the digital age. 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. Cornell Tech’s temporary campus has been up and running at Google’s Chelsea building since 2012, with a growing world-class faculty, and about 150 master’s and Ph.D. students who collaborate extensively with tech-oriented companies and organizations and pursue their own start-ups.

Construction is underway on Cornell Tech’s campus on Roosevelt Island, with a first phase due to open in 2017. When fully completed, the campus will include 2 million square feet of state-of- the-art buildings, over 2 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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Earlier this year, Johnson Cornell Tech MBAs and MS students from the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute traveled to Israe l to participate in an untraditional boot camp of their own. They visited cultural sites and various high-tech startups, but they also got their hands dirty. The MBAs had marathon consulting sessions with startup companies they had been working with from afar and the Jacobs students embedded themselves in Technion’s labs over four days spent on the Haifa campus. At the end, all students participated in a hackathon where venture capitalists and CEOs replaced drill sergeants.

The purpose? Finance professor and leader of the “iTrek” MBA course Roni Michaely said that he hoped the 12-day cultural immersion would inspire students to bring some of Israel’s “Startup Nation DNA” back to the United States. Israel has the highest concentration of tech startups outside of Silicon Valley.

For the 42 MBAs the trip to Israel was the culmination of the iTrek course. In November, each of the MBAs partnered with a real Israeli startup and committed to at least 100 hours of consulting work, solving real problems in real time. Once in Israel, they not only met their clients in person for the first time, but also continued with their consulting work, giving numerous presentations to investors and experts over the course of the trip.

The Technion is at the heart of this startup culture. Some 70% of the country’s high-tech founders and managers graduated from the Technion, which, together with Cornell University, is a parent institution to the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech. Students at the Jacobs Institute receive a degree from both educational giants.

“There’s a lot of value in having a Technion degree,” said Connective Media masters student Muhammad Khadafi. “It is highly respected from a pure tech perspective. It’s deep engineering.”

The Jacobs Institute has been described as a “sandbox for innovation,” so it makes sense that eight students in Connective Media, plus one pursuing the MS in Health Tech and another an MEng in Computer Science, went to the desert to get to know their Technion peers working on cutting-edge robotics and medical devices in their labs.

As a group, the students remarked at how they felt at home. “Technion is quite diverse. You’ll see women in hijabs work alongside men with peyos,” recalled Shawn Bramson (CM, ’16). This was the first of what is to become an annual trip.

At the end of the trip, both groups of students — Johnson Cornell Tech MBAs and Jacobs students — came together in Tel Aviv for a design challenge hackathon with Sears Israel engineers and Shenkar University. By the end of the hackathon, they had presented approximately 30 sessions in 10 days, MBA student Ian Folau recalled in a blog about his experience abroad.

They did what Israeli entrepreneurs do: they delivered presentations to venture capitalists, danced in Tel Aviv clubs, and set aside time to float in the Dead Sea. (And of course, no trip to Israel would be complete without riding camels and spending at least one night in a Bedouin village.) Throughout all of this students got a taste for Israelis’ strong professional drive, focus on education, and cultural mindset, plus a glimpse of how these factors shape their lifestyle and business acumen.

Citing former Israeli president Shimon Peres’ famous quote that “Jews’ greatest contribution to history is dissatisfaction!” Bramson observed that, in Israeli work culture, “They won’t hold back, they will jump directly into the issues and are straight to the point.”

Bramson speculated that straightforward talk and the ability to overcome obstacles might partly be a reflection of Israelis’ heritage: “Historically they faced adversity and had to fight for their existence, constantly trying to keep themselves afloat. Perhaps as a result, they do away with the formalities and get to the point.”

Rachel Flynn, who is currently pursuing her MBA, was also impressed by Israelis’ sense of resilience and perseverance. “We showed up a week after there had been a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv,” she said. “I don’t know how a culture bounces back so quickly. These stories are just as meaningful as the tech stories.”

The Cornell Tech students who participated in the trip took home these valuable cultural lessons as well as something more tangible.

“Some companies offered jobs to the students who worked on their business challenges,” said Flynn. “Meeting and consulting for real companies really ties what we do in school to real life.”

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Connective Media, Health Tech and MEng students were given the opportunity to collaborate in the lab with their Technion peers and meet with startups. Johnson Cornell Tech MBA students were in Israel on a parallel tour presenting to startups they had been consulting for during the previous semester.

The two trips met up in Tel Aviv for a design challenge hackathon with Sears Israel engineers and Shenkar University design students.

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