Officials Announce Plan To Speed Innovation And Business Development At Cornell's Graduate Tech Program

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - Cornell's new technology campus planned for Roosevelt Island will combine research with business to help good ideas get off the ground sooner, officials announced Tuesday.

At a news conference, government leaders and representatives from the Ivy League university announced plans to have a patent officer assigned to CornellNYC Tech's graduate school campus to help students and others more easily capitalize on their ideas.

WCBS 880's Alex Silverman reports

"Tear down the walls between university research and the federal support to help move that research from the lab to the marketplace," U.S. Patent And Trademark Office Director David Kappos told reporters including WCBS 880's Alex Silverman.

The purpose is to allow new innovation to "move at the speed of Google," Rep. Carolyn Maloney said.

"Our goal is simple - let's speed the introduction of new ideas and the breakthrough of new products into the marketplace," said acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said the CornellNYC Tech campus is a key step in turning New York into the technical business capital of the world, surpassing California's tech cluster.

At Tuesday's news conference, Sen. Charles Schumer reiterated that vision.

"Palo Alto and the [Silicon] Valley are beautiful places," but New York is the new tech capital, Sen. Schumer said.

Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology were selected by Bloomberg in December to help build the new tech center on Roosevelt Island, following a competition for ideas.

The one-year master's program begins in January with about 20 students. The graduate program is temporarily housed in Manhattan in space donated by Internet giant Google.

The 11-acre Roosevelt Island campus is slated to open in 2017.

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