Technion-Cornell Institute set to turn out first graduating class of hi-tech entrepreneurs

According to the Technion, the campus is expected to be built over the next three decades and create 20,000 construction jobs and 8,000 permanent jobs.

By DANIELLE ZIRI
Updated: MAY 22, 2016 00:36
The Technion (photo credit: Courtesy)
The Technion
(photo credit: Courtesy)
The Jacobs Institute, established in partnership between Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Cornell University, will graduate its first class of game-changing movers and shakers on May 29.The 12 students will receive their diplomas at a ceremony held at Cornell University in Ithaca New York.
The permanent campus of the Jacobs Institute is still under construction on New York City’s Roosevelt Island (the current class studied at other Cornell facilities around the city).
The graduates, who studied information systems with a concentration in connective media and come from six different countries, will each receive two degrees, one from the Technion and one from Cornell. The Technion diplomas will mark the first time a non-US university has ever granted accredited degrees for studies conducted on US soil.
“These graduating entrepreneurs are armed with the knowledge and experience in areas that are vital to the city’s economic health, and the betterment of society as a whole,” Prof. Adam Shwartz, director of the Jacobs Institute, said. “We look forward with anticipation to the great things they will accomplish and their impact on the economy, as well as the start-ups they will launch in New York City and beyond.”
According to the institute, the students are now launching innovative start-ups and securing jobs at industry-leading companies across the world. Several graduates plan to begin careers at Facebook, Google, WeWork, Verizon and Bloomberg L.P. Some will initiate start-up companies aimed at helping quadriplegics, transforming interactive education and changing other fields, and some will continue research partnerships with the Clinton Foundation and other major institutions.
“At the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute you have the opportunity to shape your education and to shape the courses,” Shawn Bramson, one the inaugural Jacobs Institute graduates, said. “There’s an amazing entrepreneurial spirit here, reminiscent of the one I was immersed in while I was at the Technion, and an empowerment to apply what we’ve learned to make real social impact in the world.”
Technion President Peretz Lavie congratulated the class and said it furnishes “a clear example of what can happen when innovation, excellence and a commitment to improving the lives of people around the world come together.”
In December 2010, former mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, opened a competition challenging academic institutions from around the world to propose a new or expand an existing applied sciences and engineering campus in New York.
The winner was the partnership between the Technion and Cornell University, which received support from the Bloomberg administration to create an expanded joint campus on Roosevelt Island in the East River.
The Jacobs Institute was established in 2013 with a $133 million gift from Dr. Irwin Mark Jacobs, founding chairman and CEO emeritus of Qualcomm, and his wife, Joan Klein Jacobs.
According to the Technion, the campus is expected to be built over the next three decades and create 20,000 construction jobs, 8,000 permanent jobs, as well as hundreds of companies and more than $23 billion in economic activity.


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