New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city will aim to surpass the success of California’s Silicon Valley as it bids to attract more technology companies.
Speaking about plans for a new science and engineering campus in the big apple, Mr Bloomberg said he realised, however, that it will be impossible to catch the California industry leaders overnight. “Building a state-of-the-art campus will take years – and attracting a critical mass of technology entrepreneurs will take even longer,” he noted.
He said that in its first three decades, the school could help launch 400 new companies and create more than 22,000 permanent jobs, as well as more than 7,000 construction positions.
The city plans to offer nearly-free real estate and up to 100 million US dollars (£62 million) in infrastructure upgrades to a university, institution or consortium that commits to creating what Mr Bloomberg says will be a world-class science and engineering campus. The city’s formal request for proposals was issued on Tuesday.
Stanford and Cornell universities and the University of Chicago have expressed interest in the deal, as have schools in the UK, Finland, India, Switzerland, Korea and Israel.
Additionally, some institutions have formed partnerships as they consider the deal. One such group is made up of New York University, Carnegie Mellon, the City University of New York, the University of Toronto and IBM.
The billionaire mayor, who was himself an engineering student and later an entrepreneur, said Silicon Valley’s dominance is due in part to schools like Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley.
“Technology capacity is critical to our growth – and there is just not enough of it here,” he said.
Source : Press Association
