Robert Barker/University Photography

Noah Goodhart '97, co-founder, WGI Group; Neeraj Agrawal '94, General Partner, Battery Ventures; Todd Krizelman '96, co-founder and CEO, MAGAZINERadar, and Dan Huttenlocher, dean of computing and information science at Cornell, speak at the Sept. 27 techpreneurs event.

Robert Barker/University Photography

Cara Maloney '11 attends the sold-out event.

A panel of New York City-area alumni, all "techpreneurs," expressed their excitement at the prospect of a Cornell tech campus in New York City, speaking at a Cornell Entrepreneurship Network (CEN) event Sept. 27 at Google's offices in Manhattan.

More than 200 Cornell alumni attended the sold-out event to hear an update on the progress of the CornellNYC Tech Campus initiative.

Cornell will submit a proposal to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office by Oct. 28 to build the campus, which would consist of graduate-level programs with an emphasis on high-tech commercialization, structured around research "hubs," including mobile social interaction and technologies for healthier living, that are expected to be highly interdisciplinary.

If Cornell's proposal is accepted, the campus would start operating by summer, with students in the city by fall, said Dan Huttenlocher, dean of computing and information science at Cornell.

Huttenlocher presented details about Cornell's goals for the new campus, focusing in particular on the academic and commercialization vision Cornell leadership has for this initiative.

"New York City has an opportunity to become the world leader in technology with the right kind of partner," Huttenlocher said. "We are really excited about this bid."

In reference to the research hubs, he said they would "change according to the needs of industry" in the future, making them well suited to produce the talent companies and markets need to be successful.

The campus, he added, would take a very hands-on approach. "We have excellent entrepreneurship education right now," he said. "This campus will be very organized around doing entrepreneurship."

The panel discussion, moderated by Huttenlocher and composed of Neeraj Agrawal '94, General Partner, Battery Ventures; Noah Goodhart '97, co-founder, WGI Group; and Todd Krizelman '96, co-founder and CEO, MAGAZINERadar, addressed such topics as the startup climate in New York City, the Internet bubble, how best to start a company, and how to secure funding in the post-dotcom era. They all noted how ripe New York City is for a tech campus such as the one Cornell is proposing.

"Our office is in Union Square and you walk down the street and you hear entrepreneurial buzz words," Goodhart said. "I think it's definitely happening here."

"One of the things I love about New York City is that you can open up anywhere because everything is so central," Krizelman added. "It's certainly getting easier to start a company in New York."

The event, sponsored by CEN in partnership with Cornell's Faculty of Computing and Information Science, was the sixth in a series on Cornell tech entrepreneurship; the previous ones were held in two cities in California, Boston and two previous places in the New York metropolitan area.

David Keating is a communications specialist in Cornell's public affairs office.