Christine Quinn, New York City council speaker, in a visit to the Technion: “The Technion-Cornell Initiative will make our City the Global High-Tech Capital”

15“The residents of New York City and its government are very excited about the planned applied science and engineering campus which Cornell and the Technion are partnering to establish”, said Christine Quinn, New York City council speaker, in her visit today to the Technion. “We have no doubt that this important venture, which will make our city the global high-tech capital, will inject new blood into it and improve all municipal aspects – from affordable housing to cafés and restaurants”.

Quinn, who in 2007 was ranked by the New York Post third in the list of the most influential women in New York, is a member of the Democratic Party, and is considered a leading candidate in the mayoral election that will end next year. She invests substantial resources in improving health care and in promoting affordable housing in New York. “We, as a municipality, cannot create entrepreneurial ventures, but we can and are committed to creating a suitable envelope for them: an efficient transportation system, personal security, housing, quality education and employment – without these, entrepreneurs and high-tech companies cannot be attracted to the city”.

Technion President Professor Peretz Lavie said to the guest that the future is in the interdisciplinary realm, and that this is the rational behind the new campus that will be set-up  on Roosevelt Island in New York. “It may be that Prof. Shechtman is the last scientist to be awarded the Nobel Prize for research conducted by one person working alone in one laboratory,” said Prof. Lavie. “Nowadays, achieving significant scientific and engineering breakthroughs requires tremendous knowledge that the single scientist does not possess. In light of this, the new campus will be structured as interdisciplinary centers that will intercommunicate and overlap, rather than in the well-known university model of programs and faculties. With time this center will be surrounded by startup companies and extensions of large high-tech companies, just as such companies and extensions historically developed near the Technion. Intel is an example of a giant company that chose to establish here its first research center outside the US, and so whenever I hear the slogan ‘Intel Inside’ I say: Haifa Inside. Our innovative venture will build a bridge of friendship and cooperation between New York and Haifa”.