What does Cornell's NYC Tech Campus mean to Film Annex?
Today was an interesting day for me personally as Cornell University's David Skorton and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg named Cornell and Technion of Isreal the winners of Bloomberg's highly publicized competition to create a "game-changing" applied sciences and technology campus. My wife, her father, and myself are all Cornell graduates. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law were Ithaca College graduates. My wife and I met in Ithaca during graduate school, and like many Cornell graduates, our life is now is now centered in NYC. We use Cornell-New York Hospital for our family healthcare base, and I started a Silicon Valley start-up with technology from the Cornell Research Foundation. In a nutshell, Cornell is a big piece of our lives, but it is almost 5 hours away (when there is no snow!), and now it begins over on Roosevelt Island where Katie and I used to park our car to save money when we were first married.
The Cornell NYC Tech Campus @ Roosevelt Island is expected to spur economic growth, job creation, and high-tech entrepreneurship in NYC and Skorton and Bloomberg were on Morning Joe today to speak about this new campus:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Now when you look at this model closely, much of what has been set in motion by Cornell has actually been executed by The Rulli Brothers of Film Annex and myself - at least at the early stages.
Francesco Rulli and Tommaso Rulli are visionary entrepreneurs who were attracted to New York City from their native Italy by the Batmanish-Gotham City excitement of New York. They have built a number of lasting businesses that now find NYC as a home, with Film Annex being the latest. Cornell University and myself can learn alot from The Rulli Brothers, who some in the business world may classify as "high school graduates from Italy". Trust me, they should not be underestimated. Sure, I can add certain business disciplines to Film Annex that may have been missing, but without a vision and a tenacity to execute on that vision, you end up with a nice story, but not a real business.
With a first meeting in January 2011 with Cornell in place to examine Film Annex's relationship with the new Cornell NYC Tech Campus, keep an eye out for further announcements between Film Annex and Cornell's NYC Tech Campus.
Below is Tommaso Rulli speaking about Film Annex China, which is the first thing that Cornell should be interested in because of the two billion potential viewers.
Mike Sweeney
mws@filmannex.com
Watch more on Film Annex