New York City is no longer content to be Silicon Alley, and wants a bigger piece of the tech action -- enough to rival Silicon Valley, officials said.
The city plans to offer nearly free real estate and up to $100 million in upgrades to any university or group that commits to creating a world-class engineering campus on either Governor's Island, the Brooklyn Navy Yard or Roosevelt Island, according to the Associated Press.
“We understand that we will not catch up to Silicon Valley overnight,’’ Bloomberg said in a speech. “Building a state-of-the-art campus will take years - and attracting a critical mass of technology entrepreneurs may take even longer.’’
Cornell University and the University of Chicago have expressed interest in the proposition, as has Silicon Valley's own beloved Stanford University -- who apparently is on the short list, according to Business Insider.
Could Stanford give a goose to tech in New York? It has essentially spawned Google and scores of startups, so a new campus with a NYC address could mean a tech explosion on the East Coast. Let's hope that a bigger tech explosion stays on the West Coast.
