Dean Katepalli Sreenivasan, Honored by Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, Focuses on Unity and the Innovation Coastline

“I am excited to say — thanks to some help from many of you — that in 2017 we will be opening a brand new Future Lab at Industry City in Sunset Park, and later this same year a New York City-designated Augmented and Virtual Reality Lab in the Brooklyn Navy Yard,” Katepalli Sreenivasan, Dean of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, asserted. “Our borough has now transcended the Brooklyn Tech Triangle to become an Innovation Coastline to define our actions. Our City has been defined by its waterways for years, and it is entirely appropriate to think of an Innovation Coastline as the next iteration of that definition.” 

Dean Katepalli Sreenivasan

Sreenivasan was speaking on the occasion of the 2017 Building Brooklyn Awards, presented by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and held on July 13. He went on to say, “Poly’s history and Brooklyn’s have been intertwined for 163 years. In fact, Poly was part of Brooklyn for 45 years when Brooklyn was still an independent city, one of the most populous in the country. Brooklyn was incorporated into New York City in 1898; it took us only 116 years to follow this example and become incorporated into New York University as its Tandon School of Engineering. Both Poly and Brooklyn have gone through tough times together and separately; that we are both on the rise at the moment is not an accident. If one of us is strong, it adds some strength to the other. And I have always understood that Brooklyn is a living example of the American Dream.”

Of course, he was referring to the phrase coined by Tandon Alum James Truslow Adams:

The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement ... It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.

The Brooklyn Building Awards are bestowed upon projects that enrich Brooklyn’s neighborhoods and economy as well as noteworthy individuals who have made significant contributions to the borough. Sreenivasan was joined by Tim King, CPEX Real Estate Managing Partner, as the event’s leadership awardees. A central theme in both honoree’s remarks was the Borough’s motto, “Unity is Strength.” King and Sreenivasan each thanked the audience and the leaders around Brooklyn for their hard work to help make this a better place to live, work, and play.

Among other awards given out at the event, the NYU Tandon MakerSpace won the Building Award in the Education category. The MakerSpace is Tandon’s new ideation lab, whose goal is to enable students, members of Tandon’s Future Lab Network, and participants of the school’s K-12 STEM Education program to turn their ideas into reality. Sreenivasan added, “When you visit the place, you will see a sign posted prominently on one of its walls from Thomas Alva Edison, the famed inventor, who once said, ‘There ain’t no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.’ I feel that the spirit of Brooklyn is something like that.” Gensler, the architectural firm that designed the MakerSpace, and Skanska USA, the builders, shared in the award with Tandon and Linda Hallman from NYU’s Office of Construction Management.

“Brooklyn is a part of our DNA, and my colleagues and I are committed to ensuring that Tandon always remains a vital and contributing member of the borough,” Sreenivasan said.

In honoring Sreenivasan with the Building Brooklyn Award, the Chamber, under the leadership of President and CEO Andrew Hoan, reaffirms that Tandon is moving full speed along the Innovation Coastline and accomplishing much along the way.