Mayor Bloomberg Launches NYC Media Lab
Partnership of the City, Polytechnic Institute of NYU and Columbia University Will Connect Media Companies with Academic Institutions and Drive Independent Technology Research
- nyc.gov June 14th, 2010
- Source: http://home2.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fhome2.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2010a%2Fpr268-10.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today launched NYC Media Lab, a new initiative to promote innovation within New York City’s media industry. The new laboratory – a consortium of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) and Columbia University – will drive new technology research and connect companies looking to advance new media technologies with local academic institutions undertaking related research. NYC Media Lab builds on models established at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University and is the nation’s first government-supported laboratory for media innovation. It will be housed within the NYU Polytechnic Institute campus in Downtown Brooklyn. Mayor Bloomberg made the announcement at the Wired “Disruptive by Design” conference held at the Morgan Library and Museum, where he was joined by New York City Economic Development Corporation President Seth W. Pinsky, NYU-Poly Provost Dianne Rekow, Columbia University Vice President for Intellectual Property & Technology Transfer Orin Herskowitz, and AOL Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong, an advisor to the City’s MediaNYC 2020 initiative.
“Many of New York City’s 100 universities and colleges are conducting new media-related research within areas that the City’s 10,000 media companies are looking to expand, but all too often that connection is made slowly or never at all. The NYC Media Lab will bring these two forces together,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “And by sponsoring its own independent research driven by private sector interests, the NYC Media Lab will further establish the City as a center for next-generation media research and commercial development.”
New York City Economic Development Corporation will provide $250,000 to establish NYC Media Lab, which will be located in Downtown Brooklyn at the NYU-Poly Center for Advanced Technology in Telecommunications and Distributed Information Systems. During its inaugural year it will host a minimum of 10 roundtable discussions between the private sector and academic institutions on topics ranging from technology innovation to business model redesign to legal issues. NYC Media Lab will host its first roundtable discussion this summer, focusing on the future of online and mobile video. The event, sponsored by WPP, the world’s largest communications services group, will bring together senior product and strategy leaders from across WPP’s portfolio of companies with faculty experts from Columbia, New York University and its Polytechnic Institute, who are currently engaged in research on the topic.
