NYU Tandon School of Engineering and Turkey’s Boğaziçi University to Share Incubator Space

NYU Tandon School of Engineering Dean Katepalli Sreenivasan and Gülay Barbarosoğlu, the President of Boğaziçi University (BU), in Istanbul, Turkey, have signed an agreement to provide BU-affiliated entrepreneurs with a startup gateway in New York, leveraging the city’s burgeoning entrepreneurial landscape and the supportive infrastructure of NYU Tandon Incubators.

As part of the agreement, the NYU Tandon incubator system will house an accelerator for BU-affiliated startup companies. The accelerator program will launch in fall 2016, with up to four Turkish companies participating during each of three cycles per year. During their three months stay in NYC, new Turkish companies will gain access to startup support and mentoring; receive guidance on product-market fit and raising revenue; and attend regular roundtables, seminars, and workshops. The schools plan to offer seminars and workshops in both New York City and Istanbul.

The arrangement will provide BU entrepreneurs in the high-tech sector with important insight into the U.S. market, as well as exposure to potential investors, partners, and clients; similarly, companies already in NYU’s incubator system will benefit from networking, discussion, and potential association with BU’s startups. The agreement was signed April 22, 2016, at NYU Tandon.

“I am excited at the possibilities for international entrepreneurial collaboration presented by a partnership with Boğaziçi University,” said NYU Tandon Dean Sreenivasan. “It is gratifying to know that our counterparts in Turkey share our focus on entrepreneurial efforts that can better the world, including bioengineering, urban systems and infrastructure, information and communication systems, and clean energy. By working together, we will encourage activities within those spheres and beyond.”

Boğaziçi University President Barbarosoğlu said: "We are a university that attracts the best minds of Turkey with a strong entrepreneurial culture. Coming to New York City and collaborating with the NYU Tandon School of Engineering is an exciting opportunity for the students, faculty, and alums of two universities. Boğaziçi University alums have a strong presence in the tri-state area and can contribute to this effort, bridging not only the two universities but also high technology businesses of Istanbul and New York City."

In 2009, NYU Tandon became home to the first technology incubator with New York City support, and it launched the city’s first cleantech incubator with funding from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).  Today, Tandon’s incubator system supports more than 40 start-up companies in three locations: a data-focused incubator on SoHo’s Varick Street, one in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn focused on digital technology, and a third in Downtown Brooklyn’s MetroTech Center with a focus on clean-energy technology.

The NYU Tandon Incubators have forged alliances with international business entities including the German Accelerator, which brings German entrepreneurs to the Varick Incubator; the Berlin Cleantech Business Park and Innovation Center; the Ontario Centers of Excellence, the Danish Cleantech Hub and the Dutch business development group called East Coast Electric. Additionally, the NYC ACRE incubator worked with a Scottish company, Smarter Grid Solutions, a spin-out of Strathclyde University in Glasgow, and a Dutch electric vehicle charging company called EVBox.

About Boğaziçi University

Boğaziçi University was established in 1863 as Robert College, the first American college founded outside the borders of the United States. In 1971, it was transformed into Boğaziçi University, an elite Turkish public research university that has kept the liberal arts education tradition and English as the language of instruction. Since then, it has expanded its undergraduate and graduate programs and added new campuses. Currently, Boğaziçi University is one of the most prominent universities in Turkey with outstanding undergraduate and graduate programs in natural and social sciences, humanities, engineering, education, and applied disciplines. It is the most sought after university for students in Turkey and the region, with world-class faculty, top-notch laboratories and facilities, and a breathtaking campus. The total number of students has reached 15,000 with more than 3,800 graduate students. Boğaziçi University pursues high impact research with its 32 academic departments, six graduate institutes, and 19 research centers, covering a wide range of disciplines.   The university attracts research funding from both national and international research funding organizations as well as from industry.  Partnerships with leading academic institutions across the world have strengthened the university’s prominence in research. The university is currently involved in 50 ongoing European projects. Boğaziçi University researchers also take part in various U.S.-based NIH (National Institutes of Health) and NSF (National Science Foundation) projects. www.boun.edu.tr/en-US/Index

About the New York University Tandon School of Engineering

The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, when the NYU School of Civil Engineering and Architecture as well as the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (widely known as Brooklyn Poly) were founded. Their successor institutions merged in January 2014 to create a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a tradition of invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship. In addition to programs at its main campus in downtown Brooklyn, it is closely connected to engineering programs in NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai, and it operates business incubators in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn.