Step one: "Hey big-name famous professor, want a job at Stanford NY? We'll pay you $big_face_money and you'll get all our fancy new facilities, plus the Stanford name, and whatever the hell else you want." Repeat 200 times.
Step two: The professors attract the grad students.
Step three: The grad students create the ecosystem.
(note: along with Columbia, though the hackathons are hosted at NYU Courant)
Would you rather use that incubator or the Stanford system?
Stanford's president founded a reasonably successful startup.
Together Cornell and Technion have put together a solid proposal. Cornell has an excellent existing Medical School model, with research components being located at the upstate campus and applied components being located in the City campus. This split model has not only served them extremely well, but it has allowed for them to allocate space and resources in a very efficient manner.
Technion, on the other hand, is likely one of the brightest stars internationally in developing applied technologies for markets
As a Cornell graduate myself, who actually did my graduate thesis on Roosevelt Island, proposing distributed infrastructural solutions for waste management and sewage treatment, the potential of Roosevelt Island is exceptional.
Even the Van Alen Institute, after their success with the Governors Island competition sponsored a Roosevelt Island competition that proposed some excellent solutions for public use of the Island. That suggests that Roosevelt Island will most likely be awarded this round to either Standford or Cornell, since the process has been developing for some time.
For more information about Cornell's bid, you can see the presentation itself: http://www.cornell.edu/video/?videoID=1751 7min video
http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-cornell-technion-nyc-e... 6 pages of proposals.
EDIT - More info here: http://www.cornell.edu/nyc/
I saw Cornell Dean of Computing and Information Sciences Dan Huttenlocher present the proposal at Zimride in SF a couple of months ago, and it was clear that by partnering with Technion, their proposal may even be considered to have the lead over Standford, because not only does Cornell have the NY State political support, and with the existing Medical Campus, it has on the ground proof of it's bi-campus capabilities. Also the Israel/NY power connection is certainly something that can't be discounted with the Technion partnership. Whereas Standford has only the promise of $ 2.5B, and the - fingers crossed - hope that their unique entrepreneurial culture can cross the country and flourish in a completely contrary East Coast culture. Perhaps this can be seen as a classic East Coast Power, vs. West Coast Money battle.
In the end I think NYC will award both the Jay Street location and the Roosevelt Island locations, with NYU coming out a clear winner, and Cornell/Technion and Standford going to the wire for the win on the Island, with my money on Cornell/Technion for the last minute win.
ps. interestingly enough, Roosevelt Island, previously named Blackwell and then Welfare Island, was home to one of America's most notorious mental institute for the criminally insane -- though back in the days, they did like to incarcerate the poor and destitute and perfectly sane Germans (who were considered the lowest and most despised immigrants of the time)
