Dive Brief:

• Bloomberg Philanthropies donated $100 million to Cornell Tech as it broke ground on its New York City campus, a partnership between the city and Cornell University.

• The Associated Press reports that the new high-tech campus on Roosevelt Island is expected to be completed by the summer of 2017, and students and faculty have been operating out of temporary space in Manhattan since 2013.

• The Bloomberg donation comes with naming rights for the first academic building of Cornell Tech, which will be called the Bloomberg Center, for former mayor Michael Bloomberg’s daughters Emma and Georgina, according to the article.

Dive Insight:

The genesis of Cornell Tech came from a push by city officials to foster growth in the high-tech industry in New York. According to the AP, the New York City Economic Development Corporation’s Applied Sciences NYC initiative sought proposals from various universities interested in opening a new campus in cooperation with the city. Cornell’s proposal won. The New York Times reported that Cornell Tech’s residential building will be the tallest passive-house high-rise in the world, meaning its energy consumption will be just a fraction of what is considered normal in other high-rises. The first academic building will also be environmentally friendly, producing all the energy it needs with geothermal, solar, and other sustainable energy systems, according to that article.

Academically, Cornell Tech bridges academia and industry, bringing its students together with business leaders and tech entrepreneurs. It offers master’s, doctoral, and post-doctoral programs.