Mayor de Blasio lauds inauguration of Tata Innovation Center on Roosevelt Island in NYC

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The Indian-origin global IT company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), announced Dec. 4, a $50 million investment in Cornell Tech. The investment includes a significant gift for the first phase of capital development on the Roosevelt Island campus in New York City, as well as support for collaborating on technology research and expanding K-12 digital literacy programs in the Big Apple.

To recognize the gift, Cornell Tech has inaugurated the Tata Innovation Center on Roosevelt Island. The center, formerly known as The Bridge, aims to bring academia and industry together to share ideas and research on next-generation digital technologies and their commercialization.

“New York City has been proudly partnering with TCS for years, including their sponsorship of the TCS New York City Marathon, work with local schools, and so much more,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is quoted saying in the press release. “TCS’ new partnership with Cornell Tech will help drive New York’s economic competitiveness and advance digital literacy programs to reach even more schools across the city,” de Blasio added.

“The Tata Innovation Center will become a hub for New York’s tech sector and a global icon for how academia and industry can collaborate to leverage technology for the greater good,” Cornell President Martha E. Pollack is quoted saying in a press release. “Cornell trustee Ratan Tata ’59, B.Arch. ’62, and the Tata family of companies have long supported innovation at Cornell; our new partnership with Tata Consultancy Services will drive innovation at Cornell Tech and help the campus reach its full potential for education, research and societal impact,” Pollack added.

Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of the Tata Group, said, “The Tata Group and TCS have a long and celebrated history of investments in education and institution building in the communities in which we operate. The Tata Innovation Center will drive applied research and collaboration between Cornell, industry and the startup ecosystem in emerging areas including human machine interaction and cyber security, benefitting both U.S. business and local communities.”

TCS will be one of the tenants in the Tata Innovation Center, a first-of-its-kind building where a mix of cutting-edge companies from diverse industries could work alongside Cornell academic teams, the University said.

Tata Consultancy Services has operated in New York City for more than 40 years and invested in many areas including local community partnerships

Cornell and TCS plan to  integrate computational expertise in K-12 public education, a  multiyear community engagement effort aimed at building digital fluency and computational acumen among students, educators and schools in the nation’s largest public school system, with a special focus on girls, minorities and the underserved.