New York mayor Michael Bloomberg attended a press conference at the Made in NY Media Center, in DUMBO, Brooklyn yesterday to announce the opening of the new facility and the launch of Cornell NYC Tech’s new degree program in connective media.
The Made in NY Media Center by IFP is an incubator space for storytellers, creative professionals and entrepreneurs across multiple disciplines to collaborate and create new business opportunities through education, entrepreneurship and content creation. It is the result of a partnership between the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) and the New York City Economic Development Corporation.
“We can’t take our position as the world’s media capital for granted, because the way media is produced and consumed is changing dramatically,” Bloomberg said. “Media creators and tech companies have a lot to gain from a strong, collaborative working relationship – and New York City will reap the benefits of that partnership in the form of job creation and global competitiveness.”
“The Media Center is launching this week, and will soon be the incubator and central hub for storytellers from multiple disciplines, industries and platforms,” said Joana Vicente, executive director of the IFP and the Media Center. “Regardless of what tools are used, we’ll be doing what we’ve done for 35 years – curating stories, supporting artists and connecting storytellers to investors, audiences and other artists. We look forward to sharing our programming, partners and events with the creative and tech communities in the coming weeks.”
The Made in NY Media Center by IFP will bring together creative professionals from the film, television, video, gaming, technology and advertising industries. Participants will share affordable community workspace as they build on and develop their creative ideas and businesses. Originally constructed in 1909 as a coffee factory and later used as a shipping and receiving facility, the 20,000-square-foot space on the ground floor of 30 John Street offers 120 dedicated desks along with 40 flexible work spaces, classrooms, editing rooms, conference rooms, a screening room, a public art gallery and a café. With views of the Manhattan Bridge and the East River, the public areas of the center are designed to welcome residents and visitors, and community events will be programmed throughout the year.
The Media Center will also host educational programming. Instructors from IFP will teach courses on creativity and craft, cross-media strategy and career sustainability. For coursework related to technology, entrepreneurship and design, IFP has partnered with General Assembly, a New York-based global education company. All courses, whether individual classes, workshops or long-form educational programming, will be open to the public, and are designed to address the needs of creative and tech professionals in various stages of their careers.
Cornell NYC Tech’s new connective media degree program will be the first degree offered by the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute – a two-year masters degree designed to train the entrepreneurial engineers and technologists desperately needed in the media sector. Graduates of this dual degree program will receive a degree from Cornell University and from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
“The Connective Media program we are announcing today is the first of the dual degree programs to be offered at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute at Cornell NYC Tech, the innovative collaboration between Cornell and the Technion,” explained Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of Cornell NYC Tech. “This novel program addresses the huge need for more tech talent in the media-related businesses that play such an important role in New York City.”
The program is now accepting applications for the first class of students to begin studies in the fall of 2014. The Connective Media degree combines technical, social science and media industry expertise in a broad interdisciplinary two-year program, with an immersive semester-long industry project and extensive engagement with digital media companies in New York City.
The JTCII also announced a series of corporate collaborators who will help shape the program, including The New York Times, Facebook, Hearst, Medium, Betaworks, Tumblr and WordPress. The collaborating companies will provide input and guidance this year to refine the curriculum for this new degree. When the program launches next fall, companies in they will provide real-world projects, mentorship, and industry know-how for students, as well as continuing to provide input and guidance as the program is adjusted.
New York’s production industry contributes more than $7 billion to the local economy, employs 130,000 New Yorkers who earn a living working behind the camera and supports thousands of small businesses throughout the five boroughs. In 2012, more than 250 feature films were shot on location in New York, and currently there are more than 20 episodic series produced on location and at stages in the City with additional series starting production in the coming months.
