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Diane Levitt, senior director of K-12 education at Cornell Tech, discusses the mission of our K-12 initiative and how we aim to prepare every child for full citizenship in the digital age.

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A group photo of the winners of the 2018 startup awards
A woman speaking into a microphone
A woman smiling and speaking into a microphone
A man presenting litOS

Startup Award winners with David Tisch (right)

Darya Moldavskaya, Master in Computer Science ’18, co-founder of ReverCare.

Eliza Harkins, Johnson Cornell Tech MBA ’18, co-founder of Kipit.

Raoul Nanavati, Johnson Cornell Tech MBA, co-founder of litOS

NEW YORK, NY – Cornell Tech awarded four student startup companies co-working space and pre-seed funding worth up to $100,000 in its fourth annual Startup Awards competition — the first held on the new Roosevelt Island campus. A panel of tech industry leaders selected the winning student teams, which will work in the Tata Innovation Center, Forest City New York’s state of the art office space on Cornell Tech’s campus.

“With the Startup Awards, Cornell Tech provides student teams the support they need to kickstart their creative ideas after graduation. We’re proud of the ambition our students have shown in forming companies that pursue innovative solutions to real-world problems” said David Tisch, head of Startup Studio at Cornell Tech and managing partner of BoxGroup.

This year’s winners are:

  • litOS: 800 million illiterate people worldwide struggle to use smartphones. litOS is a text-free, voice-assisted mobile OS solution to solve this.
  • ReverCare: ReverCare connects families to curated resources and coaches to ease the burden of caring for elderly loved ones.
  • Kipit: Kipit builds devices that automatically track your personal items and alert you before you leave anything behind.
  • Crater: Crater is a revolution in local TV led by a new generation of creators. Armed with AI-powered video tools, anyone can create their own self-produced local TV shows and episodes through their mobile phone.

The Startup Awards are a capstone of the studio curriculum, a key component of the master’s experience at Cornell Tech which brings together multi-disciplinary teams to solve real-world problems. In their final semester, every student enrolls in Startup Studio, where teams of students across programs — computer science, operations research and information engineering, business, health tech, connective media, electrical and computer engineering, and law — develop ideas and product prototypes for startups in an academic setting. Teams who want to pursue their startups after graduation compete in the Startup Awards for pre-seed funding and co-working space.

Cornell Tech created the award program to help students who have strong prototypes and pitches from their academic work at Cornell Tech, but may lack the networks and resources necessary to support themselves in the initial stages before seed funding traditionally becomes available. Cornell Tech’s Startup Studio program is run by Tisch and Greg Pass, Cornell Tech’s Chief Entrepreneurial Officer and former Twitter CTO.

More than 40 startups have been formed on the Cornell Tech campus to date, through the Startup Awards and the Runway Startup Postdoc Program at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute. The companies have raised a total of $46 million in funding, employ more than 170 people, and 93% of them are headquartered in NYC. Past Startup Awards winners include Uru, which was recently acquired by Adobe; Trigger Finance, which was acquired by Circle last fall, and Thread Learning and Ursa, both of which have seen material consumer adoption since launch.

The Startup Award winners will work out of the Cornell Tech space at the Tata Innovation Center. Designed by Weiss/Manfredi architects and developed by Forest City New York, the first-of-its-kind building houses an extraordinary mix of cutting-edge companies working alongside groundbreaking Cornell academic teams: from recent Cornell Tech graduates hustling to commercialize a new idea, to start-ups on the verge of explosive growth, and established companies developing leading edge technologies and products. Tenants include tech and investment firm Two Sigma, Citigroup, Ferrero International, Tata Consultancy Services, and NYC FIRST.

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Cornell Tech, Cornell University and NYU faculty recently co-authored an article on Vox about their joint research into the role of technology in intimate partner violence. Written by Cornell Tech faculty Thomas Ristenpart and Nicola Dell, Cornell University Assistant Professor Karen Levy, and NYU Assistant Professor Damon McCoy, the piece delves into the group’s research into spyware used by domestic abusers to keep track of their partners.

An excerpt from the article:

More and more people who commit violence against their intimate partners are using technology to make their victims’ lives worse.

Consider one case we came across in our research: A woman in New York City who was being abused had sought help at a counseling center — privately, she thought. Her partner, however, had installed a tracking device on her phone, drove to the center, and literally kicked in its door. Counselors ended up calling the police.

Violence against intimate partners is widespread: It affects nearly one in four women and one in six men at some point in their lives. That violence is harrowing enough. But now imagine that your abusive girlfriend, boyfriend, or spouse has the ability to track your every location, read your text messages, listen to your phone calls, and more.

That degree of access gives abusers a disturbing level of control over their victims’ digital lives, exacerbating whatever physical, emotional, and sexual abuse they are inflicting.

Victim advocates, academics, and tech companies must work together to combat the problem. The first step is identifying the tactics and tools that abusers are using. We recently took a close look at one specific type of software that they often deploy: spyware used to track and monitor victims.

News media, academic researchers, and victim advocates have long acknowledged the threat of spyware in domestic abuse situations. But our research (conducted with our students) brings to light the ease with which spyware can be deployed by abusers, and the broad scope of software usable as spyware.

Continue reading on Vox.com

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Nanit, founded at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute Runway Startup program, recently secured $14 million in Series B funding led by Jerusalem Venture Partners, with additional participation from existing investors Upfront Ventures, RRE Ventures, Vulcan Capital and Vaal Investment Partners according to a release from the company.

The company created the first smart baby monitor to use computer vision technology to help parents with their baby’s sleep development. “Nanit is redefining the baby monitor space by creating a non-wearable device that provides parents with valuable information about their baby’s sleep development,” said Dr. Assaf Glazer, Nanit CEO and co-founder in the release. “This is a game changer not only for parents, but for research institutes.”

Read the full release.

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Associate Professor of Information Science Tapan Parikh recently received one of two 2018 Kaplan Faculty Fellows Awards for his commitment to service learning initiatives.

“It’s a privilege to join this community of Cornell faculty that are focused on service and engagement,” Parikh told the Cornell Chronicle. “I am looking forward to using the award for Remaking the City course, where it will support teams of graduate student collaborating with local non-profits and civic organizations.”

Remaking the City is a workshop-based service learning course that engages students in participatory design projects using technology to reimagine community services and public infrastructure in urban contexts. Masters students at Cornell Tech are paired with community-based organizations to understand and address their technology needs and to collectively design solutions to challenges facing the city and its inhabitants.

Julie Nucci, adjunct professor of Materials Science and Engineering and director of education and outreach for the Platform for the Accelerated Realization, Analysis, and Discovery of Interface Materials, also received the award.

Read the full story in the Cornell Chronicle.

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Cornell Tech students, alumni and faculty explain what Deep Tech is and how it influences their business models. Two of the companies mentioned in the video: Ursa and Uru, are using Deep Tech concepts to create new technologies to fix current problems.

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3 people posing for a group photo
Jane Swanson talking with a student
A student showing off his prototype

[From left to right] Melody Smith, CTSC, Tanuj Ahuja, Connective Media ’19, and Roosevelt Island resident Jay Jacobson show the universal hinge they developed that clasps onto a walker with a small platform to set a bag on top.

Sarah Le Cam [left], Computer Science ’18, demonstrates the tool she made with her team to Jane Swanson, Assistant Director of Government & Community Relations at Cornell Tech.

Ari Yannakogeorgos [right], LLM ’18, demonstrates his team’s project to a Roosevelt Island resident.

This semester, students from Cornell Tech and Weill Cornell Medicine teamed up with Roosevelt Island seniors to understand some of the challenges older adults face, and how technology solutions could make their lives a little easier.

Over the past seven weeks, the MakerLAB — led by Niti Parikh — at Cornell Tech’s Tata Innovation Center hosted the students and Roosevelt Island seniors as they developed solutions based on the residents’ real-life challenges. Six interdisciplinary teams leveraged 3D printing technology and the design-thinking to transform their ideas into physical products.

Here’s what the teams came up with:

Challenge #1: How might we create a product that will help consumers remember everyday tasks?

Students developed a mobile app-based reminder to take your keys before leaving home, straps to hang keys near the door and plastic adapters to grasp keys more easily for seniors with arthritis.

Challenge #2: How might we develop a product that will help our consumers with getting dressed?

Students developed assistive mechanisms with hooks to button up a shirt and an existing sock support tool.

Challenge #3: How might we develop a product to help our consumers with limited strength/dexterity to use household products?

Students created an adjustable strap to help open doorknobs, jars, bottles, etc. and to tighten those items, as well.

Challenge #4: How might we create, modify, or augment existing products to improve their accessibility for our consumers — i.e. grasping, holding , twisting, opening, lifting, identifying?

Students created a device that latches onto a seat belt for easier application.

Challenge #5: How might we create a product that enhances our consumer’s ability to carry essentials when they leave their residence?

Students developed a universal hinge that clasps onto a walker with a small platform to set a bag on top.

Challenge #6: How might we develop a product that could enhance physical activity for our consumers with limited mobility?

Students created a device that holds an iPad to practice physical therapy online, and clamps to a walker for seniors to practice movements on their own.

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Cornell Tech alumni startup Uru was recently acquired by Adobe according to a release on the company website. This makes the second acquisition of a Cornell Tech startup.

Uru used computer vision to allow brands to seamlessly place advertisements into video. According to the company’s announcement, the team will join Adobe working on Adobe Sensei – the company’s AI and machine learning platform.

“AI and Adobe Sensei represent that next big chapter in the company’s journey – and the Uru team is honored to be part of it,” the company said in their announcement. “There are exciting plans and new AI innovations on Adobe’s roadmap so it’s time to get to work.”

Read the full release.

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Nicola Dell, assistant professor at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech, recently won two Best Paper awards at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Montreal. Dell’s papers “A Stalker’s Paradise”: How Intimate Partner Abusers Exploit Technology” (co-authored by Professor of Computer Science Thomas Ristenpart) and “You Can Always Do Better!” The Impact of Social Proof on Participant Response Bias” cover research into the effect of technology on intimate partner violence and the use of social proof to prevent participant response bias in research studies.

Three other Cornell Tech faculty members and one PhD student also presented papers at the conference.

Shiri Azenkot, Assistant Professor at the Jacobs Institute

A Face Recognition Application for People with Visual Impairments: Understanding Use Beyond the Lab. Yuhang Zhao, Shaomei Wu, Lindsay Reynolds, Shiri Azenkot

Wendy Ju, Assistant Professor at the Jacobs Institute

VR-OOM: Virtual Reality On-rOad driving siMulation. David Goedicke, Jamy Li, Vanessa Evers, Wendy Ju. [Video]

Fast & Furious: Detecting Stress with a Car Steering Wheel. Pablo E. Paredes, Francisco Ordonez, Wendy Ju, James A. Landay. [Video]

Mor Naaman, Associate Professor at the Jacobs Institute

Yuhang Zhao, PhD student advised by Shiri Azenkot

Enabling People with Visual Impairments to Navigate Virtual Reality with a Haptic and Auditory Cane Simulation. Yuhang Zhao, Cynthia L. Bennett, Hrvoje Benko, Edward Cutrell, Christian Holz, Meredith Ringel Morris, Mike Sinclair

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Follow four teams of Cornell Tech master’s students as they develop a business idea in hopes of winning a Cornell Tech Startup Award. Winning companies receive $100,000 investment in their startup company to help them pursue their company after graduation.

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