Welcome Borough president Markowitz, it is an honor to have you here with us today, welcome ladies and gentlemen; faculty staff, students and guests. It is nice to see that we gather together to this important event, for Polytechnic University this represents a new time, new directions, and we are all excited. Director Saul Shapiro from NYC economic Development Corporation, you are also most welcome. Since the Boyh-Dole act came in effect in the 80’s giving the universities the ownership for the intellectual property arising from federally funded research projects, academia proved its importance on society as the recent estimate states that over 60,000 jobs have been created from the inventions coming from the federally funded research. Although it is exciting to hear sometimes how some unviersites receive $2-300M from a single patent, the more important aspect is the creation of jobs. And this is how we feel at Polytechnic University and that s why we are here today. We do want to teach our students so that they are not afraid of starting companies and creating jobs.
Polytechnic University is a technology university but today’s technology has started to be complex. The grandfathers can not anymore easily explain their grandchildren how the modern devices operate, and it is difficult even for us, it is difficult to see where the future technology takes us, it is difficult to see the future directions of technologies and it is also for us quite difficult to understand the needs in the educational content. But even if it is difficult to predict, we are able to prepare. So as the prediction is difficult, we can prepare the children in the society for the future.
For this reason we at Polytechnic University teach Information Technology, we teach Biotechnology and we teach Nanotechnology, all the important tools for our students in their future employment. We also teach about Energy, about Environment and about Health, the three cornerstones in the future Knowledge Based Society as manufacturing will become less and less important in USA due to financial and security factors. We base it on the Power of PolytThinking and we have started to take our experience in engineering to stem cell research, we have taken our expertise in wireless telecommunications to build sensor systems, all this provide healthier and safer society again showing how important the close relations between education and society are. So we bring the students to the frontiers of technology, bring them knowledge and security and confidence to face the future.
Focus on innovation is apparent for us, for the USA education as we have experience on diversity, we respect diversity and thus we innovate from diversity. Focus on innovation is also beneficial as innovation can not be outsourced. Innovation can not be outsourced as we base the atmosphere on our experience, behavior and the innovation then comes form the human minds, innovation stays here in our risk-loving country.
We shall change our education, we shall not anymore use one-directional teaching, we involve the students, we offer problem solving opportunities and we teach hands-on experiments. A good example is an undergraduate student who wanted research experience and staid in my lab for half a year. In the end of the semester he gave my a holiday card thanking for the experience and his statement “I never knew how exciting learning can be” really affected me in a motivational manner.
This is what our Brooklyn Enterprise on Science and Technology is for, we initiate curiosity, we initiate excitement, we teach students not to be afraid of new, not to be afraid of change and teach them to take risks and face the challenges their learning creates. We shall offer courses and workshops in patent process, business planning and fund raising. The BEST will have a create atmosphere. And in the end, I would like to emphasize that when we teach, the students learn more and they will know more. And the beauty of this is that when one knows more, one can dream more. When one knows more, one can dream more. And we want our students, when they graduate, to walk out out Poly with mind full of dreams, dreams which will build the companies and dreams that will create the jobs.
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