C4Q in the News

C4Q continues to make the case for Willets Point, Queens as the site for a new applied sciences campus. Over the last few days, we received additional coverage from Sinovision, Times Ledger, and 77 WABC Red Eye Radio.

The Chinese-language Sinovision video clips (1 and 2) illustrate how far we have come since we first began organizing this initiative. Local leaders, including Councilmember Peter Koo and Assemblywoman Grace Meng, spoke in favor of considering Queens for the new university.

The Times Ledger piece and the 77 WABC Red Eye Radio interview gave us additional opportunities to showcase Queens as the ideal site and to build upon our growing local movement.

Queens, culture of risk

Kudos to Mr Wadhwa for addressing the intangible points of NYC’s Applied Sciences initiative that were absent in the Mayor’s announcement earlier last week. [Mayor Bloomberg, this is how New York can beat Silicon Valley] As Mr Wadhwa correctly pointed out, it’s not just creating a great university that will create this new innovation center and this new Silicon Valley. There are other factors involved. Boston possesses great universities such as Harvard and MIT but they haven’t become the entrepreneurial center. In order to create Silicon Valley 2.0, there must be the capital investment on one hand and the existing element of a risk tolerant culture on the other. Om Malik supported the same argument earlier this year. One without the other = handicap.

Queens, perhaps NYC’s forgotten borough yet home to over 2.2MM people, possesses the inherent personalities needed for the future success of the initiative. Known as one of the most diverse city in the country with ethnic Chinese, Koreans, Indians, Dominicans, and Jamaicans enclaves scattered across the County and a 23% Asian Population, Queens is culturally unique to become the future site. Furthermore, over 75% of the Asians over the age of 25 completed college and of that subgroup, another 50% continued on to obtaining at least a Bachelors – a statistical indicator of the “nerdiness” referred to by Paul Graham in his 2006′s essay on creating a Silicon Valley. Alongside the greater than average Asian population, Queens also has a higher population of Blacks and Hispanics that showed lower education levels according to 2010 US Census data. To Mr Wadhwa’s point about educating the underprivileged, this creates an opportunity for all the ethnic pockets to learn from each other culturally and intellectually. Also to Mr Wadhwa’s point, Queens contains the immigrant entrepreneurs cited in the article, it posseses the communities and space to develop this colloborative risk-tolerant culture, and it is competing with Finance for cultural influence, thought, space, and, ultimatley, talent.

The case for Queens – Silicon Valley 2.0 grows. Consider Queens.

Upcoming C4Q Info and Volunteer Recruitment Session

If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail us at info(at)coalitionforqueens.org. Hope to see you there!

Welcoming the Latest Supporters of C4Q

Over the last two weeks, C4Q gained additional key supporters from the political and civic community.

Councilmembers Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside), Ruben Wills (D-Jamaica), and Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans) support the vision of C4Q and the idea of transforming Willets Point, Queens into a strong economic center like Silicon Valley 2.0. We are especially pleased to welcome Councilmember Comrie to C4Q, given his critical role as Head of the Queens Delegation and Chair of the Land Use Committee. We also seek to strengthen our outreach to the cultural arts community, and believe that Councilmember Van Bramer, as Chair of the Cultural Affairs and Libraries Committee, can help us accomplish that goal.

Lastly, we are happy to have the support of Welcome to Whitestone, a commercial and residential civic association. We are building momentum for C4Q through our supporters, and will continue reaching out to stakeholders in the community.

Reporting back from the C4Q Team’s Weekend Outing

This past weekend, the C4Q team came together to work on a number of pressing issues in light of the recent announcements about the Applied Sciences NYC Initiative. But first we started the day off with delicious dim sum at East Buffet on Main Street in Flushing, Queens. Given that C4Q is supported by volunteers, we wanted to make the most of our team building time.

We made a lot of progress within a few short hours. At the end of the day, we finalized our petition, updated our social media outlets (including the website and Facebook page), drafted an op-ed for the NY Daily News, and created a new template for our presentation to community organizations and elected officials.

Given the success of this past outing/work session, the C4Q team will continue getting together on Sundays. We invite all interested individuals to join us for these fun sessions. For more information, contact us at info (at) coalitionforqueens.org.