AOL, Cornell Tech to fund new labs in New York, Israel

A graduate school cofounded by Cornell University and Israel’s Technion is launching a research lab with money it received from the AOL Internet media corporation.

The New York City-based Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute (part of the Cornell NYC Tech graduate school), which was born out of a 2011 collaboration between the upstate New York university and the Haifa one, announced the new lab’s opening on Wednesday.

The lab, called “Connected Experiences,” or ConnX, will last four years and is funded by a “multimillion” dollar gift from AOL. The exact amount was not disclosed.

The lab will operate in both Israel and New York, and will allow researchers to explore technologies in areas including communication and coordination, food and wellness, education and safety, and information and entertainment.

“The partnership with AOL will allow Cornell Tech and Technion researchers access to resources — platforms and engineering and product knowledge — that is not readily available in academic settings,” said Dan Huttenlocher, dean of Cornell Tech, in a statement.

The gift also supports a fellowship program for graduate students, half of them to be female, in New York and Israel. Faculty in the new ConnX lab will include Shiri Azenkot and Serge Belongie at Cornell Tech, and Anat Rafaeli, Nir Ailon and Roi Reichart at Technion.