Times Union: Area as a world model
Published:
Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - 11:00
I wanted to share an article with you that appeared in the Times Union:
SUNY Poly CEO says high-tech ideas from Albany will lead way
Albany
Years from now, leaders in Washington, D.C., will look to Albany for ideas on how to compete on the global high-tech stage.
At least that's what Alain Kaloyeros, CEO of SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Albany, believes.
Kaloyeros was asked Monday at a question-and-answer session at SUNY Poly whether the $40 billion research and development complex he helped build over the past 20 years has reached its potential. How much does he, Kaloyeros, have left in the tank?
[caption id="attachment_13875" align="alignright" width="290"]
Alain Kaloyeros, Senior Vice President and Chief Executive Officer for CNSE at University At Albany at Kiernan Plaza on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)[/caption]
Kaloyeros said he is more enthusiastic than ever about what he and others are doing to shape and expand the high-tech research model created at SUNY Poly that is now being exported to other areas of the state, such as Buffalo, Utica and Rochester.He said he believes the model will be copied by other states and, someday, by the federal government.
"I'm not done by any stretch of the imagination," Kaloyeros said. "It's an amazing thing happening here in New York."
He said that the traditional economic development strategy in the United States has been to throw money at companies to entice job creation. But that is wasteful, Kaloyeros said, when companies eventually leave or downsize.
And it also can't compete with aid that Asian countries such as China offer in building entire factories for computer chip makers.
"That's the global competition," Kaloyeros said.
Instead, New York has worked to make SUNY Poly an "innovation hub" built on research that attracts companies to the state without the need to give them cash directly.
And now SUNY Poly is in the manufacturing business — with a chip site planned for Utica and a solar panel factory planned for Buffalo.
SUNY Poly owns both sites, which it would lease to suitable tenants.
"What that does is anchor the companies," Kaloyeros said. "They can't just get up and leave."
Kaloyeros even likened the state's spending on nanotechnology to the public works projects that President Franklin D. Roosevelt created during the Great Depression, saying the investment in infrastructure is transforming the economy.
"It's a 21st-century version of that," Kaloyeros said.
He also asked the crowd of about 250 to name the last great company to come out of China, pointing out that the world's most ambitious high-tech companies are from the U.S., such as Google, IBM and Apple.
That, he said, comes from leading in research and development.
"All of this is happening in the U.S.," Kaloyeros said. "We've always led by innovation, and our future is in innovation."
By Larry Rulison Published 8:57 pm, Tuesday, November 18, 2014
lrulison@timesunion.com • 518-454-5504 • @larryrulison
