CornellNYC Tech taps ex-Twitter CTO as Founding Entrepreneurial Officer

Cornell University’s NYC tech school is taking shape. The school announced today that it has named Greg Pass, former chief technology officer at Twitter and and VP of engineering, as its founding entrepreneurial officer.

Pass, who also graduated with a Computer Science degree from Cornell University in 1997, will be in charge of uniting the new tech school with New York City’s burgeoning tech community, as well as making sure CornellNYC’s academics are actually relevant to the real-world industry needs.

“In the tech industry I’ve experienced first-hand how talented and entrepreneurial engineers are at the heart of productive change,” Pass said in a statement today. “Now, I am honored to be joining the Cornell Tech team as we build a new kind of applied science education—one that will better cultivate young engineers for technological innovation and entrepreneurship, and create new value in collaboration with the start-ups and creative companies that are making New York City a world tech leader.”

Pass was also the co-founder and CTO of the real-time search company Summize, which was acquired by Twitter in 2008 for $15 million in cash and stock (boy that sure seems like chump change now). Before that, he created an image search engine called ToFish that was purchased by AOL, where he spent time as a software engineer and later a system architect.

Given his experience both in launching small companies, and working within large corporations, Pass seems like a versatile choice for advising CornellNYC’s students. The first phase of the school’s campus on Roosevelt Island (mock-up above) won’t be ready until 2017, until then Google has donated space to CornellNYC in its massive NYC offices. Classes are scheduled to begin this Fall.