$133-Million Gift Will Support Cornell’s N.Y. Tech Campus

Qualcomm Inc. co-founder Irwin Jacobs and his wife Joan are donating $133-million to help create an innovation institute at Cornell University’s technology campus in New York City, according to Bloomberg.

The gift, announced Monday, will support a two-year master’s program at the Roosevelt Island campus, under development by Ithaca, N.Y.-based Cornell and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology of Haifa, Israel. The pair won a contest to build the campus and were awarded a land grant and $100-million. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the campus could generate hundreds of spinoff companies over the next 30 years.

“We believe strongly in the mission of this international collaboration to drive innovation and to foster economic development,” the couple—both Cornell alumni—said in a statement. Qualcomm is the largest maker of semiconductors for mobile phones.

Read more about the Jacobses, who are in the Philanthropy 50, our annual report on the top private donors of 2012.