Cornell Tech and City Manufacturers Partner on New Robotics Training Lab in Brooklyn

NEW YORK — Cornell Tech and a consortium of Brooklyn-based manufacturers announced Sunday the opening of a joint robotics training laboratory at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a 12,000-square-foot facility equipped with 14 industrial robotic arms, automated assembly systems, and a simulated production floor designed to train workers in the operation, programming, and maintenance of the automation equipment that is increasingly common in the borough's food production, packaging, and light manufacturing sectors.

The lab, funded through a $6.8 million grant from the New York City Economic Development Corporation and matching contributions from 11 Navy Yard tenants, will offer six-week certificate programs for workers transitioning from manual production roles as well as advanced courses for technicians seeking credentials in robotic systems integration. Cornell Tech's engineering faculty will co-design the curriculum with production managers from the participating manufacturers, ensuring that the training corresponds directly to the equipment and workflows deployed at Navy Yard facilities.

The opening reflects a broader tension in New York City's manufacturing sector: automation is increasing productivity and keeping some production activities economically viable within the city's expensive real estate and labor market, but it is also displacing workers whose skills were built for manual processes. The Navy Yard's Industrial Business Incubator has been working with tenant companies and workforce development organizations to manage that transition, and the new lab is intended as a practical resource for workers who might otherwise be displaced without viable pathways to updated skills.

"I've been on the production line for 12 years," said Maria Okafor, a packaging line worker at a Navy Yard food company who enrolled in the lab's first cohort. "When they brought in the new automated systems, I thought my job was gone. Being here, learning to program the arm, to troubleshoot when something jams — I feel like I can actually work alongside the machines instead of being replaced by them." Her employer said it has committed to preferential hiring of lab graduates for newly created technician roles that pay approximately $28 to $34 per hour, compared with $22 to $26 for the manual production roles being phased out.

Cornell Tech faculty see the collaboration as a model for how research universities in urban environments can contribute directly to workforce outcomes rather than only to technology development. "The default narrative is that automation destroys jobs," said Professor James Lim of the Cornell Tech Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering group, who helped design the training curriculum. "The more accurate story is that automation changes jobs and creates new ones — but only if workers have the training to fill them. Universities can either sit on the sidelines of that transition or actively help cities navigate it. We chose to help."

The Brooklyn Navy Yard, which hosts more than 500 businesses and employs roughly 12,000 workers, has become a focal point for city efforts to preserve and modernize industrial employment within the five boroughs. Mayor's office representatives attended the lab's opening ceremony and announced that the program will be eligible for city workforce development subsidies that can reduce training costs for participating workers to zero. Similar robotics training partnerships are being explored at the Sunset Park Industrial Business Zone and at facilities in the Bronx, where food processing and distribution operations have also begun deploying automation equipment.

The lab is expected to reach full enrollment by September, with a target of 500 trained workers per year by 2027. Organizers say they are in conversations with the New York City College of Technology and the City University of New York system about articulation agreements that would allow lab certificates to count toward associate degrees in engineering technology — a pathway that would enable motivated workers to continue building credentials while staying employed in the manufacturing sector they know.