The city is home to three colleges, including Cornell University, which has heavily invested in fostering bright, entrepreneurial minds. The university offers credits for students who want to take their startups to the next level, and introduced a new program to help students turn their technology designs into licensed products for commercial use… Greg Galvin is one of the pioneers of the Ithaca startup scene. Galvin launched three businesses over the past 20 years, which have brought in approximately $400 million in revenue and created 300 jobs in the city. He came to Ithaca in 1980 as a Ph.D. student at the university. His first company, Kionix Inc., which manufactured software sensors, was based on Cornell research so he needed to remain local. At the time, Galvin says there were about ten startups in the area. Today, it’s a very different scene … a small town with only 30,000 residents, now counts roughly 100 startups.
Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/09/smallbusiness/ithaca-startups/

See also: Marc Andreessen on the Future of Silicon Valley(s), and the Next Big Technology