NBCUniversal Launches Tech Center in NJ

NBCUniversal is looking to turn Englewood Cliffs, NJ into East Coast’s Silicon Valley with the launch of its NBCU Technology Center. The facility, which will house 340 staffers by the end of the year, includes a Technology Show Lab and a Media Labs operation led by Sanjay Macwan, who previously headed AT&T’s CTO Council. Macwan will report to Andrew Jordan, senior VP of international operations and technology.
 
The company still is in the midst of hiring technology experts. But when fully staffed, it will be particularly focused on new technologies relating to content, video, mobile, wireless applications, search, virtualization, e-commerce and consumer experiences. The tech center “has been designed to foster real creativity and collaboration, and we think it will quickly become a key center for innovation at NBCUniversal,” said John Wallace, president of NBCU Operations and Technical Services group in a statement.
 
Some of the work will be on short-term projects, operating much like a tech start-up.  “There will be significant focus on rapid output where they are looking for something in short 30-, 60- or 90-day sprints, rather than marathons” to quickly develop new products, Macwan said. In other cases, the Media Labs will take on longer 2-, 5- and even 10-year look at upcoming technologies and how they might impact existing business models. “If you think about the Internet of things, where all of these devices [link] to the network and the user, there are interesting questions of what will be the role of content in that space five years from now,” Macwan said.