"Ten years ago when we tried to hire engineers, we were always competing with Wall Street firms," explains Daniel Ciporin, partner at venture capital firm Canaan Partners. "Now with the crisis, with the contraction in financial services, you see a lot of engineers now looking at other avenues," adds the former CEO of eBay Inc.-owned retail website Shopping.com. One such avenue is Cornell University's winning bid to build a $2 billion applied science campus on Roosevelt Island. Ciporin predicts the project will raise demand for engineering talent in New York City, which will in turn boost VC interest in East Coast technology startups. - Sarah Hashim-Waris