Ask HN: How to foster hacker culture at my school (Cornell)?

Maybe it's an unfair criticism, but my school (Cornell) seems to lack the kind of ambition/enthusiasm for startups that you hear about at a Stanford or MIT. I've got my own ideas about why that's the case (see below), but my real question is what I/others can do to get other talented and brilliant people excited/passionate about startups, open source and the future of tech (among other things -- given that these are very broad and not always overlapping areas to begin with)? Possible causes: 0. Location location location -- Ithaca, NY is not Silicon Valley or Cambridge, MA. Cornell is pretty much the central hub of activity. But I do think the conditions are ripe for a Research Triangle, NC type of scene (Syracuse was recently named among the most affordable cities in the US, there are major research institutions like Cornell, RIT, University of Rochester, among others in the area) 1. A certain amount of group think -- CS at Cornell seems to focus a lot more on theory/research. I know