NYC Tech Committee Review #1: Mar 8
Tech Budgets, OTI, Asylum Seeking, 311, NYCHA, and questions I have about it all
The Budget for DoITT (OTI)
Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications FY25 (Fiscal Year 2025) Budget highlights below:
The Proposed Budget is a $8.4MM decrease (-1.07%), with 162 fewer positions (-9.7%), mostly due to 154 vacancies.
A Breakdown of the $775.2M FY25 Budget
Topics of Interest Which Came Up For Me
You can read the entire meeting details here.
NYC AI Action Plan
I didn’t know we had one! It can be found here.
Here’s a summary of the main initiatives and actions proposed:
I’ve not read the whole thing, so I reserve judgment. Feel free to contribute with your assessment, if you’re an AI researcher.
NYC Cyber Academy
Cyber Academy is purportedly a cybersecurity training program, but I can’t find anything about this program by googling.
Why can’t I find more information about this program?? The website copy is totally nonspecific.
is it possible for me to request the curriculum/training programs from OTI? If so, what’s a good draft for that request which respects their time but also helps make this curriculum/program public?Through NYC’s Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI), 21 employees from a cross section of city agencies have graduated from our first-ever NYC Cyber Academy. This training program taught them how to monitor and respond to a variety of cybersecurity threats. Each employee will now act as a liaison for their city agency to safeguard the critical infrastructure and private information of New Yorkers and our city as a whole.
Administrative Tech Programs — Hayes Innovation Prize
Hayes Innovation Prize is like an “employee of the year” award for NYC agency employees who do “high impact innovation”1 and “led game-changing projects and solved difficult problems.”2 It comes with a $1000 prize. I love this program. ❤️
Here are a few examples of the types of work being honored by the prize:
Introducing “secret shopper” programs for NYC agencies to improve efficiency.
vaccinefinder.nyc - connecting New Yorkers to 3,000+ vaccine centers
“Integrating NYPD case data with District Attorney case data”… “now utilized by all City DA Offices” (wow!)
Publicly honoring hard work is worth much more than just the prize money. It really does set an example for what good public service looks like, and it makes me proud to read these stories as a citizen! 😊 This seems more important in public service than in the private sector, where you can just align incentives with bonuses and equity grants.
How can we honor innovative government employees (and citizens!) even more?
NYC Testbed Program
The NYC Smart City Testbed Program partners city agencies with private companies and universities to pilot private emerging technologies in the city, especially technologies that need to be deployed physically (like cameras, air quality monitoring, drone building inspection).
Goal: Create a streamlined path to pilot the most promising and scalable innovative technologies with stakeholder City agencies.
Benefits: Selected organizations will receive the following benefits:
Guidance from OTI’s Smart Cities team through the procurement, legal, cloud/cyber review, and/or other regulatory processes
Piloting an emerging technology solution in real-world conditions using NYC’s natural and built public environment
Partnering with a City agency to address a real-life challenge
Access to public and private sector assets
The program seems awesome. I’m excited to see what comes of it. See also, the Pilot tech program that was launched in partnership between NYCEDC (Economic Development Corporation) and Cornell Tech.
PilotNYC Roadmap Report via NYC/EDC + Cornell Tech, by Cara Eckholm
And the Related Pilot Pitchfest (which was AMAZING!) hosted by Cara Eckholm
NYC Asylum Seekers — OTI’s Budget for Tech
If you have missed the news, NYC has had a migrant crisis over the last few years3, as 150,000+ asylum seekers look to us for help.
The Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT), which is now called Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI), manages the software and IT needs of these asylum seekers.
The budget this year is ~$80M.
There are 2 main components here:
Publicly managed locations (called sites) for asylum seekers need tech services Wifi, Cellular, Cable, devices, lighting, maintenance staff, etc etc… ($18M: $9M for buildout + $9M for operating costs + maintenance)
App development + technology services. Mostly software development + service costs for the case management system (called HOST) for asylum-seekers ($60M)
Now, $60M is a lot of money for purchasing software, so you might naturally wonder: where is all that money going? Unfortunately, I couldn’t get an obvious answer, even after reading this accounting report and this “blueprint to address New York City’s reponse to asylum seekers”. I don’t even know what HOST stands for, because I can’t find documentation for this software anywhere on the internet. Presumably it’s in a contract that I could find through the comptroller’s office somewhere. I would love if a reader dug this up.
Here’s what I do know:
MTX B2B Solutions, LLC is the main vendor for the HOST case management system, so I presume the largest contract and most of the costs are billed by them
OTI itself has to pay employees to work with MTX on this HOST system
Innovative Business Concepts, Inc.4 is the main vendor for QA support + data
Here’s what I want to know:
What are the specific contract deals with MTX B2B Solutions?
What does their software actually look like? Is this something I would approve of as a founder/CEO/CTO/CPO of a VC-backed tech company?
How do I get access to that information? Who do I email / do I need a FOIA request? cc
on this one.
NYC311
311! Everyone’s favorite civilian complaint system for… literally everything!
Lately, the Council Members on the Tech Committee have been a bit harsh with OTI about 311, because many city agencies are failing to properly resolve their 311 complaints.5
Ultimately, the resolution of 311 complaints is up to the administrative agencies of the city, and 311 is responsible for reporting and customer support. Turns out that 9/10 New Yorkers rate 311 customer support a 10 out of 10 experience, which is insane?!?6 If true, NYC probably has the best customer support in the world, I guess.
Anyway, for those interested in resolution issues on 311 complaints (like me and the Council Members!), OTI is working on that:
The Resolution Satisfaction Dashboard is a new internal dashboard at OTI to track all of the complaint resolution issues, so they can be flagged by the mayor’s office and then brought up with the agencies. Notably, CTO Matthew Fraser said, roughly, “very soon we’ll have a public version (I believe by Q2 2024, at the latest by Q3 2024)”. He also said he would gladly give an early preview to any Council Member who asked.
Some questions:
Can I get an early preview for my civic hacking class? One of my students is working on a project that needs this data.
Big Apple Connect
Big Apple Connect is a program to bring free, high-speed internet service to all NYCHA residents. It’s also partially a digital literacy program? But I don’t really understand how, and it isn’t well advertised on the website.
Anyway, the main thing to note here is that the program was very successful! Over 90% of NYCHA residents are now being served, and the program launched in September 2022, so that’s basically 90% of NYCHA residents in 1.5 years of roll out.
Q: Why did Big Apple Connect succeed?
A: Engagement on the ground. CTO Matthew Fraser explained how they worked with Community Boards & community affairs groups to magnify the message and get the word out. They went out on the weekends, they threw community parties and community events.
My thoughts: this sounds like exactly what community boards should be for! Having fun and creating positive change on the weekends — managing and sourcing community events, throwing design-athons, art-athons, hackathons, writeathons. Helping people get jobs. Helping people make friends. Helping people create public art and contribute to public projects. Instead, most community board meetings I attend focus on complaining about whoever the latest problematic neighbor is (often a developer who wants to build new apartments). I hope we can have fun together and enjoy living in the best city in the world together! I hope community boards can help us celebrate and honor our city together more often. And so they/we shall. And so I am happy to help, if this is something you want to do. :)
Farewell, until next month :)
Whew! Lots to cover this hearing — but that makes sense because budget hearings cover everything. Let me know if I sparked your curiosity, because I can probably help!
Also, I’ll be at the next City Council Committee on Technology meeting, and I hope to see you there! 🚀
https://www.nyc.gov/content/oti/pages/government-partners
https://hayesprize.innovation.nyc/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/26/nyregion/migrant-crisis-mayor-eric-adams.html
what is with the names of these consulting companies? lol
A student of mine is working on a small research project to illustrate this
I think there’s a dataset on OpenData which allow you to reproduce this.