Tech:NYC Digest: August 18

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Wednesday, August 18, 2021

In today’s digest, mask mandates for public transit extend into 2022, 3,000 e-scooters deployed in the city’s first pilot program, how smaller tech companies are taking a different reopening approach, and Tech Gives Back (the all-virtual edition) is back!

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By the numbers:

• New positive cases statewide: 4,737 (+1,170)

  • New positive cases, NYC: 2,079 (+557)

• Statewide Fatalities: 20 (+2)

• NYC Positivity Rate: 2.6 percent 

• Statewide Vaccine Progress:

  • Percentage of adults (18+) with at least one dose: 77.8 percent

  • Percentage of total population with at least one dose: 65.5 percent

(For fuller breakdowns, find the state’s numbers here and the city’s numbers here.)

Today’s latest:

• Beginning the week of Sept. 20, Americans who received a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine should be able to begin signing up for a third “booster” shot of the vaccine. Those individuals will be eligible to receive the booster eight months after receiving their second dose. (New York Times)

  • Officials expect to recommend booster shots for people who received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but are waiting for more data in the next few weeks. (Axios)

• The mask mandate for airplanes, trains, buses, airports, and train stations, regardless of vaccination status, has been extended through Jan. 18. The extension is an acknowledgement that dense transit systems remain potentially risky, especially for unvaccinated people amid the Delta surge. (Reuters)

• New York City’s first-ever electric scooter sharing program — supplied by 1,000 Lime, Bird, and VeoRide scooters each — touched down in the East Bronx yesterday. The scooters are part of a limited pilot program initiated last summer by the City Council, and, if all goes well, the city will begin considering expansion proposals. (Gothamist)

  • New Yorkers have been riding personally owned electric scooters, as well as electric bikes and skateboards, in the city for years — even in places where local rules technically prohibit them. But is the city ready for e-scooters? Experts say a lack of protected bike lanes and a sharp increase in cyclist injuries are all issues that need to be addressed before a broader rollout. (The Verge)

• We’re just one day into the city’s indoor vaccine mandate, and some restaurants and gyms are suing Mayor de Blasio, claiming the order unfairly targeted their businesses. The businesses are seeking a permanent injunction against the executive order establishing the mandate. (Crain’s New York)

In other reading:

• Go Ahead. Vaccinate the Kids. (The Atlantic)

• How New York’s Restaurants Got More Expensive — And Why That’s Probably for the Best (Grub Street)

• Why you should be ordering holiday gifts now (Axios)

• Now Going Viral: Meeting Online Friends in Real Life (New York Times)

By this point, most of NYC’s largest tech employers have announced updates to their office reopening plans, given the uncertainty introduced by the Delta variant.

• TL;DR: Most are keeping a finger on the “pause” button, prolonging the “partial reopening” phase, opening offices only to certain fully vaccinated employees, and preparing to implement vaccination requirements more broadly later this year or in early 2022. 

The share of job postings on Indeed requiring vaccination has jumped 90 percent in just the last month. 

• This is increasingly common for frontline roles in restaurants and retail, and new office-based postings in software development, marketing, and sales are also mandating that applicants have the shot too. (Axios)

But the approach the largest tech companies have taken isn’t quite trickling down to smaller startups and mid-sized companies. Many of those have instead pushed ahead with bringing workers back, and some without mandating the vaccine. (Protocol)

• Starry reopened in June and is allowing managers to decide whether to accommodate remote work. The company isn’t mandating vaccines, though unvaccinated employees are required to wear masks, and workers are being incentivized to provide proof of vaccination with $25 bonuses and a raffle for 5,000 stock options.

• Cepton reopened in May and encouraged its workforce to get vaccinated, but stopped short of a mandate. The company said the nature of its work requires more than 90 percent of its workforce to be in-office, but that no cases have been connected to the office.

• C3 AI required its employees to come to the office five days a week earlier this summer and hasn’t released its mask and vaccine policies.

Companies like these seem to stick out when so much of the sector is taking a wait-and-see approach to reopenings — or embracing hybrid work permanently. But they actually could be more in line with macro industry trends.

• Across the broader US workforce, most office workers who Morning Consult surveyed between July 16 and Aug. 5 said they were already back at the office. 

One other read worth your time: 

• Huge segments of the US workforce have used the pandemic to change jobs — or pivot their career paths altogether. That’s especially true for low-wage employees who want more opportunities to grow, and tech companies and tech training nonprofit partners are stepping up to help, writes Steve Lohr in the New York Times.

• Starday, a healthy and sustainable food products startup, raised $4 million in seed funding. Equal Ventures and Slow Ventures co-led, and were joined by Haystack, Great Oaks Venture Capital, XFactor Ventures, and ABV. (TechCrunch)

Tech Gives Back, the annual week of community service hosted by Silicon Valley Bank, is returning Oct. 4 – 8 to bring together thousands of tech workers from around the world to give back to their communities. Now in its 11th year, Tech Gives Back 2021’s theme is focused on diversity, equity, and access, and this year’s volunteer and fundraising opportunities are all virtual with a diverse collection of nonprofits. Learn more and sign yourself and your teams up here.The New York City Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer is seeking proposals for the NYC[x] Moonshot: Financial Inclusion Challenge, a program to support innovative solutions that address the multifaceted barriers unbanked and underbanked New Yorkers in the Bronx and across New York City face and facilitate building community wealth and sustainable economic opportunities. Interactions during the Challenge may uncover acceleration and scaling or technical prototype development and follow-up support opportunities. Learn more and apply by August 30 here.Newlab and the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are partnering on the fifth round of the American-Made Solar Prize, a competition seeking startups to develop innovative software and hardware solutions for the energy market. A two-track structure — one for hardware and one for software — awards US teams up to $3 million in grant funding and partnerships opportunities with the US Dept. of Energy. Reach out with questions here; learn more and apply by October 5 here.Day One is accepting applications for its fellowship program for early-stage founders. The program is brought to you by the same organization that brings you Day Zero — if you’ve focused on a specific market idea but don’t think you’re quite ready for an accelerator program, Day One could be a good fit to help you navigate launching a new business. The next cohort launches Sept. 12. Learn more and apply here.The New York City Economic Development Corporation is working to improve New Yorkers' access to tech resources (news, events, jobs, startups, investors, courses, etc). As part of this effort, they are redesigning Digital.NYC, an online hub for all things tech. They want to hear what you think about the future of tech in NYC — whether you work in or just have an interest in tech. Fill out this 5-10 min survey by August 31 to share your thoughts.

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