Tech:NYC Digest: August 9

Tech:NYC Digest: August 9

August 09, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Tuesday, August 9, 2022 

Happy Tuesday — we hope you haven’t completely melted today. In today’s digest, the people back to pre-pandemic life, the Pokey Award for slowest NYC bus, and reimagining tech internships for the hybrid workplace.

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By the numbers:  

  • New positive cases statewide: 5,280   

    • New positive cases, NYC: 2,760

  • NYC Positivity Rate (Daily): 9.5%

    • NYC Positivity Rate (7-Day Average): 7.9%  

In today’s latest: 

  • New data shows that 54% of Americans said they rarely or never wear a mask indoors around people outside their household, more than double the proportion in January. (Axios)

    • 41% have returned to their “normal, pre-COVID-19 life,” up from 16% who said that in January.

  • NYC officials estimate that more than 4,000 immigrants seeking asylum have arrived in the city after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott chartered buses to send them to NYC, as well as to other cities, in what is being described as a stunt dubbed “Operation Lone Star.” (Gothamist)

  • Individuals who have a New York State driver's license, learner permit, or non-driver ID can now change their gender marker to "X" through the DMV website, making it faster and easier to get an identity document that accurately represents who they are. 

  • Beginning Oct. 3, all residential buildings in Queens will automatically receive weekly collection of leaf and yard waste, food scraps, and food-soiled paper products, in the first-ever borough-wide curbside composting program. (New York Times)

  • The NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign and TransitCenter have revealed the "winners'' of their annual Schleppie and Pokey awards for poor bus service in NYC. The 17th annual Pokey Award, given to the slowest local bus route, went to the M102, which clocked in at an average speed of just 4.6 mph. (Gothamist)

In other reading:

We’re approaching the end of our first Tech Year NYC summer pilot program for students interested in tech careers, and today, we gathered some of the participants to showcase their final projects!

  • Etsy CEO Josh Silverman invited the group to the company’s Brooklyn HQ to hear their ideas, offer feedback, and give the group a taste of what it’s like to work in a NYC tech company (office rooftop perks included)! 

Tech Year NYC set out to accomplish two primary objectives this summer: build on the city’s summer youth employment programs (SYEPs) to provide paid internship experiences inside tech companies, and reimagine what these programs look like given the reality of hybrid work.

When we announced the program, our own Jason Myles Clark teamed up with Girls Who Code CEO Tarika Barrett to write about how accessible internship programs are key to a more equitable tech workforce. Revisit our op-ed here.

  • The models moving forward will have to prioritize flexibility, taking into account part-time jobs, caregiving responsibilities, access to at-home broadband, and a host of other adaptations.

  • More tech companies are expanding their programs into apprenticeships as they seek to remain competitive with future talent pools. (Bloomberg)

  • There were roughly 214,000 apprentices between the ages of 16 and 24 in 2022, more than twice as many as there were a decade ago, according to the most recent Dept. of Labor data.

Our takeaway: Tech companies are still figuring out their post-pandemic workplace norms — interns not excepted. Given ongoing labor market demands, companies should not only keep their internship programs, but offer interns the same flexibility as all other employees. It’s one way to create a reliable talent pipeline — and a more diverse one, at that.   

In other reading: 

  • Medley co-founder Edith Cooper: Don’t Return to the Office for Your Boss. Go Back for Yourself. (New York Times)

  • Can’t stop, won’t stop hiring (Protocol)

  • How a four-day workweek could be better for the climate (Washington Post)

  • Arena AI, a NYC-based developer of autonomous enterprise systems, raised $32 million. Initialized Capital and Goldcrest Capital co-led the round and were joined by Founders Fund, Flexport, Peter Thiel, David Petraeus, and Michael Siebel. (TechCrunch)

  • Axio, a NYC-based provider of cyber risk qualification SaaS, raised $23 million in Series B funding. ISTARI led the round and was joined by insiders Distributed Ventures, IA Capital Group, and Bob Dudley. (TechCrunch)

  • Boisson, a NYC-based non-alcoholic beverage brand, raised $12 million in seed funding. Connect Ventures and Blue Scorpion Investments co-led the round and were joined by Midnight Ventures, Red Krypton, and others. (FinSMEs)

  • Footprint, a NYC-based secure user onboarding startup, raised $6 million in seed funding. Index Ventures led the round and was joined by BoxGroup, Operator Partners, Lerer Hippeau, Palm Tree Crew, Not Boring Capital, K5, and others. (TechCrunch)

  • August 11: Virtual: The Monkeypox Outbreak, with NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan. Hosted by the Washington Post. Register here.

  • August 11: In-person: Climate and NY: What’s Next in Politics, Policy, and Tech, at the Brooklyn Grange. Hosted by the New York Climate Tech Meetup and the Spring Street Climate Fund. Register here.

  • September 21 – 24: In-person and virtual: Unfinished Live 2022, with Circle chief strategy officer Dante Disparte, Future\Perfect Ventures managing partner Jalak Jobanputra, Protocol Labs general counsel Marta Belcher, and others. Register here.

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