Tech:NYC Digest: July 14

July 14, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Friday, July 14, 2023

We’re back with another summer Friday edition of the Tech:NYC Digest, featuring our Friday Five highlights in New York tech this week.

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100 Best Workplaces for Innovators 2023 (Fast Company)

It’s never surprising to see so many homegrown New York tech companies on lists like this, but that never makes it any less exciting! Congrats to Tech:NYC members Etsy, IBM, Adobe, DigitalOcean, Spring Health, Spotify, and many others!

Urban planning gets an AI-powered boost thanks to this Brooklyn startup (Crain's New York Business)

The Brooklyn Navy Yard-based co:census has attracted a list of clients that includes Ford Motor Co. to its AI-assisted platform, which helps urban planners, city officials, architects, and others gather and analyze community input to help shape their designs. The startup was founded by Tiasia O'Brien, a Bushwick resident who wanted to ensure that communities have a more direct voice in what happens in their neighborhoods.

A drone in the sky? At New York beaches, it might be spying on sharks (Gothamist)

Even if they bode well for the health of New York's waters, the recent run of shark bites has sent an understandable fright into city beachgoers. Drone technologies, along with the related training and certifications, offer more advanced ways to keep New Yorkers safe, and we’re excited to see them applied to meet even more of the city’s public safety and climate monitoring goals. (Related: Tech:NYC recently hosted a summit with Mayor Eric Adams to spotlight what many of those use cases would look like right here in NYC.)

Record paid family leave claims made in New York last year (Spectrum News)

Four years after it became law, the state's paid family leave program saw a record number of claims in 2022. The 163,124 claims marked a roughly 35% increase from 2018, the year that state paid family leave first became available. Our takeaway: If you offer generous benefits to workers, they’ll take them. And better benefits support better workers.

The top spots to book for NYC Restaurant Week this summer (TimeOut New York)

Get those reservations booked now lest you miss out on your favorite deals! Restaurant Week kicks-off July 24, and you have nearly 500 options to choose from…

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