Tech:NYC Digest: March 22

Tech:NYC Digest: March 22

March 22, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

A blessed Ramadan to all those observing over the next month. In today’s digest, introducing the Tech:NYC Jobs Board, e-bikes get a thumbs up from NYC Parks this summer, and our roundup of ways you can help NYC computer science students this year.

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  • NYC opened its fourth Gigabit Center today in Crown Heights, Brooklyn in partnership with LinkNYC and the tech education nonprofit Digital Girl. The center will offer free high-speed internet access to students and digital literacy programs to older adults as part of the city’s efforts to close the digital divide. (StateScoop)

  • NYC is dropping a ban on e-bikes and scooters in city parks as part of a pilot program to promote safer use of electric micromobility across the five boroughs. (Crain’s New York Business)

  • A new seven-mile pedestrian and bike path is being planned for the Bronx waterfront. The city aims to expand the Harlem River Greenway — which is currently only built out in Manhattan — on the Bronx side of the river, to stretch from Randall’s Island up to Van Cortlandt Park. (Gothamist)

In other reading:

  • Celebrating 10 years of closing the gender gap in tech with Girls Who Code CEO Tarika Barrett (NY1)

  • Who Wants to Buy the Flatiron Building? It Goes Up For Auction Today (Curbed)

  • The neighborhood that epitomizes New York most: Jackson Heights (BBC)

🚨 New resource alert: today we launched the Tech:NYC Jobs Board, a one-stop hub for every open role at every Tech:NYC member company. Explore the jobs board here.

  • The board launches with nearly 4,000 open roles across 700 member companies in the Tech:NYC network, and is built to automatically refresh every 24 hours.

What’s new: There are plenty of recruitment platforms out there, but we noticed a need for one that was locally-vetted and always accurate. To achieve that, we partnered with Getro, a NYC-based startup that’s long been a partner to other tech startups and VCs.

Among the board’s features:

  • It includes every open role, based in NYC or remote-optional, at every Tech:NYC member company;

  • It automatically updates every 24 hours from direct-source inputs — not third-party websites where it’s often difficult to determine the actual status of job postings;

  • It can filter and sort results based on several sector verticals and more than a dozen job function categories;

  • It can visualize new job postings in the order they most recently went online.

"In today's tech ecosystem, startups are forced to do more with less, and job seekers are struggling to find competitive opportunities,” said Getro co-founder and CEO Evan Walden. “As an NYC-based founder, I'm thrilled that Getro can play a part in connecting local job seekers with some of the fastest growing tech startups in the city."

But let’s take a step back: When New York was still in the middle of the pandemic, the unprecedented reshuffling of the labor market pushed many tech workers to reconsider what it meant for their careers — and forced employers to assess how it would impact their recruitment and retention goals.

  • Tech:NYC wanted to help; to do so, we brought in the in the next generation of tech leaders: A cohort of interns we met through the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program spent six weeks with us to design a tool that could catalog opportunities for both current tech professionals and, like them, young New Yorkers excited to land their first job in tech.

  • The first-version dashboard they put together is the foundation for the Tech:NYC Jobs Board we launched today.

But remember: Today’s launch includes roles at Tech:NYC member companies — representing nearly 4,000 jobs. That’s already an impressive number, but if we were somehow able to make all 25,000 startups in NYC member companies, you can only imagine how much that number grows.

  • The bottom line is clear: There’s a lot of reason to be optimistic about New York tech. Even as the broader sector grapples with layoffs and other market corrections, New York remains a hub of talent and opportunity. It’s a credit to the resiliency of our network and the diversity of our economy.  

In other reading:

  • Must work well with ChatGPT: Employees are posting more jobs involving AI tools (NBC News) 

  • Bill Gates’ seven-page letter prediction the future of AI (Gates Notes)

  • The AI Chabots Have Arrived. Time To Talk to Your Kids (New York Times)

  • Alcove Labs, a NYC-based provider of carbon credit management software, raised $3 million in seed funding. Seven Seven Six led the round and was joined by First Round Capital.

  • Amogy, a Brooklyn-based ammonia power solutions provider, raised $139 million in Series B-1 funding. SK Innovation led the round and was joined by Temasek, Korea Zinc, Aramco Ventures, AP Ventures, MOL PLUS, Yanmar Ventures, Zeon Ventures, and DCVC.

  • Auros, a NYC and Hong Kong-based trading and market-making firm, raised $17 million in funding. Vivienne Court led the round and was joined by Bit Digital, Trovio, Epoch Capital, Primal Capital, and others.

  • Blank Street Coffee, a Brooklyn-based coffee shop chain, raised $20 million in funding. Participating investors include Left Lane Capital, HOF Capital, General Catalyst, and Tiger Global.

The NYC Computer Science Opportunity Fair (CS Fair) is looking for volunteers to support NYC's largest annual college and career inspiration event for public high school students studying computer science. For its eighth year, the 2023 CS Fair will take place at the 168th Street Armory on April 25. Over 2,000 students are expected to engage with companies, interact with CS organizations, and learn about opportunities at colleges and universities. Learn more here and use this link to sign up.The Microsoft Philanthropies Technology Education and Learning Support (TEALS) Program is looking for volunteers for the 2023-2024 school year. The TEALS program helps build equitable, inclusive computer science programs in high schools by partnering industry professionals with classroom CS teachers to support courses in schools in NYC and across the country. Visit the TEALS website for more information and to apply.Google for Startups is accepting applications for its Black Founders Fund and Latino Founders Fund. Now in their fourth and second years, respectively, the funds provide $150,000 in non-dilutive cash awards, as well as $100,000 in additional Google Cloud credits, hands-on mentorship, and other business growth support. Learn more and apply by March 26 for the Black Founders Fund here and the Latino Founders Fund here.Urban Future Lab is accepting applications for the Offshore Wind Innovation Hub accelerator program and its Carbon to Value Initiative. Lean more and apply by March 27 and by March 31, respectively.Remedy, a NYC-based product studio, is accepting applications for its Scout Program. Remedy Scout is a small community of founders, investors, and operators who get access to curated events and the opportunity to earn investment carry and revenue commission on referrals. Learn more and apply here.

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