Tech:NYC Digest: May 9

Tech:NYC Digest: May 9

May 09, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Monday, May 9, 2022  

The ☀️ has returned to NYC! In today’s digest, Gov. Hochul tests positive for COVID-19, subway ridership finally rivals pre-pandemic levels, and announcing Tech Year NYC (and the ways your company can get involved).

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By the numbers:  

  • New positive cases statewide: 5,989    

    • New positive cases, NYC: 2,102

  • NYC Positivity Rate: 4.9 percent

  • Statewide Vaccine Progress: 

    • New Yorkers with at least one dose: 90.3 percent

    • New Yorkers who are fully vaccinated: 77.0 percent

In today’s latest:

  • Rolling seven-day positivity rates are now over 20 percent in some NYC neighborhoods as a “fifth wave” spreads statewide. (NBC New York)

    • Long Island City stands at 21.3 percent, and large swaths elsewhere in Queens are around 15 percent. In Manhattan, rates are highest in the Financial District and Lincoln Square. Get the latest ZIP code-level data here.

  • Gov. Kathy Hochul announced yesterday that she had tested positive for COVID-19, but is asymptomatic and working remotely. (New York Times)

  • NYC subway turnstiles logged 3.5 million entries last Thursday, the most since March 13, 2020 — just before the city went into lockdown. (New York Daily News)

  • Attorney General Letitia James and other state lawmakers have proposed a $50 million fund for abortion providers handling an expected influx of patients following the Supreme Court ruling. (Gothamist) The fund would help cover travel expenses and uncompensanted abortion care, regardless of a patient’s insurance status

    • Another opportunity to get involved: This Saturday, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York is coordinating a “Bans Off Our Bodies” rally in NYC. Participants will gather at noon at Cadman Plaza, march across the Brooklyn Bridge, and then end at Foley Square for a "Welcome Village" from 3-6pm. Learn more here.

In other reading:

  • What we know about long COVID (Axios)

  • How Trash Became a Top-of-the-Heap City Budget Issue (Gotham Gazette)

  • New York’s Dancehall Parties Are ‘A Different Type of Turn Up’ (New York Times)

Tech:NYC recently announced that we’re undertaking a new program called Tech Year NYC, an effort to bridge the gap between local emerging talent and NYC’s tech sector.

  • The initiative was designed with partners at the Mayor’s Office of Youth Employment and Girls Who Code. We’ll be launching the pilot this summer with an expanded list of partners, including the NYC Dept. of Education and other city agencies, community-based nonprofits, and tech employers across the five boroughs.

Our chair, Fred Wilson, shared an overview of the program on his blog and why Tech:NYC is committed to expanding this project.

Why it matters: NYC’s Summer Youth Employment Program, the nation’s largest internship program, was put on hold in 2020 due to uncertainties surrounding COVID-19.

  • But with the support of 100+ NYC tech companies during that time, we were able to reinstate many of those programs through Summer Bridge, a collection of project-based learning opportunities for more than 3,000 NYC youth interested in tech jobs.

What’s new: Tech Year NYC will bundle many existing programs, double down on their successes, and create a single entry point for both the tech companies and the students who want to be involved.

  • We’ll kick things off with a pilot program this summer, inviting tech employers to lead five-week project-based challenges for 1,000 students.

  • 500 of these students will receive continued career development, job readiness, and skills mentorship through the fall semester.

  • All participating students will be compensated by funding from the city and industry partners.

In addition to recruiting tech employers to lead project-based challenges, Tech Year NYC is looking for companies to open their doors for “tech open houses” and participate in tech skills workshops with students.

If you or your employer would like to be involved, learn more here. If you have additional questions or would like more info, we’d love to hear from you — get in touch here.

In other reading:

  • The rise of health-related travel benefits (Axios)

  • Hiring Is Hard Enough. Now New Workers Are Vanishing Before They Even Start. (Wall Street Journal)

  • DocuSign chief diversity officer Iesha Berry: How to use data to improve DEI (Protocol)

  • Diagram, a NYC and remote-based product design tool, raised $3 million in seed funding. Ludlow Ventures led the round and was joined by Figma Ventures, Lachy Groom, Offline Ventures, Weekend Fund, Shrug Capital, base case capital, Otherwise Fund, m]x[v Capital, Not Boring Capital, Basis Set, and a group of individuals. (Diagram)

  • May 10: Virtual: #newtovc: Deal Sourcing, BBG managing partner Nisha Dua, FirstMark Capital managing partner Matt Turck, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures partner Charlie O’Donnell. Hosted by Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. Register here. 

  • May 11: In-person & virtual: Investing to Combat Climate Change, with Union Square Ventures investor Mona Alsubaei, Softbank Energy investor William Layden, Breakthrough Energy Ventures investor Stefan Zlatev, and others. Hosted by Betaworks Studios. Register here.

  • May 12: Virtual: The Future of DEI in Tech: Resources to Recruit, Retain, and Promote Black Talent, with Upfront Ventures general partner Kobie Fuller, Reddit head of diversity, inclusion, and belonging Christina Shareef, SVB director of talent acquisition Monique Hollingsworth, and others. Hosted by Silicon Valley Bank. Register here.

  • May 19: In-person: State of NYC Business Summit, with Tech:NYC executive director Jason Myles Clark, Partnership for New York City Kathryn Wylde, NYC Hospitality Alliance executive director Andrew Rigie, and others. Hosted by the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. Register here.

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