What Happened?
New York City is allocating more resources toward the growth and advancement of its technology sector in an effort to increase job growth and support long-term economic sustainability.
Goal
Since the end of 2009, New York City has added 425,000 new jobs to the local economy thanks to strong investment in the technology sector. The tech push has raised total employment in the city to 4.1 million jobs, marking the strongest five-year period for job growth in the last 50 years, The New York Times reported.
To continue to support the local economic vitality and sustainability, the city announced 14 initial industry commitments that will enable the delivery of technology education, training and job opportunities to New Yorkers via the NYC Tech Talent Pipeline initiative. The program was originally founded through a collaboration between city agencies and executives from 25 companies coming together to define employer needs and develop workforce development to strengthen New York City’s tech ecosystem.
Tech Talent Pipeline
The NYC Tech Talent Pipeline project is a public-private partnership that operates on a $10 million budget over a three-year period and works to:
- Recruit and train local professionals
- Design new curricula to meet employer needs
- Engage employers in building a tech talent pipeline
The NYC Tech Talent Pipeline combines city, state, federal and private funding opportunities to support innovation and technology workforce development initiatives throughout the city. The initiative is focused on shifting New York City’s workforce development to emphasize skill building, acquisition of higher-wage jobs and increasing opportunities for advancement.
With the integration of nonprofit and volunteer-driven organizations such as the Coalition for Queens, the NYC Tech Talent Pipeline project is able to expand its educational services to train more job-seekers for on-demand tech skills. Currently, New York City’s tech ecosystem employees nearly 300,000 tech professionals directly, and indirectly supports an additional 250,000 jobs to make up 12.6 percent of the city’s workforce, The New York Times reported.
Civic Hall
One way New York City is nurturing a thriving tech sector is by creating resourceful spaces where industry professionals, startups and entrepreneurs can collaborate on new ideas and solutions. One such space, Civic Hall, was recently opened to provide a meeting space for the city’s civic tech sector to work together on addressing community problems with the latest technological solutions.
Civic Hall is spurring collaboration between a variety of civic leaders including:
- Hacktivists
- Data experts
- Local government officials
- Nonprofit leaders
The goal of Civic Hall is to encourage the sharing of ideas between industry experts and solve problems within the community and at the local government level. The meeting space is designed to incite innovation while encouraging collaboration between the public and private sectors. The 18,500-square-foot space offers members from a variety of industries with access to:
- High-speed internet
- More than 100 workstations
- Developer desks
- Multiple conference rooms
- Video conferencing
- Private call rooms
- Free printing
- A library/lounge area
- Communal café
Members of Civic Hall include tech professionals, local government leaders, journalists, entrepreneurs and anyone else interested in improving government efficiency.
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