In 2016, when we launched Tech:NYC, there was still a debate raging about which city would be second, behind Silicon Valley, as a tech capital.
In 2019, it’s safe to say we have settled that debate. In fact, I would argue, we have challenged its very premise. Today, New York stands as an international tech hub in its own right, with hundreds of thousands of tech jobs here in the five boroughs. Those jobs come from large and established employers as well as more than 9,000 startups. These companies are here because they value New York’s commitment to diversity; the access to existing industries, the arts, and cultural institutions; and a robust public transit system that moves people all around the city. That’s not to mention robust investments by both the city and the state in computer science education and workforce development.
Tech’s growth here has not come without its challenges, political and otherwise. It is those very challenges, and our community’s ability to navigate them, that reaffirms all the reasons we built Tech:NYC to start. We have no doubt that the future of our city’s economy will rely on technology, and the people and companies who power the ecosystem. Against the background of the greatest city in the world, technology and those who build it will become part of the expansive and diverse fabric of New York City, and not the other way around.
We can’t wait.
Julie Samuels
Founder and Executive Director
ECOSYSTEM
Tech Powers NYC; NYC Defines Tech
Our community of 800+ members powers everything we do. In the last year, Tech:NYC has grown in size, across verticals, and in all five boroughs.
THE STARTUPS THAT POWER NEW YORK
We built Tech:NYC to allow any company to participate, regardless of where it is in its growth cycle. So while our membership roster includes lots of established tech companies, what makes our network special is the almost 650+ member startups that have chosen New York as the place to build and grow their companies. In 2019, our Companies to Watch series profiled 50 of them, showcasing the young companies powering the next big ideas in mobility, sustainability, cybersecurity, and more.
OUR FOUNDERS ON “WHY NEW YORK”
“The reason Tarform was founded in Brooklyn is due to the spirit of innovation, energy and talent around this city. People in this city come together around big ideas.”
“Tagomi is a platform that takes a multidisciplinary team to build, and New York is the epicenter of many fields — finance, legal, tech, etc. — which I think is quite unique to the city.”
“The ambition and vigor in this 3 by 8 mile island is what keeps me going. It’s the final frontier for me.”
“NYC is the pillar of diversity and opportunity, so it was an obvious decision.”
Economic Development
HIGH POWERED GROWTH
The growth and success of Tech:NYC is no surprise, since it’s merely reflective of broader trends across New York City, where tech continues to thrive. In the last year, companies big and small have made lasting commitments to NYC. Google is adding 7,000 jobs, Facebook is doubling its headcount in the city, Yext is opening an expanded HQ, and 2,000 more new startups now call NYC home, many of them throughout the outer boroughs.
NYC TECH ECOSYSTEM SNAPSHOT
The NYC tech sector represents 333,000 jobs; 161,000 of which are high-tech jobs
9,000 startups call New York City home
$13B+ funding received in the NYC metro region in 2018
PUBLIC INVESTMENT SPURS PRIVATE GROWTH
We’re lucky to live in New York, where local government is directly investing in the future of our tech economy. 2019 saw investments in:
BLOCKCHAIN
The launch of the NYC Blockchain Center complements more than $500M in venture capital funding and a 400% increase in blockchain-related jobs, setting NYC apart as a clear leader in cryptocurrency.
CYBERSECURITY
With NYCEDC’s launch of Cyber NYC, a suite of $100M in new investments will reinforce NYC as a global leader in cyber innovation and catalyze another 10,000 jobs for the sector.
CS4ALL
The City’s commitment to provide CS education in all NYC public schools has started to pay real dividends — 42% of students who took the most recent AP CS exam are female (compared to 28% nationwide)
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
Governor Cuomo announced $175 million for workforce development initiatives. The City has committed to doubling the number of New Yorkers graduating with tech degrees from CUNY.
ADVANCED MANUFACTURING
4.2 million new square feet at Brooklyn Army Terminal is headquarters to a network of 4,000+ employees
women.nyc & WE Fund Venture
City and venture capital partners are committing to $30M in new investments for women and minority founded startups
STARTUP GENOME
Each year Tech:NYC collaborates with the New York City Economic Development Corporation and Startup Genome to put out a report that tracks our ecosystem’s output relative to 150 cities around the world. With record job and investment growth, we’ve become America’s talent capital, with a future poised for more. This year we were proud to see New York ranked:
#1 for funding availability and quality
#1 for ‘local connectedness,’ measuring funding from local sources, interaction between firms and local experts/investors, density of local tech-related events
#1 for number of STEM students/graduates and life sciences universities
#1 for average engineer salaries
#2 for startup output
ACCENTURE SURVEY: HIRING
Tech:NYC, in partnership with Accenture, announced new research that takes stock of tech hiring in New York City. According to the data, 85 percent of companies in New York City plan to increase hiring for new tech talent, and a majority of companies plan to increase tech hires by more than 20 percent in 2020. Moreso, 87 percent of companies are confident they can find the talent they need locally in New York City.
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
PARTNERING WITH GOVERNMENT
This year, Tech:NYC engaged more policymakers and civic leaders than ever before. Tech companies can’t build in a vacuum, and our community is committed to working with government to advance policies that support innovation — and work for all New Yorkers. As our ecosystem continues to grow and impact New York, it is more important than ever to engage with our partners in government. We’ve been excited to help policymakers learn more about our community, while also helping our community learn more about government.
ENGAGING OUR COMMUNITY
In 2019, Tech:NYC:
Met with elected officials and/or their staff more than 125 times
Testified at 15 public hearings on various policy issues
Hosted or co-hosted events featuring 28 different policymakers
Brought more than 250 tech companies to the table with elected officials and other public leaders.
Featured
ENGAGING EFFECTIVE POLICY
PRIVACY
Tech:NYC successfully advocated against a misdirected data privacy measure proposed by the NYS Legislature. In 2020, we plan to work with NYS policymakers to ensure that balanced and informed data privacy measures are advanced.
SHIELD ACT
For the past two years, Tech:NYC worked with state legislators to craft a data security law that provides increased protections to consumers and streamlines compliance for companies. The SHIELD Act, which goes into effect next year, works towards both of these goals and we look forward to working on implementation.
INCOME SHARE AGREEMENTS
Due to an outdated and vague state regulation, this effective model for funding education and training opportunities was prohibited. Tech:NYC, along with several members, successfully advocated for a change to the regulation and students can now take advantage of Income Share Agreements.
RIGHT TO PUBLICITY
Tech:NYC—along with a diverse coalition—successfully opposed a proposal that would have codified a right to publicity in state law. The proposal would have amended a law which for more than 100 years protected the rights of creators, digital platforms, the media and the public to freely communicate using content depicting individuals.
NY GOVERNMENT LOOKS TO THE FUTURE
Our state and local governments have both committed to studying technology issues. At the state-level, legislation passed to establish a task force on digital currency and a commission to study the implications of artificial intelligence and automation. Tech:NYC was supportive of both pieces of legislation and is looking forward to engaging with both groups.
SUPPORTING OUR CITY
CONGESTION PRICING
This year, a broad coalition—of which Tech:NYC was a member —successfully championed congestion pricing for NYC. Congestion pricing will decrease traffic and fund improvements to our mass transit system, helping our city operate more efficiently.
RANKED CHOICE VOTING
As a part of a broad coalition, Tech:NYC advocated for this important change to the NYC Charter. Ranked Choice Voting, along with other new voting laws, represents an important step towards better and more efficient elections.
IMMIGRANT RIGHTS
New York City is home to more foreign-born individuals than any city in the world, and diversity is, in part, what makes our city great. Over the past year, Tech:NYC has worked to support immigrant rights and prevent harmful changes at the federal level. Tech:NYC has filed comments against proposed immigration rule changes and served as an amicus curiae in a number of cases, including the census citizenship question which went before the Supreme Court.
This year, we launched Functions.NYC, a series of lunchtime dialogues for tech employees in our membership to engage on the issues that make our city run. Since launching this series earlier this year, we’ve brought together civic leaders with tech employees to discuss:
TRANSIT
John Raskin, Executive Director, Riders Alliance
URBAN PLANNING
Elizabeth Goldstein, President, Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS)
NYC GOVERNMENT
James Vacca, Commissioner, NYC Charter Revision Commission, and former New York City Council Member
HOUSING
Aaron Carr, Executive Director, Housing Rights Initiative; Benjamin Dulchin, Executive Director, Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development
GARBAGE
Nicole Abene, Senior Legislative Attorney, New York City Council
EDUCATION
Sarah Zapiler, Executive Director, IntegrateNYC
ENGAGING ALL ACROSS NYC
In order to better understand our membership and our city, the Tech:NYC team travels through the year to different boroughs to engage with local officials and visit member companies to hear their stories, see their spaces, and get to know our founders. This year, we made trips to the Bronx and Staten Island.
In the Bronx, we had lunch with Councilmember Ritchie Torres; toured Lehman College’s Innovation Lab and Bronx Tech Incubator, the site of CUNY’s only virtual reality lab; and visited several of our member companies fostering tech talent in the borough, including Metabronx and The Knowledge House.
We got off the ferry in Staten Island to host a roundtable with Borough President James Oddo; visited MakerSpace, the city’s largest makerspace for industrial manufacturing and digital technology; demoed dockless bikes with Lime in Snug Harbor Botanical Garden; and toured “JFK8,” the Amazon fulfillment center home to 2,500+ jobs.
BUilding a community
Tech:NYC’s busy events calendar supports the work we do connecting our members with the broader New York ecosystem. From intimate roundtables with elected officials to large-scale summits with industry executives, our network stayed active in convening with other local, state, and national leaders to champion the city’s unique successes and advance solutions for what’s next in tech.
SUPPORTING THE NEXT GENERATION OF TECH TALENT
The NYC Computer Science Opportunity Fair (CS Fair) is New York City's largest annual college and career inspiration event for public high school students studying computer science. In its sixth year, the 2019 CS Fair hosted over 2,000 NYC public high school students who are studying CS, giving them a chance to learn about tech careers and potential degrees. As a partner, Tech:NYC organized our community to support the CS Fair and we’re proud to say more than 90 tech companies, universities, and nonprofits hosted booths as a result.
Making the Case for New York
An Engaged Leadership
OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS
OUR LEADERSHIP COUNCIL
OUR TEAM
MAKING THE CASE FOR NEW YORK
In 2019 Tech:NYC made the case for why New York was the best place to hire from, the best place to build, and took to the press to advocate for policies that support our city and our members. We love talking about why New York is so great so much that we did it 200+ times.
New York has become a hot buyer’s market for job seekers
Post-Amazon, New York’s tech sector is still growing
How the City Became Silicon Valley's Biggest Rival
The state of tech in New York City
Silicon Valley should envy New York City