In times of crisis, the NY Tech Meetup has played an important role activating members of our community to get involved and take action. The results, as in the cases of the SOPA/PIPA debates and with the relief efforts in the wake of Sandy, were actions that had enormous positive impact on our city.
But times of crisis shouldn’t be the only time our community gets involved in making our city work better. With New York City elections taking place later this year for Mayor, Comptroller, Public Advocate, Borough Presidents, and City Council seats, we have an opportunity to engage in discussion and debate about what policy issues are most important, not just for people working in technology, but also for people enabled by technology.
To that end, we’ve committed to amplifying the voices and ideas of the members of the NY tech community by inviting you to participate in conversations around the policies that are most important to you. The results of these conversations will be brought to the attention of the candidates running for public office and will be the starting point of dialogue at candidates’ forums we will host in the spring for the citywide offices of Mayor, Comptroller, and Public Advocate.
It’s hard to overestimate the importance of the opportunity ahead of us - the policies implemented by public officials going forward will have a profound effect on the city’s future, so by doing our part to ensure the candidates are well-informed and are committed to implementing sound policies, we’ll have played a significant role in helping make a better NYC for everyone for a long time to come.
The board of the NY Tech Meetup has prepared a list of key issues we believe represent some of the most important areas of focus. We see this as a starting point; it’s up to you to help determine which of these issues, and which other issues, are important to you and to the rest of the city.
You can help in this process by participating in one or all of the following three key ways:
Review, Vote On and Add to the Policy Goals:
Today, we’re launching an online platform to discuss each of the issues. Each policy goal (noted below) is listed as a separate item so you can vote it up, vote it down, or add your own. Sound off! http://nytechmeetup.ideascale.com
Organize a Public Policy Meetup:
If you want to organize an event around one or several of these topics, we want to help you make it happen. Suggest a meetup here.
Invite your friends, neighbors, colleagues, and social media contacts to participate too! If more people are involved in the conversation then more ideas and potential support can be achieved. We have created a special hashtag for this process: #NYTMVote
Here are the initial policy goals and ideas that the NY Tech Meetup Board of Directors believes constitutes a starting point for the conversation about how to advance the future of New York:
- Make New York City the most wired city on earth by providing every New Yorker and every New York business regardless of location access to the fastest broadband networks at the lowest cost.
- Reinvent the education system to allow every child, young adult, and all New Yorkers to develop the skills necessary to thrive in a 21st century economy.
- Make New York City the clear choice for entrepreneurs, software engineers, and other technically skilled professionals to start a business and build a career by making it easy to find partners, financing, office space and housing, employees, and access to markets.
- Support the appointment of a Deputy Mayor for Technology Innovation with an appropriate budget charged with the responsibility of reinventing New York City government with a 21st century framework.
- Make New York City’s system for civic participation the most open, transparent, accountable, participatory, and innovative in the world.
- Make New York City the most citizen-connected community on earth, where its people connect with each other to unleash a powerful 21st century economy: selling to each other, renting to each other, funding each other, sharing with each other, coworking with each other, meeting up with each other, and hiring each other.
- Support public policies that would ensure that technology and the opportunities available to the tech community can reach all New York’s citizens, and help solve issues related to healthcare, human rights and justice, gender equality, transportation, the environment, and other issues of fundamental importance to all New Yorkers.
Let’s make the future of New York City better together!
Thank you,
NY Tech Meetup Board of Directors
