Written by the Tech Mayor Project, a group of civic technologists advocating that NYC build government tech in-house for a more affordable, faster, and fairer city. Interested in following our work? Join us.
Dear Zohran,
You pointed recently to digital technology as a key piece for your administration to “deliver that which has been denied” to the people of New York and “bring excellence into government.”
You cited your admiration for Huge Ma (we’re big fans too) building the vaccine website TurboVax you recommended to your constituents during the pandemic.
You imagined a 311 that could be as easy to use for residents as “tracking their UberEats block by block.”
New York City can do this. The talent lives in our city and proven models exist. The U.S. Digital Service, 18F, UK GDS, and New Jersey’s Office of Innovation have shown that iterative, people-first government digital service teams work.
By building technology in-house, these organizations improved people's lives while saving billions. NYC can achieve proportional results and free resources for your priorities: childcare, housing and transit.
Our proposal? A Digital Playbook for New York City:
1) Appoint a CTO Who Can Build. Technology needs a cabinet-level seat to include digital delivery in policy conversations from the beginning. This leader should champion NYC’s existing digital teams and inspire new talent to join our city — building in-house capacity instead of outsourcing critical work to vendors. Our CTO should understand government and be creative about using the best technology to deliver your vision for New Yorkers. They must have a record of building teams and products.
2) Crawl, Walk, Run: a NYC Digital Service. New York City should hire an in-house team and set them up for success to deliver digital services for New Yorkers. Launch with a dedicated team of 16-40 people working on your highest priority projects in a human-centered, product-based, iterative process. Deploy solutions that deliver immediate value, then iterate and expand. Crawl, walk, run.
This blended team should include engineers, product managers, and designers as well as program experts, OMB, MOCS, and Corporate Counsel.
With digital delivery representatives in each of the agencies, a centralized team operates as a hub & spoke model investing in shared costs and connecting the civic servants closest to the problem with top-level support.
“It is government’s job to ensure that every person is living a life of dignity.”
Technology is not the goal — it is a vessel that makes more goals achievable for a mayoral administration. The goal is empowering frontline civil servants to deliver what New Yorkers need for “a life of dignity”. Universal childcare, world-class public transit, affordable housing, clean streets and public health all depend on modern digital systems that work efficiently and equitably.
A World-Cup-ready small-business permitting platform, a city-wide marketplace for childcare providers, and a 311 with the ease of “UberEats” are among many ideas of what’s possible for putting digital talent to work serving New Yorkers.
Lessons Learned from NYC Digital Initiatives
“Being right in and of itself is meaningless. …We have to deliver,” as you said. In 2025 and beyond, New Yorkers experience the city’s services through digital technology. We can deliver services at the speed, scale, and resilience your constituents deserve by investing in government technological capacity and embedding digital delivery experts in the policy making process.
What works: ACCESS NYC. In 2017 an in-house team at the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity developed a digital service giving millions of New Yorkers easier access to public benefits. The site was built iteratively through human-centered design and rapid prototyping with residents. Open source code is transparently available to the public and future government digital service teams. A new hiring website accelerated talent development. Just imagine what this team could do with top leadership support.
What doesn’t work: MyCity. For this Adams administration flagship digital project, $100 million was spent on 43 private vendors instead of investing in in-house talent. After three years the site is still a “skeleton of the omnibus portal it was supposed to be.” The “proprietary” contractor-built technology is not owned by the city.
You have inspired a large technology community to help you build a better city. New York counts technical talent among our riches, and we see your administration as an energizing opportunity to build modern service delivery for our city. We can’t wait to get started.
Appendix: Guiding Principles
Invest in your people. Despite the recent administration’s challenges, pockets of technical teams building digital gems such as NYC.gov, NYC Open Data and ACCESS NYC persist within our city government. They are limited by lack of top-level support. Build a talent pipeline by empowering existing staff and recruiting new technologists. The technology is only as good as the team that builds and maintains it.
Reduce vendor dependence. Prioritize open source solutions over proprietary systems to avoid lock-in and increase flexibility. This saves money while building internal capability. The U.S. Digital Service saved $3.5 billion per year by building technology in-house (a 17x return on investment). The UK’s Government Digital Service has delivered similar results.
Build the right organizational structure. Culture is everything. Separate functions with different cultures: innovation/product development, IT operations, and cybersecurity. Centralize what makes sense—prioritization, shared services, cloud strategy, and AI governance—while keeping delivery teams close to residents, frontline workers, and the problems they're solving.
Create common-sense systems. Build unified, common systems on shared standards. (Don’t build “a whole kitchen every time you want to have a meal”). Build in layers, not monoliths, allowing components to be upgraded independently. Where the intent of regulations is protective, translate those in a regulatory layer.
Lead with transparency. Publish open data that works and provide natural language descriptions of AI systems and algorithms so the public understands how decisions are made.
Build resilience. A hostile federal government is withholding funds from New York City. We can’t predict when the next emergency will upend city services as they did during the pandemic. The city needs its own in-house digital capacity to act quickly on its own initiative in times of crisis.
