Written for Mayor Mamdani’s Technology Transition Committee. Sharing publicly to serve as a resource for all.
City Hall Station, “a physical monument to a city that dared to be both beautiful and build great things that would transform working peoples' lives.” - Mayor Mamdani. Photocredit: Rhododendrites - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
On October 1, 2013, HealthCare.gov — the centerpiece of President Obama’s signature policy — launched and immediately crashed, remaining inoperable for weeks. The failure stemmed largely from a reliance on vendors and a lack of in-house technical talent.
New York City has already experienced its HealthCare.gov moments. The MyCity project burned through $100M+ in IT consultant contracts for a unified social services website that does not work. During the COVID-19 pandemic, an individual engineer, Huge Ma, built his own tool for New Yorkers when government vaccine websites were too difficult to navigate.
The HealthCare.gov crisis inspired an unprecedented investment in government digital delivery teams, including 18F and the U.S. Digital Service. NYC must make a similar commitment to its technical capabilities to deliver on Mayor Mamdani’s most ambitious policy goals.
NYC can do this. In-house digital service teams are a proven model for getting mayoral priorities into New Yorkers' hands in weeks or months, not years.
Continue reading…
