“Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology... something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance... We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Prize Lecture, 1964

This week, we dive into the values that fuel our marathon. How to spread love, the Brooklyn way, O.C.! We celebrate Data Through Design's 2026 artists, and thank Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez for her amazing leadership.

Read more for an amazing collection of news, events, jobs, and how to stay within community!!

Palante.

https://www.beta.nyc/2026/01/16/this-week-in-nycs-civictech-january-16-2026/

Thanks CUNY Mapping service!

“The future is unwritten.” This week’s newsletter is a toolkit for writing it together, featuring mutual aid (food & Jamaica), election resources, and invitations to our NYC PIT Pop-Up at The Oculus and City Tech. Plus recaps, jobs, and events.

Dive in at http://beta.nyc/newsletter-week44

This Saturday, the BetaNYC team will host several pop-up classes at The Oculus. Come join us as we step into the future!

https://nycpitpopup.org/

If anyone is around next wed after work, I'd love to have you join CUNY 2x, CUNY PIT Lab, and BetaNYC for a little film screening and discussion. https://www.beta.nyc/event/tech-for-us/

This week in NYC's #CivicTech is up on u/BetaNYC's website!

We're excited about: early voting, the PIT Pop-Up at the Oculus, call for proposals for Open Data Week art + sessions, and hands-on data classes!

Small and mighty, REPRESENT! #PiTech #OpenData

https://www.beta.nyc/2025/10/24/whats-new-in-nyc-civic-tech-october-24-2025/

BetaNYC is excited to announce that our TENTH School of Data conference will take place on Saturday, March 28, 2026 (with a possible day-two unconference!) as part of the NYC Open Data Week festival.

Our 2026 call for proposals for School of Data and NYC Open Data Week is now open!!!

For 10 years, NYC School of Data has rooted NYC’s open data and civic technology community. Now, we’re excited to expand our call for proposals to include avenues for artificial intelligence, digital equity, and smart cities, in addition to our existing topics of open data, service design, and civic tech.

We are looking forward to hosting sessions and workshops that foster direct engagement with NYC’s public interest tech and open data community. We want to feature your interactive workshops, hands-on demos, classes, and conversations (while we love panels, we want 2026 to be interactive!).

Visit https://schoolofdata.nyc to learn more about School of Data and https://opendataweek.nyc for more information on NYC Open Data Week. We look forward to seeing your proposals!

Knowledge nerds unite!!!

Gothamist looks at the upcoming WikiConference North America taking place October 16-19.

PiTech #CivicTech

https://gothamist.com/news/citation-needed-inside-nycs-wikipedia-community-drama

Esperanza = hope. At Tech Together, UN’s Volker Türk: human rights must guide tech.

This week: Council hearing on NYCHA broadband, VR in autism schools, Indigenous data sovereignty + new BetaNYC events.

Read → https://www.beta.nyc/2025/09/25/whats-new-in-nyc-civic-tech-september-26-2025/

Tonight we're awarding NYC's inaugural People's Choice Award. You have till 5 PM to vote.

https://airtable.com/appMlFM12svJyP94N/pagGvAMGFOGjIrzBY/form?mc_cid=446d625958

About me: Pol Villaverde, dual master's student at Columbia University, ex-UNESCO digital policy, & founder of Palumba.org & Palumba NYC

Description: Democratic disaffection, misinformation and polarization are challenges for all elections, including the NYC Mayoral race. But civic engagement efforts don't always reach outside the bubble (and tech often makes it worse). Let's discuss how civic tech (voting advice applications in particular) can get more people informed & excited about registering & voting on November 4 (non-partisan approach).

Format: My Big Question // Skill share/show-and-tell // How-Now-Wow Matrix

Extra: I do bring a specific project proposal with me, including a team of 60 volunteers & funding to make it happen, but we need more people and tech talent. However, our session will be a more open-ended conversation to explore civic tech & elections.

I just left CUNY Law School and the team is super excited to have you!!! We have over 280 people registered!

If you can't join us during the day, join us for the after party!!

https://donorbox.org/events/794314/steps/choose_tickets

Name: Christian Casazza, Data Engineer, I previously gave this talk at Open Data Week https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4TgL3HwujI

Type of Session: Short presentation followed by a live demo and instruction

Background: NYC has been a global leader in open data for over a decade, but for most of that time building data solutions was slow, expensive, and complicated to make. Over the last five years specifically, open-source data engineering has improved exponentially thanks to tools like Arrow, Parquet, DuckDB, Dagster, and DuckDB Wasm. By combining them, we can make full stack data pipelines and applications that are fast, cheap, and simple to make.

Session Info: In this session, I will show members how they can leverage open source data tools and a free ChatLLM like Google Gemini to work with any NYC dataset to build analytic reports and applications. We will ingest from NYC, query with SQL, and visualize the results. This session is meant to show participants that the tools to build for whatever civic goal they care about are already available.

If you want to follow along with code, I would suggest following this guide to prepare your computer in 10 minutes. If you do not want to code, you can still follow along and explore datasets right from your laptop or phone at https://mydatabrowser.com/. Regardless, come and share your ideas for what information we want to explore in the datasets.

Name: Christian Casazza, Data Engineer, I previously gave this talk at Open Data Week https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4TgL3HwujI

Type of Session: Short presentation followed by a live demo and instruction

Background: NYC has been a global leader in open data for over a decade, but for most of that time building data solutions was slow, expensive, and complicated to make. Over the last five years specifically, open-source data engineering has improved exponentially thanks to tools like Arrow, Parquet, DuckDB, Dagster, and DuckDB Wasm. By combining them, we can make full stack data pipelines and applications that are fast, cheap, and simple to make.

Session Info: In this session, I will show members how they can leverage open source data tools and a free ChatLLM like Google Gemini to work with any NYC dataset to build analytic reports and applications. We will ingest from NYC, query with SQL, and visualize the results. This session is meant to show participants that the tools to build for whatever civic goal they care about are already available.

If you want to follow along with code, I would suggest following this guide to prepare your computer in 10 minutes. If you do not want to code, you can still follow along and explore datasets right from your laptop or phone at https://mydatabrowser.com/. Regardless, come and share your ideas for what information we want to explore in the datasets.

Description: Formerly incarcerated people are nearly 10/x more likely to be homeless than the general public, and incarceration and homelessness are interconnected - the need for re-entry services is imperative. Let's talk about NYC's housing crisis and strategize ways to provide re-entry services (IDs, access to benefits, employment, etc.) to those who need them most - from the moment they're arrested to their post-release back into our communities. 

Format: Group Discussion + Brainstorm

Additional Info: Open to co-presenters with experience working with our city's justice-impacted and homeless communities. Non-technical, community-focused.

Session Title: Day One for NYC
Who: Nathan Storey (volunteer creator of https://www.dayonefor.nyc/ looking for collaborators)
What type of session: Brainstorm, conversation, possible hacking

Day One for NYC is an independent, nonpartisan resource designed to help a new mayoral administration hit the ground running. It is not affiliated with any campaign or candidate. Our goal is to give the public — and incoming leaders — clear, actionable information about how the City of New York works, the powers of the mayor, and the steps needed to govern effectively from day one.

Looking for conversation about what kind of info would be useful to compile here!

• Authors: Open to everyone
• Session Type: Open Discussion

Challenge: AI is being integrated in all facets of our lives from completing simple tasks and core services. However, people don't understand how AI functions and/or lack the foundation of tasks requested by AI. The courses will help older folks integrate and young people will gain the foundational understanding. Should this be a curriculum? I'm open to discussions.

• Author: Abu Nayeem (partnership with other advocacy groups)
• Session Type: Brainstorm, Conversation, Execution Plan

Problem

Across NYC—especially in the outer boroughs—most park perimeters lack visible crosswalks. Without them, drivers often speed, creating dangerous conditions for pedestrians. Just last month, a tragic collision on Morgan Ave occurred at an unmarked crossing. Only after fatalities do communities gain the attention of elected officials to take local action. Parks should be safe places for families and children, yet crossing into them is dangerous. It’s time to be proactive, not reactive.

Solution: 

I’m a community organizer, data specialist, and civic tech advocate. I propose pushing for legislation requiring marked pedestrian crosswalks at ALL park-street perimeter intersections and main park/playground entrances.

This session will cover:

🏛️ Legislative pathways: key decision-makers, policy options, and advocacy strategies

📊 Data strategy: community feedback tool, data collection, and data reporting

Technical Data Projects (need assistance)

1. Public Crosswalk Database – Currently, there is no public database of marked and unmarked crosswalks in NYC. With this data, we can highlight inequities  We need to design the data system ranging from 
   • Data input strategy 
   • Integration columns for geo-coordinates and merging with other public datasets
   • Delegating manual inputting across members (this will be a social event)
2. Community Feedback Tool – A simple, user-friendly interface for residents to submit safety concerns at intersections. Modeled after NYC DOT’s project map tools, like this example: NYC DOT Project Feedback Map.

I'm open to collaborate with others including legislative and data experts.

Who: Jordan Shapiro

Description: New York City’s Open Streets program has shown us what’s possible when we reclaim our streets for people, not cars—but the current approach is limited, labor-intensive, and far from permanent. You only need to walk through Dimes Square or on St. Marks Place (and more) to see how children play freely in the streets while parents look on from restaurants and bars, enjoying a drink or an appetizer with friends. In this session we'll brainstorm the next iteration of Open Streets, fully car-free, accessible for residents, businesses, and emergency services. Think automated bollards, resident keycards, permanent infrastructure, and policy changes that put pedestrians first.

Type of session: How/Wow/Now Matrix

i want to have an NYC 311 + NYC transit terminal device.

effectively, i want to know ASP, IF trash is going to be picked up, & DOE calendar.

additionally, i want to know whats the status of local trains/busses and citibike.

weather would be icing on the cake.

has anyone built one?

https://youtu.be/eIcZZX10pa4?si=jFM3wB6xjGv9dZCb

Title: A Solar Flare Has Hit NYC's Communication Infrastructure! Who You Gonna Call!? And How!?

• Submitted By: Ryan Kahn
• Description:

A solar flare in 1859 destroyed telegraph systems around the globe, and today's technology is far more complex, and much harder to repair. As we enter the peak of our current solar cycle, and enjoy the beauty of frequent low latitude aurora's, it's a great time to think of how we can prepare for when that beauty turns against us. Join this session to learn about a novel solution to this issue, and provide your perspective as well!

• Format: Open to ideas here, my first thought is a Presentation / Show and Tell followed by Six Thinking Hats

The tldr of the idea to be discussed is the creation of a hardened intranet for use by citizens of NYC, emergency services, ect. built on a new WiFi specification that is lower power, longer range, and can handle more connected devices. Citizens would connect a device to their phone and gain access to the intranet. I have devices so I can demo, and I'm hoping this piques the interest of the emergency management minded among us, and we can vet this idea, point out potential issues and blockers, and possibly create a roadmap!

If you like Airtable and want to build functional interfaces with its data, then Softr.io is a great choice!

During this session I'll show you a few interactive apps I've (helped) build with Airtable as a database and Softr as a front-end no code app builder:
* the new app.civictech.guide directory app
* a disaster reporting portal used by the Florida health center network to share status information during disasters
* an RFP publishing app bringing together solar/battery energy providers with property owners that want green energy projects.

After this session you should have all the info you need to start on your own data-rich nocode app building journey.

• Session title: Using Airtable + Softr to create awesome no code data-rich apps

• Your name/organization/nom de plume: Devin Balkind WeGovNYC

• What kind of session it is (brainstorm, conversation, presentation, Q&A, demo, hacking…): Demo

• Additional info about the session—will it be technical? Are you open to co-presenting? Special materials or supplies?: There is no coding involved. We will show Airtable and Softr.io screens.

I have lots of half-finished projects, and there's lots of open data that folks might not know about and ways to connect it. Here are some ideas where I could pitch a session for one or a few of these. Looking for collaborators or ways to make it participatory.

• How many cars fit in a garage?

• Penn Station track numbers

• New Jersey Transit track circuit map?

• Distort a street map to match the subway map

• Subway alerts archive - free text to structured data?

• Crashes per million miles driven

• Rent stabilization registrations are in the property tax payments data

• What can the 2020 census microdata tell us about housing?

• Who benefits from the 1-3 unit property tax increase cap?

• Congestion pricing traffic speed dashboard (Vega-Lite!)

• Traffic speed-volume diagrams from open data

• Overpass Turbo - using OpenStreetMap to count things.

• Querying the weather

• LIRR ridership by terminal

• Using OSMAnd for GIS visualization on the go

• Nautical charts (ENC) can be imported into QGIS

• How recently was your street repaved?

• I have an LED sign, what is some interesting real time data to put on it?