New York City Office of Technology and Innovation Will Consolidate All Tech Agencies

New York City, NY has created the new Office of Technology and Innovation that will include all current city technology agencies. The agencies being consolidated include: the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications; the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics; the Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer; the Mayor’s Office of Information Privacy; the New York City Cyber Command; the Algorithms Management and Policy Office; and NYC 311. The initiative is expected to promote the use of civic technology across city government, make agencies more efficient, and break down anyinformation silos between them.

“With today’s announcement, we are ensuring that all of our technology agencies are unified under one voice and one leader,” said Mayor Eric Adams.

One of the first projects to be performed by the Office of Technology and Innovation is overseeing the creation of MyCity – a single one-stop-shop portal for all city services. Other priorities will include cybersecurity and doing more with 311 data.

The new office will be led by Chief Technology Officer Matthew Fraser, who formerly served as the deputy commissioner of information technology for the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

“What I’m looking forward to the most is being able to create efficiencies and move the ball forward on a number of different fronts,” Fraser said.

Fraser stated that he expects to face challenges with implementing organizational change.

“Each entity as a whole has a hundred years of inertia behind it. City agencies are used to moving along to the beat of their own drum,” he said. “Now we are changing the focus from independent agencies to a centralized strategy, so it might take some time for agencies to get accustomed to the change.”