The glory of the cultural icon Statue of Liberty has transcended generations. The story of its home, New York, has been nothing different! Home to the United Nations Headquarters, New York, in this twenty-first century, is considered as a global figure of creativity, entrepreneurship, social tolerance and environmental sustainability. With more than 37% of foreign-born residents and 800 spoken languages, the state’s premier city, New York City, is fabulous in its cultural and social diversity. Interestingly, the city that never sleeps is home to 1 in every 38 Americans! So why is New York such a popular and favorite destination? The answer is no mystery. Just take a look at the government’s enthusiasm in uplifting the state as a technology forefront and you will know why!

Apps – If you are a programmer, developer, designer or an entrepreneur, how would you like to gain access to municipal data sets so that you can create technological products addressing the civic issues of the city. That is exactly what the annual competition ‘NYC BigApps’ provide! The contestants are invited to provide creative solutions to the three main challenges of the city: transportation, access to knowledge and community resiliency. The contestants gain access to thousands of datasets and APIs through NYC Open Portal and other private and non-profit data sources. The available data includes weekly traffic updates, schedule of events around the city, property sales records, geographic data etc. The contest is part of the city’s broader vision to improve government transparency and motivate entrepreneurship. What have the winners gone on to achieve? Some of the contest winners have gone on to become successful startups like the ‘MyCityWay’ who were even able to raise investment from the mighty BMW! ‘MyCityWay’ is the only ‘mobile-first’ automation software that uses mobile as the medium for marketing, sales, and service. Another one of NYC BigApps success stories is ‘Embark NYC’, a mass transit application that was later acquired by Apple. ‘Embark NYC’ was designed to make the daily transit of New Yorkers easier as it provided directions to any landmarks, schedule of trains and even real-time status of transit mediums. The best part was that it worked even without a cellular signal!

Apart from the contest, NYC also has its own group of stand out official applications. Providing personalized experiences with real-time information is one of the best things a government can do to improve the easiness daily public life. And that is exactly what apps help in achieving. From business to health, education, social services, transportation, public safety and environment, official NYC apps cover most of the domains necessary to run your daily life.

311Online – Launched by Mayor Bloomberg, 311 online is a one-stop web portal that allows the public to avail thousands of New York City services at the click of a button. Through the website, New Yorkers can easily gather information, report problems or complaints, check the status of previous complaints and request various city services. From its broad directory of city services, 311Online allows you to filter for demographic or service specific requirements so that you can navigate directly to the information that you need. A very helpful feature of the website is that users can attach photos, videos or audio files together with their complaints and service requests. The 311 also launched respective Skype and Twitter accounts to connect with people all around the world. So live video chatting is not just for connecting with friends and family but also to avail city services. How about that! The city uses the twitter account to provide regular updates regarding parking status, school closures, and citywide events.

Videos – Where creativity meets Technology! – Probably, the best tool to make use of technology is a creative brain! And videos provide the right opportunity for creative geniuses to make the profound impact on a vast section of the public. For a layman, some of the government initiatives may be a bit complicated to comprehend. But videos make it easier for a government to communicate their vision and goal to any section of the society. And the best part of videos is that they carry life and can emotionally connect with viewers in a matter of minutes. What better way for a government to be with the people! Explaining the vision of latest initiatives, spreading awareness or simple light-hearted moments of joy… the purpose of videos can be anything. Just like how NYC government is mastering it!

Take a look at this animated explainer video that is aimed at improving the mental health stability of New Yorkers. It is quite easy to relate to the subject matter in discussion here, simply because most of us have been through it. And more than anything, the video stands out like an understanding and caring partner who is determined to help us feel better. The explainer also presents the magnitude of the problem and educates us to not be casual about it. The New York city’s vision and their resolute path to bring about a change are clearly narrated and if one feels more confident about talking his/her mental situation after this video, it is no surprise!

As discussed earlier, New York is one of the most favorite destinations of the world. It is often cited as the city of opportunities. But, as more people keep coming in, housing becomes a very serious challenge. Many working professionals find themselves spending more than half of their income on house rent, leaving them very little for food, clothing, medicine etc. New York government, known for their hospitality, has decided to put an end to this and the outcome is the initiative called ‘Housing New York’. Take a look at how the project is convincingly and interactively presented in this short, simple and effective animated explainer video.

‘Mutt-i-grees’ curriculum is a strategy to encourage and engage students in social, emotional learning and to teach them the importance of human animal behavior. A little puppy called ‘Izzy’ was New York City Department of Education’s choice to bring this strategy alive! The comfort dog comes to schools and by taking care of it, students learn valuable lessons on compassion and responsibility. Students and staff alike have reported increased awareness of communication due to the dog’s presence and the program has been successfully expanded to more than 30 different schools all over the city. Watch this video to know the real tenderness and impact of the program. We will not blame you if you reach out to grab the puppy or wish if you were a kid once again after watching this video!

Games for Change – Here is another creative solution to address the various social and civic issues concerning a city – Games! Games for Change, a non-profit organization founded in 2004, organizes the G4C festival every year with the sole motive of using digital games for social change. Every year, the festival involves the active participation of government agencies, game creators, NGOs, funders and corporations who seek to use entertainment and engagement for social welfare. The festival has even witnessed the presence of NASA representatives! How?

No matter how old you are, you would have already heard about Angry Birds by now. Such has been its popularity. Now think of it being used in classrooms to help students in daily lessons. That is exactly what NASA is doing in partnership with Rovio Entertainment, the developers of the much-beloved game. The duo’s ‘Angry Birds Space’ is actively present in classrooms worldwide today and with each update, students get to explore more fun facts about planets, stars, solar systems and various other celestial objects in the universe. Interesting space videos can be watched directly from the game and there are links that would direct students and teachers to NASA’s official website to improve the knowledge regarding each topic. Representatives of NASA and Rovio Entertainment played a huge role in ‘Games for Learning Summit’ that was co-hosted by US Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology and Games for Change during the G4C festival of 2015.

Another prominent game development company that makes its presence felt at the G4C festival is Playmatics. One of their best works for the government came when they partnered with the Federal Bank of New York, to develop an educational game, that teaches high school students about macroeconomics and the role of the Bank in US economy.

Virtual and Augmented Reality – Immersive experiences such as Virtual and Augmented Reality have been a buzz for a long time now and New York is not one to miss out on the glorious opportunities they present. Goldman Sachs, in its 2016 report, identified healthcare, education, real estate, retail, live entertainment and video entertainment as the most influenced industries by the growth of AR and VR. To nurture this growth and to place New York as an industry leader in AR/VR technologies, the New York City Economic Development Corporation together with Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment is setting up a Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Lab which is the first publicly funded AR/VR lab in the nation. The initiative has received a funding of 6 million dollars from both private and public sectors and it will be the first lab of its kind on the East Coast. The New York City’s AR/VR industry has witnessed an uprising of 50 million dollars in investments and over 125% increase in job demand and the new lab is exclusively set up to fuel this growth. The lab intends to provide growing AR/VR companies with space, infrastructure, and resources and provide entrepreneurs with affordable, shared access to tools and technologies. Furthermore, the lab will serve as a platform to provide training opportunities to the local talent in the field of VR/AR technologies and content creation. New York University Tandon School of Engineering has been assigned with the responsibility of developing and operating the lab that occupies 15,000 square feet of space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Lehman College, a public senior college that is part of the City University of New York, partnering with EON Reality Inc, the global leader in VR based knowledge transfer for industry, education and edutainment established the Interactive Digital Center (IDC) to support development of new VR and AR applications that will assist in the learning process of Lehman students. The first stage of IDC involves the setting up of ‘Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality training facility and development lab’ that will upskill future professionals of AR and VR. The facility will have an interesting feature, the ‘Icube Mobile’, a four-wall immersive VR experience room that will allow students to experience and test their projects!

The Games for Change community has also made their presence felt in the VR arena. Their first ever ‘VR for change Summit’ was launched in 2017 and it was curated by Erik Martin, the former Policy Advisor at White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. One of the main highlights of the summit was INK Stories’ new VR narrative titled ‘Blindfold’ that depicted the dangers free journalists encounter all over the world. The experience puts you in the shoes of the photojournalist during a tense interrogation and the choices you make would shape the world around you. During the summit, many dignified government officials such as the present White House Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America expressed their views on how virtual technologies could empower civic engagement and thereby bring about a revolutionary change in the society.

LinkNYC – On November 2014, the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio made the official proposal of ‘LinkNYC’, a global infrastructure project towards a network covering several cities with free WiFi service. The installation of the ‘links’ began in 2015 and it replaced the city’s network of 9000 to 13,000 payphones. The government of New York had an interesting strategy to devise a new model of payphone system. The idea was to organize several competitions that asked participants to reimagine the traditional payphone system! Finally, CityBridge consortium that includes Qualcomm, Titan and Control Group emerged as the winner and the contract was handed over to them. With HD displays; android tablet computers to access city maps, directions, services and video calls; two free USB charging stations for smartphones and a phone that allows public to call all the fifty states and Washington D.C, the links have got all the attributes that would fit into the appetite of any modern day gadget freak. The project aims to establish 7500 links in the New York Metropolitan area, which would make it the world’s fastest and most expansive set up of such kind.

Midtown in Motion – Take any major city in the world. Daily commuting calls for a lot of effort due to the increasing number of traffic each year. This is one issue that every government is trying to solve and New York City’s Department of Transportation showed the world how technology can help make a difference. Midtown in Motion, a 1.6 million dollar project, helps the authorities help control traffic signal patterns on the go using hundreds of sensors, traffic video cameras, and E-ZPass readers.

Accelerated Conservation and Efficiency Program – Once again, this is another innovative approach by the New York Government to tackle a rising global issue – green gas emissions. By installing vacancy sensors across 90 schools in all the five boroughs of the City, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services aims to save 17 million kWh per year! The project is further estimated to reduce city’s energy costs by 3000 metric tons of CO2 and over 2 million dollars per year.

Smart Vehicles – Imagine your car communicating to another car to avoid a collision. Or imagine them spotting upcoming traffic problems. Wait, this is no plot for the next sci-fi novel but a kind of vehicle technology that will soon be a common phenomenon in US roads! As part of U.S Department of Transportation’s ‘Connected Vehicle’ initiative, New York received 20 million dollars to test out the technology in ten thousand vehicles such as MTA buses, taxis, and government cars. There is also an app that is being developed for the pedestrians. This innovative technology is set to alarm drivers of braking cars ahead, threats in a blind spot and potential traffic rule violations.

New York was awarded the ‘Best Smart City’ by the Smart City Expo Congress that was held in Spain in 2016. Going by the government initiatives to use technology in making lives better, it hardly comes as a surprise! “The seat of the empire” is what George Washington, the first President of the United States described New York as in the early history of its growth and popularity. Years down the line, it still keeps up with the legacy!