NYC School of Data 2026

The Cornell Urban Tech Hub, in partnership with the City of New York, launched the Urban Innovation Fellows program to help spur tech innovation in City agencies and to establish a new model for collaboration across government, academia, and startups.

The Urban Innovation Fellows will host an interactive workshop inviting participants to identify specific Open Data-related problems and projects (and the skillsets needed to accomplish them) that could be the focus of New York City and State government agencies as part of future iterations of the Fellowship and/or in collaboration with Cornell Tech. The workshop is geared towards residents from across the five boroughs as well as City staff, the civic tech community, and individuals from the private sector who are interested in government work and have great ideas and proposals for how to bring them to life. To facilitate the conversation, the Fellows will draw upon their own agency projects and observations about the need for more collaborative and innovative data approaches that support cross-agency work.

The seven Urban Innovation Fellows work directly within NYC government agencies, spanning the areas of housing (NYCHA), transportation (DOT), water (DEP), decarbonization (DCAS), sanitation (DSNY), economic development (EDC), and procurement (MOCS). They help agencies implement urban technology solutions that advance City goals, remove policy roadblocks that prevent scaling successful pilots, and guide promising tech startups through agency processes.