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Blue BetaNYC card. Title: "This week in NYC's #CivicTech. Week 46 of 2026." Bullets in a light-blue panel: "Join BetaBuilders, our community on Discord. Calls for proposals from Data Through Design, Open Data Week and School of Data. Google threatens search access over NYC's school AI ban. Nearly half of NYC job postings now ask for digital skills." Footer: "Read this week's issue." www.beta.nyc/newsletter. BetaNYC logo.

This week in NYC’s #CivicTech – November 12, 2026

,

Gabrielle Langston

Hello friends,

We woke up this morning to tragic news in Brooklyn. On Wednesday afternoon, a three-story building at Flatbush and Bedford Avenues collapsed. As of early Thursday afternoon, Mayor Zohran Mamdani reported that at least eight people had been killed and 18 injured. We send our condolences to the families affected, and we are praying for the safe recovery of everyone who was hurt.

If you can’t reach someone you believe may have been affected by the collapse, city officials say to call 311. From outside NYC, call 212-639-9675.

If you or someone in this community was affected, or you know of a way we can help, please tell Gabby or me. We will share whatever resources we can.

We also want to share where this community gathers now. BetaNYC’s community is moving to Discord, and our Slack workspace will close soon. Our Discord is called BetaBuilders. It’s where we plan classes and open data work, swap job leads, ask each other for help, and keep up with each other between events. There’s more than one way in: become a monthly supporter, take one of our classes, volunteer with us, or get a ticket to a flagship event like School of Data. New to BetaBuilders? Join our virtual welcome session on November 17.

Last week, BetaBuilders and friends joined us on a rooftop for our fall fundraiser party. Thank you to everyone who came and gave! BetaBuilders donors are invited to special events like that one, where the people building public interest tech in New York can spend real time together.

As we gear up for this next phase, we want to hear from you. What kinds of events do you want us to host? Tell us in Discord, or email us at the_message@beta.nyc.

Lastly, two calls for proposals are open. Data Through Design has an updated deadline for its 2027 Open Call: proposals are now due November 19 at 11:59 pm. The call for proposals for Open Data Week and School of Data is still open, too, so if you’ve built or learned something you want to share with other New Yorkers, submit your proposal by December 6.

When hard news comes, as it did this week, it matters that we already know each other. We hope you’ll keep building this community with us.

— Noel Hidalgo and Gabrielle Langston

Support BetaNYC

  • Join BetaBuilders, our community on Discord — BetaBuilders is where New Yorkers working on public interest tech plan classes, share open data projects, and trade job leads. You can join as a monthly supporter, by taking one of our classes, or by volunteering with us. – Become a BetaBuilder

Upcoming Events with BetaNYC

Civic Tech News & Updates

  • Pilot City pairs city workers with university researchers — Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced $2 million in seed research grants for more than 40 City projects, including a Department of Transportation and NYU study of the socioeconomic impacts of bus priority projects. – NYC Mayor’s Office
  • Google threatens search access over the City’s school AI ban — After Google said schools that ban AI will lose access to Google search, Mayor Mamdani wrote that “No corporation should have the power to dictate how we teach our children.” The Mayor announced a one-year ban on most AI programs in city schools in September. – Jessica Gould, Gothamist
  • Nearly half of NYC job postings now ask for digital skills — The Center for an Urban Future found 44% of postings seek digital skills, up from 35% a decade ago, including in home health care, construction, and retail. – Walter Wuthmann, Gothamist
  • Outdoor dining permits are stuck for more than 19 months — A Comptroller investigation found just 28.6% of nearly 5,000 Dining Out NYC applications approved, and only 1 of 388 filed in 2026 approved as of June 15. – NYC Comptroller
  • T-Mobile will lift data caps on affordable home internet plans — In a settlement with Attorney General Letitia James under the New York Affordable Broadband Act, T-Mobile agreed to stop slowing low-cost plans after 50 GB of data and to offer them everywhere it serves. – Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
  • Macaulay students map congestion pricing and air quality — The Fall 2026 Macaulay Honors College Datathon brought 80 students together with the Marcy Lab School and the CUNY Public Interest Technology Lab. Best Green Approach went to Ashna Gibbons and Clayton Ward II, who paired MTA traffic records with NYC air-quality data. – Macaulay Honors College, CUNY
  • What Local Law 97 could cost NYC co-ops in 2030 — An audit of 18,878 multifamily properties finds $460.8 million in 2030 liabilities across 6,126 properties, heavy concentration among managing firms, and a 50.2% Article 321 classification rate in City records. – Borough Registry
  • AdaptBase organizes city climate adaptation plans — A searchable knowledge graph of 129 adaptation plans from 89 cities, including New York, with 11,050 cataloged actions and API access. – Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, Cornell Tech
  • Walkipedia finds the history within a short walk — Type a place or use your location to map every geotagged Wikipedia article nearby, then open the walk in Google Maps. – Neil Scott
  • A guidebook for government teams using AI coding agents — Nine practices for governed use of agent skills and instruction files, written by Mark Headd for agencies adopting AI coding tools. – Ad Hoc
  • A public report card on OpenAI’s nonprofit commitments — EyesOnOpenAI grades OpenAI a “FAIL” a year after its agreement with the California and Delaware attorneys general. – EyesOnOpenAI

AI Roundup

  • Federal AI safety staff asked to report to the White House — AP reports that staff at the Commerce Department’s Center for Advancing Innovation and Standards for Super Intelligence were asked to informally report to a White House office, and that the center has stopped publishing its research. – Associated Press
  • Seattle’s 911 AI warning went unheeded — Since 2023, AI has listened to every 911 medical call in Seattle to help decide who does not need a rapid response, and an internal report raising concerns was ignored. – Daniel Beekman, The Seattle Times, via The Spokesman-Review
  • Why Recidiviz keeps AI out of prison classification — Recidiviz explains that Michigan’s classification system does not use AI and that its tools never decide anyone’s security level or release. – Recidiviz
  • Cornell wins $10 million to rebuild trust online — A Laude Institute “moonshot” grant will fund a Cornell team led by Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil to give online communities control over AI’s role in them. – Cornell Chronicle
  • Interior’s data center push meets the Secretary’s AI investments — ProPublica reports that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum holds between $18.1 million and $64.4 million in AI companies, according to an analysis by Save Our Parks, as the Bureau of Land Management reviews about 15 data center permits. – ProPublica

Jobs & Opportunities

Events

  • November 13 at 6:30pm PIT Unpacked – Macaulay Honors College (MHC++, with the Macaulay Business Club and the Macaulay Urban Planning and Transportation Association). A fireside chat on public interest technology careers, with the Public Interest Technology University Network. Free; registration requires a CUNY sign-in.
  • November 20 at 10:00am NYC Coffee Club for early-stage B2B founders and funders – Forum Ventures. Registration requires host approval.

Hearings

2 hearings ahead. Dates and runway below, so you know what you have time to prepare for.

Coming up

Enough runway to write and submit testimony.

How to testify at a City Council hearing. In-person testimony needs no pre-registration. Virtual testimony requires signing up in advance. Written testimony is accepted up to 72 hours after a hearing adjourns. Details at council.nyc.gov/testify, or email hearings@council.nyc.gov. State hearings are often invitation-only for oral testimony — check the individual notice.

Media to Watch, Listen, or Read

Watch or listen

  • Jill Lepore on the “artificial state” — The Harvard historian talks about our reliance on data and algorithms and what it means for government (36 minutes). – The Brian Lehrer Show, WNYC
  • Freedom House maps “seismic shifts” online — Justin Hendrix talks with Freedom House researchers and others about this year’s Freedom on the Net report, which covers 38 countries and about 71% of the world’s internet users. – Tech Policy Press

Read

  • Climate candidates head to Albany — At least 15 incoming state legislators campaigned explicitly on climate, many on anger over energy bills and data centers. – Colin Kinniburgh, New York Focus
  • Where Hochul gained in NYC, and where she didn’t — Hochul flipped 22 neighborhoods from red to blue since 2022, according to Board of Elections data. – Kennedy Sessions and Haidee Chu, The City Reporter
  • The MTA expects better days with a Democratic Congress — MTA Chair Janno Lieber is hopeful about federal transit funding. – Stephen Nessen and Ramsey Khalifeh, Gothamist
  • The City expands free produce for SNAP households — More funding for Health Bucks and Get the Good Stuff. – Karen Yi, Gothamist
  • A Supreme Court case could limit specialized school admissions reform — The Court will hear a challenge to a Maryland county’s magnet school admissions. – Arya Sundaram, Gothamist
  • What NYC’s tech sector adds up to — Tech:NYC’s 2026 ecosystem report, prepared by HR&A Advisors (free with an email address). – Tech:NYC
  • Nava’s 2026 public benefit report — On why government works better when agencies own and control their technology. – Nava PBC
  • OpenAI proposes a data center framework — OpenAI backs measures it says would give communities more say in data center development. – Owen Dahlkamp, Politico
  • After the midterms, a bigger data center fight — An NBC exit poll found almost 80% opposed data centers in their neighborhoods. – Dominic-Madori Davis, TechCrunch
  • London protesters take on a Google data center — Bikers and bug-lovers team up to block a facility east of London. – Wired
  • Keeping AI contributions to open source from getting sloppy — Angie Byron’s advice includes pull requests “under about 200 lines, and rarely over 400.” – webchick.tech
  • Du Bois’s data portraits, a century on — On a new work in MoMA’s collection that returns to W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1900 Paris Exposition diagrams. – Paola Antonelli and Jules Bernstein, MoMA Magazine
  • Who really shaped New Amsterdam — A close reading of the letter that recorded the purchase of Manhattan. – Alan Mikhail, Vital City
  • Oxford Street spending rose after it went car-free — London’s main shopping street saw a spending boost (paywalled). – Bloomberg

New Data to Note!

NYC Open Data (data.cityofnewyork.us) — 0 new

  • Nothing new this window.

NYS Open Data (data.ny.gov) — 0 new

  • Nothing new this window.

Before you go

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We use AI tools to help scan and organize civic tech news each week — all editorial decisions are made by the BetaNYC team, per our AI Policy.

Build with NYC’s civic data. BetaNYC publishes free, open-source MCP connectors giving AI assistants direct access to NYC Council legislation, city spending and contracts, Council discretionary funding, 311 service data, the City Record, the NYC Charter and Administrative Code, and NYS Open Legislation. If you’re building with AI and civic data, explore them on GitHub.

Take care of each other, and have a great weekend!

BetaNYC is a civic organization improving lives through civic technology, design, and open data. Subscribe to the newsletter · Support our work · Follow us on Bluesky, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Mastodon, Reddit, and YouTube.

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Gabrielle Langston
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