BetaBagels 016: Meet the OTI PIT Crew
August 12 @ 8:30 AM – 10:30 AM EDT
BetaBagels is BetaNYC’s morning breakfast series: coffee (provided by BetaNYC), bagels (BYOB – bring your own bagel!), and an informal morning with New York’s civic technology community.
For BetaBagels 016, we’re joined by the NYC Office of Technology & Innovation’s (OTI) Public Interest Technology (PIT) Crew. Launched in July 2026, the PIT Crew embeds in-house teams of product managers, designers, engineers, user researchers, and data experts alongside City agencies to build digital public services rather than rent them from vendors.
The City is standing up five crews. The first is partnering with the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection on a “Click to Cancel” complaint portal that helps New Yorkers push back on companies that trap them in hard-to-cancel subscriptions.ers and the civic tech community can plug in.
BetaBagels 016 is your chance to hear directly from the team about what the PIT Crew is, what it’s building first, and how New Yorkers and the civic tech community can plug in.
Come for the coffee, stay for a candid conversation about what public interest technology looks like in practice.
- 8:30 AM: Doors open
- 9:00 AM: Kickoff
- 9:10–10:00 AM: Program (presentation + Q&A)
- 10:00–10:30 AM: Networking
Speakers
Luke Farrell is Deputy Commissioner at OTI and has spent his career building mission-driven tech teams across the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. Before joining City government, he led teams at the White House’s United States Digital Service that mitigated nationwide supply chain shocks and kept millions of people enrolled in Medicaid and SNAP after the pandemic. He’s excited to be building the PIT Crew to raise New Yorkers’ expectations of what government can deliver.
Sukhi Gulati-Gilbert is a technologist with a decade of experience building software meant to bring people empowerment and joy. She most recently spent a few years building an app to help people exercise their right to digital privacy. She’s thrilled to be serving New Yorkers as part of the PIT Crew.
Registration
This event is free, but space is limited and registration is required.
BetaNYC is a safer space. Harassment, discrimination, and exclusionary behavior are not tolerated. Protected categories include gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, and more. Violations can result in removal from the event and the BetaNYC network. If an incident occurs, contact saferspaces@beta.nyc or find a BetaNYC staff member at the event.