I would like to congratulate Bill de Blasio on his landslide victory in the NYC mayoral race. He will become our next mayor on Jan 1st 2014.
His vision of making NYC a city of opportunity for everyone is laudable and I hope he can deliver on it. But it is easier said than done. The problems facing our economy, our city, and our citizens are deep rooted and not prone to easy solutions. I don't believe old school liberalism will provide the answers. If we want to address the income equality issues, the job stagnation problems, and the crime and poverty that still blights parts of NYC, we must look for new ideas and they must start with education, empowerment, and entrepreneurship.
As the readers of this blog know, I am investing as much as I can in these three Es here in NYC. And in my work, I meet so many other like minded people who are investing their time and energy in similar ways. I hope Bill de Blasio embraces this kind of work because creating opportunities for our people, particularly our children, is the most powerful form of social change that I know.
The tech sector can be a powerful ally for our new mayor. And my sense is that he knows it. I was asked yesterday by a journalist for my take on what de Blasio's tech policies should be. Here is what I wrote her.
I think that Bloomberg's tech policies have been really good, particularly in the latter part of his time in City Hall. de Blasio would be well served to continue them and in many cases double down on them.
Two areas where more could be done are procurement of software where the city needs to adopt a more open process including open sourcing of code as much as possible and a more aggressive posture on broadband which may have to include looking at alternatives to the duopoly we have in NYC right now.
The tech community is largely apolitical. But that does not mean it is unavailable to help our city and our incoming administration. I hope that Bill de Blasio finds time for the tech community and listens and learns from us. I think many good things could come of that.
