Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Good morning, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here today at New York City's biggest speedway, the Coney Island go-kart track, to speak about how we are making City government faster and more efficient for the working people who call our beautiful city their home. And I want to acknowledge we have a number of leaders here both inside and outside of City government. We have our deputy mayor, Julia Kerson; we have our commissioner and chief technology officer of OTI, Lisa Gelobter; we have the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, Rajiv Shah; we have our city councilwoman and chair of the technology committee, Carmen De La Rosa, who's here with us; we also have our chair of the State Senate Internet and Technology Committee, Kristen Gonzalez; as well as our associate general counselor for DCWP, Andy Schwenk [and] members of our Tech Transition Committee. And we want to thank Luna Park for having us here today.
Now allow me for just a moment to turn back the clock. It is early August 1994; I am not quite three years old. Pulp Fiction is dominating the box office; Sony is gearing up to release the first-ever PlayStation; and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is humming with the kind of energy that only comes with a moment that will go down in history. It is the inaugural Brickyard 400, a race that has drawn the largest crowd NASCAR has ever seen. And Jeff Gordon is speeding towards victory, thanks in no small part to his revolutionary pit crew, the Rainbow Warriors. Unlike the other crews out on the Speedway that day, the Rainbow Warriors were not your average mechanics. No, they were an organized team who trained together, practiced together [and] learned together; who transformed pitting into an art and pushed one another to a new standard of excellence.
Today, I am proud to announce that City Hall is launching five of our very own game-changing PIT Crews, Public Interest Technology Crews, under the Office of Technology and Innovation. Driven by the same spirit of innovation and efficiency as the Rainbow Warriors, these PIT Crews will raise the bar for what New Yorkers can expect from City Hall. Each team will be comprised of product managers, designers, engineers, user researchers and data experts. They will work closely with city agencies to launch digital solutions to government processes that have long been defined by piles of paperwork. And they will do so with a speed rarely seen in government. Instead of waiting years for new government technology, only for it to work slowly - if it is not already, frankly, outdated by the time that it's released - our PIT Crews will move ideas to implementation in a matter of months.
Last Friday, I announced that New York City will be enacting the nation's first ever click-to-cancel rule, a major step in protecting New Yorkers from costly subscription traps and hidden fees. Today, I'm proud to say that our first PIT Crew will be dedicated to making this rule a material reality for New Yorkers. They will work with DCWP to build an online portal where New Yorkers can file complaints against companies that trap their customers in subscriptions that are near impossible to cancel. The platform will not only provide recourse for New Yorkers who are being exploited, it will also provide a database that City Hall will use to hold violators accountable. And we will have four additional project-specific PIT Crews that will similarly make life more affordable for New Yorkers by making city platforms easier to use. One of these teams will be launched with support from the Rockefeller Foundation via the Mayor's Fund; we are deeply grateful for their partnership.
But this work is not just about making City government more efficient, it is about improving the way that government works. In 2026, nearly all of the services City Hall offers New Yorkers are dispensed through digital platforms. Every confusing step and every dead-end portal makes it more difficult for government to deliver for New Yorkers, and for New Yorkers to trust that government is working to deliver them. Every straightforward experience New Yorkers have on city platforms rebuilds that trust and our PIT Crews will help us do exactly that. So, if you're an experienced product manager, software engineer, designer or a technologist who wants to help make City government work better and faster, please apply to join one of our PIT Crew at nyc.gov/pitcrew.
In the words of Jeff Gordon: "I've never believed in luck. If you perform well, execute, have a good race car and a good race team, you're going to increase your chances dramatically of having better results." City Hall is building a team that performs well and executes well. You better believe that our chances of delivering better results for New Yorkers are increasing dramatically as well. Thank you very much. Now it is my pleasure to introduce our OTI commissioner and chief technology officer, Lisa Gelobter.
Lisa Gelobter, Commissioner and Chief Technology Officer, Office of Technology and Innovation: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. That was amazing. I am so, so thrilled to be here with you all today. [I am] so excited to launch the announcement of the PIT Crew as well as our very first project. Grateful for the opportunity from both the mayor and Deputy Mayor Kerson for your support and for creating - helping us create - this opportunity to use technology as a strategic asset to deliver the best we can for New Yorkers. Additionally, I really want to thank, obviously, the Rockefeller Foundation for your support and your leadership in this. Thank you to Luke Farrell and Maya Israni and the entire soon-to-be PIT Crew, who will actually make this a reality. And we are thrilled to support Commissioner Levine and the DCWP with their click-to-support rule, right? It really should be as easy to unsubscribe as it is to subscribe to any service.
Additionally, the partnership of Carmen De La Rosa - but she is also the New York City Council Technology Committee chair, Carmen De La Rosa - and New York State senator and chair of the internet and technology committee, Kristen Gonzalez. So, thank you all very much. And so, the PIT Crew launch today, I think it marks a new day for OTI and for how tech can deliver policy directly to the people for whom it is intended. So, New Yorkers really do deserve to have a government that delivers to them at the speed of New York City. And we will be focusing relentlessly on user first, user first always, and really focus on outcomes, not just outputs. We want to transform how New Yorkers interact with the government. We want to raise expectations on what government can deliver, because we really can deliver.
And across my career - both in private sector, in the federal government as well - I have worked on things that have tried to make systematic change, societal level change, democratize access, and that's exactly the kinds of things that we are also going to be doing here in New York City. And we are going to create meaningful change for everyone using technology, harnessing the power of policy in this administration to actually effect that change. So, thank you. So, this is just the start about how OTI is starting to think differently and do differently. Thanks again to the mayor for this deeply critical investment that is going to impact millions of New Yorkers. And as the mayor said, if you are a technologist and you do want to serve New Yorkers, please apply. You can make a major impact. Go to nyc.gov/pitcrew today. There are jobs posted there already. Very excited for that. Alright and then on with the show. So next up, I would like to introduce the Rockefeller Foundation president, Dr. Rajiv Shah.
Dr. Rajiv Shah, President, The Rockefeller Foundation: Thank you, Lisa, and thank you for your leadership of this initiative. Mr. Mayor, I should congratulate you. You started first and ended first at the race, so that's yet another accomplishment. Well done. I want to thank in particular the PIT Crew team, and I suppose we all also should thank the creators of Super Mario Kart for bringing us here to Coney Island.
Look, the Rockefeller Foundation is a philanthropy that believes in delivering real results for vulnerable families and communities here in New York and all around the world since it was founded as a New York institution in 1913. In recent years, we supported the city government as it fought crises ranging from COVID to - now under your leadership, Mayor - fighting the current affordability crisis that holds back so many of our families in this great city. Across the country, we get to partner with leaders who care about delivering results and are willing to take risks and try new things to do so. And we are proud to be supporting the mayor's PIT Crew initiative.
Now, I am all in on the mayor's description of philanthropy as the golden mushroom that gives drivers like the mayor and his great team a speed boost. I've been actually searching for a way to describe what philanthropy is for years and saw the video and thought, "There you go." Here's the difference: In the video game when you win the cup, you get a little animated dance, a little bit of animated cheering, and a fake trophy and some stars. Here, when we win together with this PIT Crew initiative, families' lives get meaningfully better. More New Yorkers and Americans get access to affordable housing, get access to tax filing services, get support for addressing grievances against companies, as you just heard, and are able to, in a more fair way, address their daily needs and their daily lives.
And so, for that purpose, the Foundation is proud to commit more than $2 million to this initiative broadly as an initial investment. We hope ourselves, and we call on other philanthropies in this city to do more in support of a mayoral team that is looking to use public-private partnerships to deliver real results. And in the spirit of the speed boost, let's get there quickly. Thank you.
Commissioner Gelobter: Thank you for that, and especially the lesson in where this all started from. I also want to now cede the stage to the New York City Council Technology Committee Chair Carmen De La Rosa.
Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa: It's a long way from Washington Heights, but I'm so happy to be here with our mayor. Thank you, mayor, for your vision, and to our CTO who has been so refreshing. It's been so amazing to work with you all.
This vision is real. It is one that centers innovation as a public good, and that is so refreshing today. Also, the Rockefeller Foundation, our senator who's also a technology chair, two Latinas leading tech for our city and our state. And obviously our deputy mayor who knows all too well that Luna Park in itself is an example of New York's technological resilience and also potential. It is a state-of-the-art innovation, and it's an example what we can achieve, so thank you for your work.
New York City has always been a cradle of technological innovation and advancement, even serving as an example of how investment in modernity can transform public good. Our community is often a microcosm of larger city-wide issues. I mean, in our office, we get people every single day who are navigating city government because they have no other choice. They need government in order to survive. So today, we are closing the gap. The issues in the Washington Heights or Dyker Heights or Coney Island are the issues that we all know. Affordability is at its core. Housing, access to good jobs, language access, government responsiveness - that is what our constituents are asking for.
As technology chair in the Council - and I'm grateful for our speaker for appointing me to the Technology Committee - I know that technology has a potential to solve the problems of everyday New Yorkers. Access should never hinder our ability to succeed. And we are excited to see this vision of efficiency integrated back into the plan for our city's present and our city future, providing opportunity for young talent to bring everything they have to help New York be the best city in the world that it is. So, we advocate fiercely because we know and have a history of systematic racism and exclusion and prejudice that has held many communities back. And we have a job to do in playing catch up. So, I'm so proud to be an ally of this administration and to work together to close those gaps today. Thank you.
Commissioner Gelobter: Thank you Council Member De La Rosa. I do want to say that it is about partnership, and I'm so excited that the technology committee chairs at both the city and the state level are participating in this and showing up, and we are working together. I also would be remiss if I did not also thank - this has been such a journey - thank all of the folks who participated in the transition committee during the administration shift for the tech. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank for helping make this a reality. And last but not least, I would like to offer the microphone to the New York state senator and chair of the Internet and Technology Committee, Kristen Gonzalez.
State Senator Kristen Gonzalez: Thank you so much, Lisa. Good morning, everyone, on this beautiful sunny day. It is an honor to be here. My name is Kristen Gonzalez, and I am chair of the State Senate Internet and Technology Committee. I will say, in the span of a week, our mayor has gotten me to show up to a gym, and now Coney Island, in a suit. But I will say I do draw the line at jumping into a pool in the suit. But truly, it is such an honor.
I think in my time in office I have learned a little bit about what it means to have good tech policy and good government. Good tech policy is built on the principle that technology should make our lives better. And good government is built upon the principle we should be able to make real New Yorkers' lives easier by delivering accessible services. Today, the public interest technology crew is what happens when you take both of those principles seriously. In a government that works, technology should open doors, not put up walls. It should make it easier to get help, not harder to find it. Under the leadership of our incredible chief technology officer, Lisa Gelobter - big credit to her and her entire team - the leadership of deputy mayor of operations, Julia Kersen, and of course, under the incredible leadership of our mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Let's give him a big round of applause. Our government is turning a new page, using innovation not as a buzzword, but as a tool that actually serves the public.
