New York and San Francisco Mayors Announce Joint "Digital Cities" Technology Summits

Starting in late September, Silicon Alley and Silicon Valley will be collaborating on high-tech solutions to the problems both cities face. The mayors of New York and San Francisco announced that they will be holding two Digital Cities summits (one in each city) to develop new ways of handing old threats, such as flooding and power outages. The summits have already attracted the likes of Jack Dorsey, who is well-known as a co-founder of Twitter and Square.

Mayor Bloomberg Announcing Digital Cities
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announce the Digital Cities summits.
Image Credit: NBC News Corp

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee made the announcement while in San Francisco, with Dorsey present. Other tech luminaries are likely to be invited to the summits, but the “who” will depend on the topics being discussed. In addition to brainstorming ways to prevent or handle major disasters, the summits will also seek technological fixes for important, but less dramatic problems, like fostering better environments for startups and housing issues.


In recent years, NYC has seen notable tech industry growth, in part due to mobile app developers. The city is often referred to as “Silicon Alley,” as the east coast counterpart to Silicon Valley in California. Bloomberg recently announce another technology-based initiative aimed at helping NYC’s citizens. The partnership with Nextdoor.com creates a social network for city residents and is meant to help them share local information, including safety alerts.
Joshua Gulick

Joshua Gulick

Josh cut his teeth (and hands) on his first PC upgrade in 2000 and was instantly hooked on all things tech. He took a degree in English and tech writing with him to Computer Power User Magazine and spent years reviewing high-end workstations and gaming systems, processors, motherboards, memory and video cards. His enthusiasm for PC hardware also made him a natural fit for covering the burgeoning modding community, and he wrote CPU’s “Mad Reader Mod” cover stories from the series’ inception until becoming the publication editor for Smart Computing Magazine.  A few years ago, he returned to his first love, reviewing smoking-hot PCs and components, for HotHardware. When he’s not agonizing over benchmark scores, Josh is either running (very slowly) or spending time with family.