Main Room

Current methods of assessing building performance (i.e., benchmarking platforms, building performance standards) lack the intelligence to calculate a building uses energy, the GHG-intensity of available power, or building occupancy. As a result, building stakeholders and government officials can’t recognize or incentivize investment in load shifting, demand management, and occupant-responsive building operations. In this workshop, Benchmark 8760 program leaders will demonstrate the proof-of-concept platform, followed by a discussion with initiative contributors on the thesis and policy background that inspired the project.

Molly Kiick - Project Manager of Commercial Buildings Team, NYSERDA

James Coleman - PhD Candidate, Princeton University

Charlotte Matthews - Head of Affordable Electrification, Google

Karen Oh - VP of Energy Innovation & Strategy, Vornado Realty Trust

Molly Dee - Director of Deep Carbon Reduction Group, JB&B

Room 215

As an agency tasked with identifying and confronting risks to NYC’s government and residents, the NYC Comptroller’s Office is committed to advancing a just transition toward a more equitable, low-carbon, and resilient city. Through the NYC Climate Dashboard, the Comptroller's office tracks our city’s progress in meeting our climate goals by assessing how effectively the city is reducing our carbon emissions and how prepared our neighborhoods are for the impacts of climate change. This workshop will focus on how technology can both improve transparency and accountability of city commitments, as well as foster a community of users to organize for better climate outcomes.

Louise Yeung - Chief Climate Officer, NYC Comptroller

Room 225

One of America’s greatest assets, its research and university systems, lie at the foundation of America’s economic engine from landing on the moon to the creation of the internet. To address human’s greatest existential crisis, climate change, our research and development engine needs to be reconfigured and optimized for this moment. This Climate Action Workshop will bring together key stakeholders around NYC’s innovation ecosystem to discuss how we can empower local institutions, support the burgeoning of new startups, and build key innovation partnerships around the globe.

Sander Dolder - Senior VP, NYCEDC

Main Room

This workshop will present new tools for extracting 3-D models of individual trees from New York City's 2017 LIDAR Survey, computing the shading benefits they provide, and communicating these benefits. Tree Folio is a joint research effort by Cornell Tech and the Cornell AAP's Design Across Scales Lab to develop a "digital twin" of the urban canopy. We will demonstrate the current capabilities of the platform on a sample neighborhood in Brooklyn and engage participants in a discussion of potential applications and audiences for this ongoing work.

Alexander Kobald - Associate Director, Design Across Scales Lab, College of Art, Architecture, and Planning (AAP), Cornell University 

Joe Ferdinando - Research Associate, Design Across Scales Lab, College of Art, Architecture, and Planning (AAP), Cornell University

Sarang Pramode - Graduate Student, Urban Tech, Cornell Tech

Room 215

Good news. 50% of the climate solutions we need for the energy transition already exist. The imperative is to make sure these proven solutions are adopted as quickly as possible. This workshop will focus on what New York City can do better to support the rapid scaling of growth-stage startups.

Taylor Rowe - Director of Customer & Capital Partnerships, The Clean Fight

Nyla Mabro - Director of Strategy & Marketing, The Clean Fight

Shelby Thompson - Program Director of Climate Tech, SecondMuse

Room 225

The NYC grid is becoming increasingly complex with the emergence of large-scale offshore wind, building electrification, and fleets of electric vehicles. Energy storage will play an increasingly pivotal role in providing local, emissions free, and reliable power. This workshop features a discussion on the challenges and opportunities for energy storage, including new standards for indoor installations, vehicle-2-grid technology, and supportive storage policy.

Adam Cohen - CTO & Co-Founder, NineDot Energy

Claudia Villar-Leeman - Energy Policy Advisor, NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice

Nick Petrakis - Senior Consultant, Energy Safety Response Group

Room 315

Securing lease areas, permitting, and contracting suppliers has been top of mind for the emerging offshore wind industry in the U.S. Now that the industry is getting off the ground, and pressured to accelerate by increasingly ambitious federal targets, what role can innovation play in moving the industry forward? What are the opportunities for enterprises that have historically not worked in offshore wind? And what are the potential social and economic benefits of establishing a strong offshore wind innovation ecosystem?

Kori Groenveld - Program Manager, National Offshore Wind Research & Development Consortium

Tone Søndergaard, Director, The Offshore Wind Innovation Hub in New York

Main Room

The expertise, skills and IP within the infrastructure markets reside with large institutional infrastructure asset managers. They have attracted the best talent and mastered best practices and processes to run these existing assets on a global scale. The valley of death is not their problem. It’s the startup problem. How can ClimateTech startups cross the valley of death? Startups need the resources to successfully develop, finance and operate these emerging assets at scale. In this workshop, Perl Street will share insights about how ClimateTech startups can navigate a path to success.

Tooraj Arvajeh - CEO & Co-Founder, Perl Street

Dakota Wixom - CTO & Co-Founder , Perl Street

Arvind Vermani - CPO & Co-Founder, Perl Street

Zeev Krieger - Partner, Third Sphere

Room 215

The most recent IPCC report highlighted the role of “mobility as a service” (MaaS) in helping drive sustainable transport outcomes. New York City’s TLC has embraced the idea of an open standard for finding and booking taxis in navigation apps. But real-world success with MaaS has been limited, and proof of emissions reductions remains elusive. How can cities move faster and more forcefully to shape mobility markets that truly enable positive environmental outcomes? How can this high level vision be implemented in a world class transportation hub like NYC?

Andrew Salzberg - Lecturer of Urban Mobility & Sustainability, MIT

Room 225

At the SCNY Urban Tech Summit 2021, we identified six urban tech jobs of the future: Algorithm Auditor, Equity Designer, Metadata Interpreter, Investor-in-Recovery, Living Labs Ombudsman, and Urban Tech Quality Control Technician. This workshop will dive deeper into the skills these and other future urban tech careers will demand, and explore how the University of Michigan and Cornell Tech are grappling with these challenges in undergraduate and graduate urban tech degree programs.

Anthony Townsend - Urbanist in Residence, Cornell Tech

Bryan Boyer - Director of Urban Technology Program, University of Michigan