![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_1928-copy.jpg\" "\\"NYC")
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New York City Hall.<\/p>\n
Photo by Ethan Stark-Miller<\/p>\n
NYC officials<\/a> will honor a dozen city workers for pioneering ideas aimed at making government services better during the fourth annual NYC Hayes Innovation Prize ceremony<\/a> on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n The winning projects \u2013 originating from eight public sector entities serving NYC \u2013 represent major technological and programmatic breakthroughs on affordability, government accessibility and public safety, among other topics.\u00a0<\/p>\n Honorees were selected from 74 nominations across more than 30 agencies, and each winner received a $1,000 cash prize funded by the Frederick O\u2019Reilly Hayes Prize Foundation.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n FDNY safety<\/p>\n Among the winners was Joel Owhe of the FDNY, who led a job safety analysis application, a tool the department described as \u201cgroundbreaking\u201d for improving fire fighter safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to the Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI), which co-sponsored the awards alongside the foundation, Owhe this year turned a once paper-heavy and reactive system into a digital platform designed to improve the department\u2019s ability to train, evaluate and safeguard members.<\/p>\n FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore applauded Owhe for launching the application.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \u201cThe FDNY congratulates Firefighter Joel Owhe on this well-deserved recognition from the Hayes Prize Foundation,\u201d Bonsignore said. \u201cHis work reflects the innovative thinking that makes the FDNY stronger every day. \u00a0His application has improved a critical safety process within our department, helping us better evaluate training operations and protect our members.\u201d<\/p>\n Naloxone vending machines<\/p>\n Another award winner was Roxanne Anderson of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), who implemented public health vending machines to address the city\u2019s overdose crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sterile syringes, sharps containers and naloxone are among the items stocked inside the machines. Since June 2023, the city\u2019s first four public health vending machines have been\u00a0used\u00a0over 42,000 times and dispensed 4,500\u00a0naloxone\u00a0kits and other resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no challenge too big for New York City\u2019s amazing public servants,\u201d said Chief Technical Officer and Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI) Commissioner Lisa Gelobter. \u201cThanks to their bold vision and leadership, this year\u2019s Hayes Prize winners achieved remarkable results that made our city more affordable, our government run better, and our streets safer for New Yorkers. In addition, our honorees deserve acclaim for raising the bar for government excellence and inspiring their colleagues to pursue their own greatness.\u201d<\/p>\n Other winners of the Hayes Awards\u00a0<\/p>\n Pavel Ilin of the NYC Mayor\u2019s Office for Economic Opportunity, who spearheaded the complete rebuild and launch of the new My File NYC, a digital platform that gives\u00a0 New Yorkers a secure place to store their vital documents and share them when applying for city services. Other finalists this year:\u00a0<\/p>\n Janelle Blount and Raja\u00a0Pathuri\u00a0of HPD\u00a0
\nShawn\u00a0Inshan\u00a0and Mallory\u00a0Rutigliano\u00a0of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), who\u00a0pioneered\u00a0a toolkit\u00a0with a Resiliency Exposure Inventory and Resiliency Exposure Forecast designed\u00a0to understand whether communities, infrastructure, and environments are sufficiently protected from climate risks.\u00a0
\nCaleb Wendling and Julia Klauss of OMB, who expanded the flood insurance coverage of overlooked city-owned buildings using mapping software, Python scripts, and direct outreach, to create a new list of all city assets.
\nMatthew Yarri of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), who developed a real-time performance dashboard and data analytics framework for the congestion pricing program.
\nMike\u00a0Kutzma\u00a0of the MTA, who\u00a0led the design and implementation of the MTA Data Lake Program, a suite of infrastructure and applications that serve to enable analytics at\u00a0scale\u00a0across the MTA.\u00a0
\nKenyatta (Kym) Williams of the NYC Human Resources Administration, who managed the Cemetery Management and Tracking System \u2013 a platform to manage burial records, plot mapping, and public access for burial operations at Hart Island.
\nClaire Boyd of the Department of Finance, who transformed the Property Modeling Group\u2019s technical capabilities at DOF to enhance efficiency, analytical rigor, and long-term sustainability across operations.
\nElan Carmel of the Department of Social Services (DSS), who directed the execution of a citywide initiative to strengthen oversight of food and nutrition services within city shelters.<\/p>\n
\nChris Gettings and Emily\u00a0Torem\u00a0of DOHMH\u00a0
\nAyesha McHugh of NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA)\u00a0
\nMomina Min of NYC Public Schools\u00a0
\nTheodore Mullally of DOHMH\u00a0
\nDana Nelson of NYC Emergency Management (NYCEM)\u00a0
\nMatthew O\u2019Malley of\u00a0Department of Small Business Services (SBS)\u00a0
\nJayabalaji\u00a0Rubalingam\u00a0of MTA\u00a0
\nBharti Sharma of NYC Health + Hospitals\u00a0
\nCourtney Yu of NYCHA\u00a0
\nKhusro Zafar and Brunnell Velazquez of the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC)\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City Hall. Photo by Ethan Stark-Miller NYC officials will honor a dozen city workers for pioneering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[73051,40535,194,141,9,24,63,73052,73053,44063,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-181055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-dohmh","tag-dss","tag-fdny","tag-mta","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-hayes-innovation-prize","tag-nyc-workers","tag-office-of-technology-and-innovation","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}