{"id":91833,"date":"2026-01-07T01:30:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T01:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/91833\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T01:30:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T01:30:15","slug":"new-york-citys-tech-chief-steps-down-mamdanis-tech-priorities-still-unclear-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/91833\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City’s tech chief steps down, Mamdani’s tech priorities still unclear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Fraser,<\/a> who\u2019d served as the New York\u2019s chief technology officer since January 2022, under former Mayor Eric Adams, stepped down on Dec. 31. But the city\u2019s technology priorities under newly inaugurated Mayor Zohran Mamdani remain unclear.<\/p>\n

StateScoop discovered the departure on Monday following the quiet removal of Fraser\u2019s biography from the Office of Technology and Innovation\u2019s website<\/a>. According to the website, Ruby Choi, OTI\u2019s deputy commissioner for strategic initiatives, now serves as acting CTO.<\/p>\n

Fraser\u2019s resignation letter, which was only shared internally, was posted to X<\/a> by a City & State New York reporter. In the letter, Fraser said serving as CTO of the \u201cgreatest city in the world,\u201d as a Brooklyn native, \u201chas been both a profound honor and a deeply personal privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I reflect on what we accomplished together in such a short period of time, I do so with immense pride-and sincere gratitude to each of you,\u201d Fraser wrote. \u201cWe began this administration as separate technology organizations and built, together, a single, unified Office of Technology and Innovation. That transformation was not structural alone; it was cultural, operational, and mission-driven-and it happened because of your talent, dedication, and unwavering commitment to public service.\u201d <\/p>\n

In the letter, Fraser touted several of the office\u2019s achievements, including projects like the Big Apple Connect program\u00a0and the city\u2019s Gigabit Centers<\/a>, which brought access to free broadband services, devices and digital skills training \u201cto more New Yorkers in a single term than any prior administration achieved across multiple terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last July, Adams announced a new pilot program called\u00a0Liberty Link<\/a>, designed to bring free or low-cost wireless internet to nearly 2,200 public housing units in the city. In September, Fraser announced that Big Apple Connect had been\u00a0extended<\/a>\u00a0for another three years.<\/p>\n

Under Adams and Fraser, the city also expanded its efforts to deliver digital services, hiring a new chief digital equity officer last March, establishing a working group to guide efforts to boost access to high-speed internet and digital skills training and investing $2.4 million to advance digital equity<\/a>\u00a0in disadvantaged communities with a new\u00a0NYC Digital Equity Roadmap<\/a>. Fraser praised the office\u2019s work to modernize and improve access to government services and information through NYC311, NYC Open Data<\/a> and the MyCity service \u2014 though the chatbot initially provided a number of wrong answers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fraser in his letter also touched on OTI and the city\u2019s Cyber Command helping to make New York City safe by protecting residents from physical and digital threats, including successfully navigating the CrowdStrike global IT outage in 2024<\/a>. Other highlights of Fraser\u2019s included establishing \u201cforward-looking governance for emerging technologies,\u201d including artificial intelligence<\/a> and blockchain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of Mamdani\u2019s first actions as mayor was to sign an executive order that revoked all orders issued by Adams on or after Sept. 26, 2024, the date he was indicted on federal corruption charges<\/a>. (Adams\u2019 charges were dropped at the direction of President Donald Trump after he pledged support for the president\u2019s deportation efforts.) This includes the order Adams signed last October<\/a> that established an Office of Digital Assets and Blockchain Technology and drove the city\u2019s \u201cblockchain plan.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s office has not responded to phone calls and emails requesting more information about his planned technology policies. A spokesperson from the Office of Technology and Innovation declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Beyond Choi serving as interim CTO, little else is known about Mamdani\u2019s plans for the city\u2019s disposition on technology. The Democratic-Socialist mayor has been very vocal about plans to overhaul a number of the city\u2019s social programs, but how technology will play into those efforts remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Keely<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWritten by Keely Quinlan
\n\t\t\tKeely Quinlan reports on privacy and digital government for StateScoop. She was an investigative news reporter with Clarksville Now in Tennessee, where she resides, and her coverage included local crimes, courts, public education and public health. Her work has appeared in Teen Vogue, Stereogum and other outlets. She earned her bachelor\u2019s in journalism and master\u2019s in social and cultural analysis from New York University.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Fraser, who\u2019d served as the New York\u2019s chief technology officer since January 2022, under former Mayor Eric…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[43372,5063,81,13227,9,24,55,54,56,5065,13771,82],"class_list":["post-91833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-chief-technology-officer-cto","tag-digital-services","tag-eric-adams","tag-matt-fraser","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-state-local-news","tag-tech-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91833","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=91833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}