How would your job be different without technology? How about your personal life? For many of us, that is actually hard to imagine. Internet Week NY is an event designed to celebrate technology and recognize just how crucial a role it plays in our everyday lives.
“Internet Week is a festival where explore all the ways technology is really transforming every aspect of our lives: business, culture, entertainment, government - really everything we do," says Allison Arden of Internet Week NY.
Make no mistake; the event also serves as a bit of an advertisement, trying to lure tech companies to setup shop here.
For example, one high tech installation was designed to help counter a common argument given against locating in New York City.
”People think that space in NYC is so limited, but it’s really not. People are moving out to warehouses, like abandoned warehouses in Chelsea and they’re basically creating a whole community where their employees can live, work and play," says Elizabeth Herzberg of CBRE.
Even the trees are taking part in Internet Week. They’re helping to prove how, through technology, big cities such as New York City can help better engage with its residents.
Every ten years, the city does a census of its trees. This time around, it is launching the TreesCount mobile app so that city dwellers can help map the locations and health of their most beloved specimens.
“Now that we’re so personally tied to all the things that we do in our day to day lives through our phones, we want you to be able to access the government in that same way, in that same personalized, customer, immediate, and social way,” says NYC chief technology officer Minerva Tantoco.
The city says just as it makes perfect sense to have the people who see certain trees everyday help keep track of them, going forward, the same could be done for streets, buildings, parks - anything that could potentially be overlooked during the day-to-day bustle in any big city.