6 themes in Brooklyn tech in 2013

As Technically Brooklyn goes through its first transition to a New Year, we have been on the scene in the borough since August. We are already starting to see some themes emerge, reflecting where technology is at right now. We think these five posts reflect those themes.

Digital Stewards build a mesh network in Red Hook
As the best read story here this year — with the help of Reddit interest — this might reflect some of the uneasiness that the borough has with tech’s impact on a borough that still has a poverty and access divide. The fact that young people from public housing in Red Hook are building the skills to become network engineers reflects some of technology’s promise and (perhaps) makes long time locals feel a little better about this latest way that the ever-changing city is changing.

Brooklyn teachers can get a MakerBot
3D printing is the spear point of digital fabrication and reviving new manufacturing, so MakerBot continues to be a borough leader. Like the previous story, it’s about access to technology. In most cases, the first young people to get a chance to try their hand at 3D printing will be the ones from affluent families, but this is a story of the leader in 3D printing doing something tangible about this new technological divide.

Robotic Church opens in Red Hook
A large scale robotic art installation that drew interest from the New York Times. Brooklyn has been full of artists for a long time, and now, it’s full of artists who know how to code, program robots, build motors and invent. Some of them are starting businesses and some of them are making progressively more technological artwork. This is going to be a big theme going forward, as long as they aren’t all priced out of here.

Wolfe Fiber expands to New York
Access to high speed Internet continues to be an issue in New York, in part because there’s a traffic jam on the network in a place that wants to be a global tech hub. We have a lot of people here that want to use it. It’s really not clear that the city is doing anything serious about it. Will getting more people access to Fiber really help if the trunk lines that serve the city don’t get any bigger? No matter how many buildings get subsidized Fiber connections, we’re still going to be beaten by Charleston and Kansas City until something more fundamental gets done, which is a funny way to build a tech economy.

3rd Ward Closes
In the New Tech City podcast looking back on what Bloomberg has done for tech, one interviewee said that the city started taking the tech community seriously when Google bought a building in Manhattan. In other words, in New York, everything comes back to real estate. We’re written a lot about space here. Whether its funky new spaces like Brooklyn Research or the local argument around rehabbing Empire Stores, location matters in the largest borough.

While there is still loads of unused space here, most of the empty spots have to be repurposed before entrepreneurs can use them. That costs money and political capital. Yet, even with the demand, 3rd Ward‘s closing shows that not every investment in space is a surefire win.

NYU-Poly’s $250M tech footprint
Institutional anchors can either foster an entrepreneurial environment and open doors for the best ideas, or crowd them out. So far, the big players in Brooklyn seem to be working in support of grassroots innovation. From the Navy Yard to CUSP to Poly to the CUNY System, so far, having a few big, widely known entities getting serious about tech has fostered the startup spirit and reassured technologists that they have somewhere to turn when they need questions answered.