‘Faster and smarter:’ Cornell Tech helps advance NYC priorities

It's a common sight (and smell) on New York City streets: piles of torn or leaking black trash bags, which need to be pitched by hand into trucks and draw out the city's most unwelcome tenants: rats.

In 2025, the city piloted "Empire Bins" for schools and apartment buildings in West Harlem - 800-gallon, covered bins on the street that can be lifted by truck. The pilot worked: Rat complaints went down, the streets were cleaner, and sanitation workers' jobs became less physically taxing. But siting bins for the pilot was labor intensive, requiring crews from the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY) to manually survey most streets, often measuring distances with a stick roller. To scale the program to the remaining 58 districts, the agency needed a more efficient approach.

"There are a million things to consider on a New York City street," said Stephen Albonesi '11, a Cornell Tech fellow who is now tackling the challenge with DSNY. He's part of the Urban Innovation Fellows Initiative, a new, first-of-its-kind Cornell Tech program that embeds mid-career urban planners, data scientists, designers and entrepreneurs in New York City government agencies to accelerate critical projects.

"We're trying to get to a point where for every individual property that qualifies for these Empire Bins, we can use a model to more or less predict where the bin should be sited. Then we can send teams out to verify if that's correct," Albonesi said. "I'm motivated and excited because this project affects the day-to-day lives of people in an important and tangible way, and it's going to improve the city."

Albonesi is one of seven Urban Innovation Fellows, the first cohort in a program launched in 2024 by the Urban Tech Hub (part of the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute) and funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies. The two-year initiative aims to boost innovation in city agencies and give talented professionals exposure to government service. Fellows spend four days a week at their assigned agency - working on projects that span housing, transportation, water, decarbonization, economic development and procurement - and convene at Cornell Tech one day a week to share notes and make connections.

"So much good work is happening in city agencies, and it's where the city cultivates the next round of leaders," said Ashwini Chhabra, initiative director, who moved from corporate law to city government early in his own career. "I think there's a pent-up demand among young people - they want to effect change and want to use their skill sets to do something more rewarding, and city government has all of these really hard-to-solve problems that can challenge them."

For the agencies, the extra capacity, expertise and focus have already been game changing.

"It's just a huge asset to public works agencies like ourselves, to get this influx of talent," said Max Siegel, chief data officer for the city Department of Transportation (DOT) and supervisor to fellow Catrina Cuadra, who is working on a better system to track pavement conditions and markings on streets. "It really is a benefit to society in general to have this kind of public-private partnership that fosters collaboration and innovation - and getting more done."

Accelerating transformation

In 2024, Chhabra went to city officials to understand where extra capacity and expertise could make the most difference - and then found fellows suited to each agency and project.

"Cornell Tech did not come to us and say: We have a cool technology that we want you to try," said Neil Eisenberg, deputy commissioner for DSNY and Albonesi's supervisor. "They reached out to the city and said: Where do you need help from us? What are the projects and priorities for the city that you want to accelerate? This model works because all the projects are driven by the agencies, and the innovation comes from the fellows having skills that are matched to the agency's needs."

At DSNY, Albonesi has brought an urban planner's eye and methodical approach to collating multiple datasets and filling in information where it's missing. The resulting model will ultimately paint a picture of any city street, replete with tree pits, fire hydrants, manhole covers, parking restrictions, curb cuts and much more. The models will help more quickly and accurately identify appropriate sites for the Empire Bins and could eventually be used for other infrastructure projects.

"I'm now able to show people in the department a map of just about every constraint you can imagine," Albonesi said. "Those days when I can leave work feeling like things are really coming together are so special."

Other fellows are building digital systems to integrate critical infrastructure data, reforming procurement processes and increasing capacity for the use of cleaner energy.

Fellow Noelle Francois, founder of a tech startup, wanted to better understand the city's process for adopting new technologies. She spent the first year of her fellowship at the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) securing two grants to pilot technology that recycles heat from wastewater in NYCHA's residential buildings - an effort that could reduce the energy used to heat water by more than 50%.

"It's been really, really inspiring to see the breadth of work that is happening in the city and the extreme thoughtfulness that goes into making sure our city is a viable place to live for the next 100 years," Francois said.

Strengthening ties

In only the first year, Chhabra said the program has strengthened Cornell Tech's ties with the city, as fellows build connections and act as ambassadors.

"If we can help the city deliver on the challenges they face, I think that just deepens the relationship, and it surfaces more problems and challenges that we can help tackle through the next cohort of fellows or research done here on campus," Chhabra said.

The fellows bring challenges and conversations back to campus to discuss with faculty and with each other, often finding overlap between projects and then bringing ideas for collaboration back to the agencies. They also share their experience of working in government with Cornell Tech students who might not otherwise consider it.

Through the program, the fellows said they've learned to shepherd large-scale projects through massive agencies and have gained a better sense of the city's infrastructure, processes and priorities - and they've been impressed by just how innovative and forward-thinking their agencies already are.

"That's really what I want them to take away," said Azikiwe Rich, assistant commissioner of analytics, performance and management at DOT. "We're really not just clocking time, we're working on innovative and cutting-edge projects all the time…it's a great place to scale a project."

Chhabra hopes the program will become a blueprint to advance innovation in other cities and is working on case studies based on the fellows' experiences.

"People are definitely seeing a need for government to be more efficient," he said. "If we focus on bringing new talent in and unleashing the talent that's already in these agencies, we can remove roadblocks, so city government can move faster and smarter."

Additional fellows and city agencies are Anh Nguyen at the Department of Environmental Protection; Calgary Haines-Trautman at the Mayor's Office of Contract Services; Meera Kumar at the Economic Development Corporation; and Tom Conboy at the Department of Cityside Administrative Services.