Inside NYC’s Digital Inclusion Week

Diversity, equity and inclusion are dirty words in Trump’s America, and though many private companies and government agencies have rebranded such efforts in 2025, equity lives on in New York City. Digital Inclusion Week is underway in New York, where Paolo Balboa, the city’s first chief digital equity officer says “call it what you will,” but equity work is progressing. On StateScoop’s Priorities Podcast, Balboa shares numerous efforts by the city government, including Big Apple Connect, just one piece of the city’s Digital Equity Roadmap, which provides free internet and cable service — “a basic commodity for existing today” — to public housing residents. “Digital equity is all about getting residents and communities to a place where they can use and navigate the internet confidently, so that they can fully participate in society, democracy and the economy,” Balboa says. When asked to describe his role, which the city created last March, Balboa says it boils down to finding the organizations already doing equity work and trying to partner with them.

This week’s top stories:

Oklahoma has named a new chief information security officer. Daniel Langley, who most recently served in Washington state’s information technology bureau, has taken the role. He also served as CISO of the Washington state lottery and spent almost a decade with the U.S. Army, where he finished as a captain in the Signal Corps.

Following an expansion of efforts to bolster digital equity across the five boroughs, New York City’s Office of Technology and Innovation on Monday kicked off its Digital Inclusion Week. The event is part of a national collection of events co-hosted by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance designed to raise awareness.

While more states are embracing data-driven governance, many chief data officers still struggle with limited resources and weak institutional power, according to a recent survey of state CDOs. Most state CDO offices operate with budgets of less than $1 million and manage small teams, yet are expected to coordinate data strategies across agencies, according to a report from NASCIO and the Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation.

New episodes of StateScoop’s Priorities Podcast are posted each Wednesday. For more of the latest news and trends across the state and local government technology community, subscribe to the Priorities Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts,Soundcloud or Spotify.