Over and over again, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka stressed the importance of technology and the impact it can have on his city as he spoke to a gathering of the local business community at Newark’s Tech Town Hall 2.0 earlier this month. With a theme of “Progression in Tech” Baraka confidently discussed the city’s potential to be a bustling tech hub which could serve as a catalyst for the revitalization of the city of Newark.
“50,000 college students, an international airport, and the second largest seaport in the nation. There is no reason that you should not be in this city,” Baraka declared.
Newark is situated just seventeen minutes by train from one of the world’s leading markets, New York City, which overshadows the numerous assets Newark has to offer. But Baraka is intent on changing that, as he insists that his city is the place where innovation and technology can thrive, attracting entrepreneurs and startups.
“Newark is the place to be if you are a business,” Baraka stated with pride. “If you were in any business class and they put up all of the characteristics you need in order for your business to be successful, they would be talking about Newark and not New York.”
While Baraka believes that Newark has all the tools to be a flourishing technological hub, he also realizes that there are challenges that are slowing the process of transforming New Jersey’s largest city.
“People cannot have a relationship with the way the world is changing because they don’t know the language of technology,” Baraka said. “And it is our job to be able to share that language with everyday people so that they can begin to deal with technology in a way that helps them improve their lives.”
Tasked to educate Newark’s populace of more than 250,000 people about how to use innovative applications and platforms, Baraka has wasted little time.
Since assuming the City’s helm in 2014, Baraka’s administration has worked hard at bringing technology to the forefront that will lead people to embrace it and use it for their benefit. Under Baraka’s leadership there has been a groundswell of activity energizing the local tech entrepreneurial ecosystem. Code For Newark, an organization dedicated to fueling discussions on developing Newark as a technology center, was established in May of 2014. In July of 2015, Newark Venture Partners, a $50 million technology venture fund, was founded and located in the Audible building in downtown Newark.
Now there resides within walking distance of each other the stakeholders who are contributing to the City’s tech future: Rutgers University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Amazon owned Audible, Inc. and via the Newark Venture Fund a recently launched accelerator and co-working space that is not far from New Jersey’s largest business incubator, NJIT’s Enterprise Development Center (EDC).
“All of the jobs that are going to be created in the next ten years or so are going be jobs that we do not even know the name of right now-all tech oriented jobs,” Baraka said. “We need to be literate in technology, not just to get the jobs that have become available, but to be able to take advantage of the kind of atmosphere that is exploding around the country and in Newark.”
While Baraka certainly knows the economic benefits that could arise from transforming Newark into a thriving center of commerce, it is far from the only thing the mayor is interested in. Baraka hopes that advocating literacy in technology among the people of Newark will make the city become safer and smarter, improving quality of life for its’ citizens in the process.
“We really have to advance the way we are looking at these things. We cannot look at it in small-minded ways where we are just thinking about how we can make a little bit of money,” Baraka said. “We have to look at it in a very grand kind of way, which is why I am focusing on the social entrepreneurship of it.”
In line with this Baraka has created programs to address the role technology can play in improving people’s lives, including Art of Code, a program designed to teach residents software development techniques, and Newark Tech World. Newark Tech World aims to enhance technological literacy among the city’s youth by offering courses in web design, graphic design and other digital skills.
“We have to start talking about exponential technology-how do you advance people’s lives from where they are?” Baraka said.
To move this from discussion to action, Baraka and the city of Newark will be hosting a hackathon in November with a focus on safety for the women of Newark. The event will give startups the chance to design an application or device that will make the city safer for women. The competition will be one of many events that Baraka hopes will ignite the Newark community to take advantage of the opportunities the city offers to make lives better.
“The government did not discover the light bulb, the government did not discover the cure for polio. We need individual creativity to get out here and think about what needs to happen to force the government to recognize what needs to happen,” Baraka said. “It is incumbent upon all of us.”
While Baraka truly believes that Newark is the spot to be for social entrepreneurs and startups, he understands that Newark is still years away from where it needs to be. But it is evident that Baraka is undoubtedly pleased with the strides that his city has made in such a short time.
“I am proud of the leap that we have made, even from two years, in terms of people’s perception of what Newark is. We are really changing the culture and mindset around technology, and making people understand that they have access to it in our city and can thrive in a tech community,” Baraka said.
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Tech Town Hall is a series hosted by EqualSpace (= SPACE) with a focus on “reintroducing Newark as a leader of tech in the community, as well as sparking the conversation around Newark being fashioned as a Tech Hub and how it affects the city’s economic development.”
