Oscar Romero

Oscar Romero is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the NYC Civic Engagement Commission. His work focuses on leveraging technology, innovation, and global partnerships to increase participatory democracy, and address urban inequality across low income and underrepresented communities in New York City. Oscar leads Diversity in Tech NYC, an annual event to discuss key challenges to improve diversity in the tech industry. As a NYC public servant, he has served in multiple emergency response taskforces on topics such as: preventing tenant harassment; preventing child abuse online during the Covid-19 pandemic and providing mental health services for newly arrived Ukrainian refugees.

He oversaw the design of multiple global innovation partnerships to address urban development challenges in the US, Europe, and Latin America: ranging from urban inequality issues on forced displacement, violence prevention in public spaces, housing rights protection and access to critical infrastructure to economic & social development issues such as tech workforce development, access to STEAM education, and access to mental health services.

Oscar is a Visiting Practitioner Fellow and lecturer at Cornell Tech, holds a M.A. in International Affairs from The New School, a B.S. in International Studies from the University of Guadalajara, and a Computer and Information Science Technologist Degree from Center for Industrial Technical Education.

Prior to becoming the youngest CIO across NYC government agencies, Oscar worked for The NYC Office of Technology and Innovation, and The New School’s Digital Equity Laboratory where he researched the inequality created by the architecture of the telecommunications infrastructure networks both in the context of the US and across the Americas.