History of the
Institute for Nonpartisan Innovation
Founded in Fall 2024, INI was created to better connect CUNY’s talent, research, and technology with the civic challenges shaping New York City—while expanding career-connected learning and collaboration across campuses and communities.
CUNY alums Blake Stoner and Brandon Huang with winners of the Vngle-sponsored John Jay College hackathon that helped inspire INI.
How INI Began
INI grew from more than six years of collaboration across CUNY—from advancing CUNY-developed technology alongside the Chair of Computer Science at John Jay College, to relationships with CUNY’s Tech Talent Pipeline, to Vngle founder and CUNY alum Blake Stoner’s time in the Craig Newmark Graduate School’s Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership.
The idea was rooted in a simple belief: some of New York City’s greatest talent, research, technology, and civic capacity already exist across CUNY. The opportunity is to better connect and activate them.
INI moved from vision to action at New York City College of Technology, launching its first five student fellowship cohorts with CUNY 2X and expanding connections across campuses and NYC’s civic community.
Today, INI.network is building connective infrastructure between CUNY and New York City—making civic, academic, and community initiatives easier to discover and connect across all five boroughs.
INI is a bet on CUNY and a stronger civic innovation future for New York City.
“INI is a bet on what becomes possible when CUNY and New York City’s communities are more deeply connected—spurring collaboration across all five boroughs and giving students career-connected opportunities to contribute, build, and become civic leaders.
CUNY helped shape Vngle, and with most of our team now CUNY alumni, INI is our way of giving back—creating stronger pathways for opportunity and civic impact across the University and the city.”
A Distributed, Campus-Driven Model
INI grows through faculty, departments, students, campus leaders, and civic and community partners across CUNY and New York City—creating pathways for campus, community, and University-wide collaboration.
Early Foundations
INI’s earliest work centered on three areas:
CUNY-Built Technology
Advancing CUNY-developed provenance technology into real-world applications supporting trusted information and digital integrity.
Applied Learning
Creating fellowships, research, and implementation opportunities for CUNY students and faculty to collaborate on real-world challenges.
Civic Connection
Connecting CUNY talent and resources with NYC communities, civic organizations, and public-interest challenges.
Building the Collaboration Network
Each semester, INI fellows help strengthen and expand the network while gaining hands-on experience across technology, research, communications, and civic engagement.
Ecosystem Mapping
Research & Discovery
Identify civic initiatives, academic interests, expertise, and resources across CUNY & NYC.
Platform Infrastructure
Data & Technology
Improve search, mapping, AI integrations, and the data infrastructure behind 1,400+ network records.
Relationship Building
Community Outreach
Connect campuses, departments, students, and civic partners around shared interests and opportunities.
Civic Innovation
Applied Projects
Translate research and ideas into public-interest technologies, policy experiments, and real-world applications.
What INI Makes Possible
Hear from the CUNY campus partners and former student fellows helping build a more connected NYC civic innovation ecosystem.
“INI has changed lives”by creating new ways for NYC to collaborate, while creating pathways for more of CUNY to discover the impact they can make in their communities.
One network. Many perspectives. Growing impact across CUNY and New York City.
Growth & Milestones
A timeline of the development and expansion of the Institute for Nonpartisan Innovation.
First Student Listening Session|John Jay College
Co-hosted by Vngle and CUNY CIE, the first session explored what students wanted from career-connected opportunities and helped shape the vision for INI.
Public Launch|Pier 57
INI formally launched, bringing early student work and its broader civic innovation vision to New York City’s civic community.
First Cross-Campus Gathering|16 CUNY Campuses
Faculty, students, and civic leaders from 16 campuses came together to surface shared interests and opportunities for collaboration.
INI.network Soft Launch|City Tech
The first interactive version of the collaboration platform launched with tools for discovery, mapping, and network exploration.
Five Student Cohorts Activated|Across the CUNY Ecosystem
INI continues developing career-connected fellowships while expanding the people, information, and relationships powering the network.
Explore the Network
Discover 1,400+ faculty, researchers, civic collaborators, and network connections across CUNY and New York City.