Elevator-Industry Winners Of 2021 NYC DoB Innovation Challenge

Two of the five winners of the 2021 NYC Department of Buildings (DoB) “Hack the Building Code” Innovation Challenge are elevator-industry related, DoB announced on November 18. They are SafeRise LLC, a standardized, reusable and lockable steel barricade to prevent worker and material falls in elevator and other shafts, and SiteSafety, which proposes specific changes to NYC building code to require that horizontal safety netting be installed every 30 ft in shaft openings on active construction sites. The netting is aimed at catching falling workers and preventing fatalities. Kansas-based Darrin Porch, founder and CEO of SafeRise, said the barricade system is “designed to meet the specific needs of elevator installers and general contractors.” Peter Amato, founder of Site Safety, with locations in California, Florida and NYC, said that “requiring horizontal safety nets inside of elevator shafts during construction will save lives.” Other winners of the second annual Challenge were a new air-capture technology to retrofit cooling towers to capture carbon emissions; a digital platform to expedite the building-permit approval process; and an interactive network of smart badges, sensors and mobile-phone alerts to track construction workers’ locations. A partnership with the NYC Economic Development Corp. and the Urban Tech @ Hub business incubator, the Challenge previously recognized CEC Elevator Can Corp. of Bronx, New York, for its Sterilyft elevator air purification system.