Beyond Real Estate as Usual: Tech, Innovation, & Opportunity Zones

Tonight's meetup is shaping up to be a very exciting event!

Come on down to the Autodesk Gallery at One Market Street, and come right up to the second floor. RSVPs appreciated.

Join us for an evening where we explore how Opportunity Zones and their discontents might find common ground at the frontiers where cities are reinventing themselves. Can Bay Area ingenuity, machine learning, generative design, and behavioral economics come together to shift from a smart city mantra to cities that adapt and thrive along with the community? Can we leverage financial capital, amplified by Opportunity Zone benefits, to create a new model that responds to our current needs as well as our future aspirations?

Confirmed Speakers:
• Peter Hirshberg; Principal, Maker City Project & Co-founder of Lighthouse.one: Making a measurable difference for communities while helping investors achieve superior returns.
• Steve Glickman; Sr. Advisor to Lighthouse.one: Former White House Senior Economic Advisor; and Co-Founder/former CEO of the Economic Innovation Group, chief architect of the $6 trillion OZ program.
• Mickey McManus; Research Fellow, Autodesk: Technology leader in design tools for building our urban environments – at the forefront of machine learning and AI that helps accommodate and adapt to the changing needs and trends of our cities and populations.
• Marc Berkowitz; Co-Founder, CoPlace (coplace.com): Focused on revitalizing local communities and business ecosystems through distressed area “activations,” with projects in San Diego and Atlanta.
• Riaz Taplin; Principal & Founder, Riaz Capital (riazcapital.com): Oakland-based developer/operator addressing the changing housing needs of the millennial generation – portfolio of over 1,300 units, and over 1,000 residences in the pipeline.
• Cameron Yuill; CEO, a’part (apartof.it): Solving for the urban housing crisis world-wide, presenting India Basin, San Francisco’s last remaining undeveloped waterfront land with access to 1.5 miles of shoreline, 63 acres of waterfront parks, and The Blue Greenway – 13-mile network of trails and bike lanes along the city’s entire eastern waterfront.

Evening Schedule:
6:30 - 7:00 Networking
7:00 - 8:30 Presentations / Discussions
8:30 - 9:30 Networking and Wrap-up

Peter Hirshberg, Lighthouse.one CEO, will present Opportunity Zones as a canvas for innovation and responsive urban design. Peter will be joined via Skype by Steve Glickman, Senior Advisor to Lighthouse.one and author of the original Opportunity Zone legislation, for a review of the status of OZs and key learnings over the past two years.
Next we’ll hear from Mickey McManus, senior fellow at Autodesk, who has been pioneering the application of generative learning and process innovation to the built environment, to enhance both human and economic performance.
Marc Berkowitz, Co-Founder of San Diego based CoPlace, will then demonstrate his firm’s successful OZ real estate “activations” which have aided in the revitalization of local communities and business ecosystems, helping turn around distressed areas, while reinvigorating the local population and culture. Mark and his team are taking the benefits and flexibility of their proven real estate activations to the next level with projects in San Diego and Atlanta.
Then, Cameron Yuill, CEO of a’part, will present his firms modular/prefabrication techniques that dramatically reduce costs and shorten development timelines, and discuss their application, as well as activations planned for India Basin, San Francisco’s last remaining undeveloped waterfront land, located entirely within an Opportunity Zone.
Lastly, Riaz Taplin, Principal & Founder of Oakland-based Riaz Capital, a developer/operator addressing the changing housing needs of the millennial generation, will highlight the firm’s QOZ projects, with Qualified OZ Funds, that effectively address an underserved market need.