It’s Not Just Smart Homes and Smart Cities…It Is A Smart Movement
Future of Mobility leaders in the Smart Cities Initiatives are convening in Chicago this Thursday, July 19th for the Smart Cities Conference hosted by BuiltWorlds. This event has been bringing together the best and brightest minds to BuiltWorlds most disruptable market which is cities and infrastructure. These discussions being held are going to cover an array of topics and the experts will help you make sense of the crucial changes coming to our cities, including transit, waste, water, energy, buildings, and social infrastructure.
The highlighted panel conversation on “The Future of Mobility” is moderated by Marketplace.city’s very own Chris Foreman. The supporting cast for this discussion features ParqEx’s very own Founder & CEO, Vivek Mehra, Alex Samoylovich from Cedar Street Ventures, Jerry Quandt, Executive Director, IL Autonomous Vehicles Association (ILAVA), and Sharon Feigon, Executive Director, Shared-Use Mobility Center. BuiltWorlds has shared the following on how this topic will be attacked:
“Autonomous and electric cars will place new demands on the electric grid, create new demands for charging stations and create new opportunities for developing the city in relation to a mobility strategy. This shift will have enormous consequences for how cities are planned in terms of where cars are parked and fueled. Hear from ParqEx Founder and CEO, Vivek Mehra, on how he plans to disrupt the process and what his partnership with Cedar Street Ventures means for the built industry. Gain insights on the impacts and benefits of shared mobility and hear about emerging opportunities related to the growth and utilization of AV technologies throughout the entire transportation network. During this session, panelists discuss the importance of investing in mobility solutions and technology advancements shaping smart cities of the future.”
The panelists in the discussion have quite the background and repertoire, becoming experts in their select fields. Their knowledge provides an in-depth look on what is to come for the smart cities initiatives across the United States. It is amazing to see the horizons they continue to expand on and the technologies used to push the bounds of innovation.
The Who’s Who
Sharon Feigon is a founder and the executive director of the Shared-Use Mobility Center, a non-profit public-interest organization working to foster collaboration in shared mobility and help connect the growing industry with transit agencies, cities and communities across the nation. As executive director, Sharon leads SUMC’s work, which includes conducting innovative research around the impacts of shared mobility, developing pilot projects to test shared mobility strategies, and providing advice and technical assistance to cities and regions in order to help extend the benefits of shared mobility for all. SUMC was also recently awarded a contract to develop the Innovation Knowledge Accelerator in partnership with the Federal Transit Administration to assist cities undertaking Mobility on Demand projects.
Jerry Quandt is the Executive Director of the Illinois Autonomous Vehicles Association. The Association is a privately funded, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of autonomous vehicle technologies within the State of Illinois. The organization’s focus is to establish Illinois as the leader in the development, design, and application of the system-of-systems that will transform mobility as we know it. He has worked most of his career in marketing and business transformation in a variety of verticals. His passion is to continue to create consumer-centric solutions leveraging bleeding-edge technologies to increase people’s quality of life.
Alex Samoylovich is the founding partner, Chief Executive Officer of CEDARst Companies. Over the past ten years, Mr. Samoylovich has sourced, invested in and managed in excess of hundreds of transactions and has been instrumental in the acquisition and disposition of real estate with a value in over $1 billion. Utilizing a “fully integrated real estate development” (IRED) approach, Mr. Samoylovich and his partners have seamlessly interwoven acquisition, construction, finance, management, interior design and marketing under one company. In the past 15 years, CEDARst is considered one of the most active acquirers of distressed assets in the greater Chicago area. Under Mr. Samoylovich’s leadership, the company has carved out a niche strategy for the adaptive reuse of underperforming assets through bankruptcies, foreclosure, note purchases, and other distressed situations in the Chicago area; covering a span of product types from multifamily, office, mixed-use, and hospitality. Mr. Samoylovich has cemented a well-earned reputation as a tenacious deal maker capable of closing the most complex and demanding real estate transactions and returning superior risk-adjusted returns to his investors.
Chris Foreman as Chief Executive Officer of Marketplace.city Chris drives the company’s revenue and growth by building their powerful network of technology providers. Prior to Marketplace.city, Mr. Foreman served as CEO of the Americas for AvePoint, Inc. While at AvePoint, Mr. Foreman helped lead the company’s growth from a small team to over 1200 employees in 15 countries and drove the expansion into government by launching an independent subsidiary, AvePoint Public Sector, Inc. where he served as CEO and Chairman. AvePoint won 3 consecutive Microsoft Partner of the Year awards during Foreman’s tenure. Previously he worked at Nutech Integrated Systems where he oversaw enterprise sales initiatives focusing on healthcare, archiving, e-discovery, and records management. He has actively worked in the enterprise software industry for 15 years.
Vivek Mehra as Founder & CEO of ParqEx will be one of four panelists on the Main Stage discussing “Future of Mobility.” ParqEx is a private parking platform that gives the opportunity to connect renters with new avenues of parking with local individual owners that have underutilized spots. Our mission is to solve a huge problem by disrupting the entire market – and we’re doing so in a way that benefits the people of every community. We believe that people of every urban community can help solve the parking crunch by sharing what they already have.
What To Expect?
Chris will challenge the leaders to focus on topics which center around the outlook for autonomous vehicles and the need for parking spaces. What trends will come to the forefront and how cities will need to make necessary design structure implementations to adapt. What kind of burdens will residents, companies, and cities face in the short-term and long-term?
ParqEx collaborates with BuiltWorlds on a couple publications and was featured in 50 hottest technologies for smart buildings. We are excited to be on this panel discussion for this annual smart cities conference and looking to further our relationships with the real estate technology community.
