- How can “analog” placemaking projects like Hayes Valley Art Works collaborate with the civic tech community to amplify neighborhood benefit?
- How can the projects themselves be platforms for bringing new technology infrastructure, digital solutions, and educational opportunities to underserved communities?
- What are the most pressing challenges facing our society that collaborative civic innovation should tackle?
Mark Lakeman is a national leader in the development of sustainable public places. In the last decade he has directed, facilitated, or inspired designs for more than three hundred new community-generated public places in Portland, Oregon alone. Through his leadership in Communitecture, Inc., and it’s various affiliates such as the The City Repair Project (501(c)3), The Village Building Convergence, and the Planet Repair Institute, he has also been instrumental in the development of dozens of participatory organizations and urban permaculture design projects across the United States and Canada. Mark works with governmental leaders, community organizations, and educational institutions in many diverse communities.
Krista Canellakis is Deputy Innovation Officer in the Office of Mayor Edwin M. Lee in the City of San Francisco. She aims to build an open innovation program to make San Francisco more inclusive, diverse and responsive. She’s passionate about building a community of civic entrepreneurs inside and outside of local government. Prior to this role, she was the co-founder of a start-up crowdfunding platform for communities to raise funding for neighborhood improvement projects.
Lawrence Grodeska has been a leader in the civic tech community for over a decade, with stints at Change.org, Accela and the City & County of San Francisco. He is the founder of CivicMakers, a civic innovation studio that offers tools and consulting services for civic-minded agencies and organizations and hosts a professional network for 2000+ professional civic innovators. Ultimately, he is dedicated to the well-being of his fellow crew members on Spaceship Earth.
Ilana Lipsett is passionate about building community in urban settings and providing space and tools for people to re-imagine their cities and their relationship to place through creative pop-up events, spaces, public art or performance. She co-founded [freespace], a nationally recognized initiative to transform vacant buildings into temporary cultural and community hubs. She is the Community Manager for The Hall, an interim use pre-development project in San Francisco, and runs Community Engagement for Tidewater Capital, the real estate investment company that owns the Hall. She is currently overseeing the development of a public art piece in mid-market that has a large community engagement component as part of the process. She holds an MBA in sustainable management from the Presidio Graduate School.
Jay Rosenberg is an urban farmer, a community organizer, a permaculture designer, a volunteer coordinator and a garden educator. He has worked and trained with some of the world’s most inspiring, creative, and influencial people, including Starhawk, Geoff Lawton, Penny Livingston-Stark, Jim Loomis, the amazing volunteers at Hayes Valley Farm, and the members of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association. Jay is the founder of 49 Farms, and he also serves as the Director of Hayes Valley Art Works and sits on the board of the San Francisco Permaculture Guild.
Rob Joyce (Moderator) is a social impact design consultant based in San Francisco. He recently led the development of the Founders Pledge program for Full Circle Fund, where he created programing and resources for a community of startup founders that have pledged company equity to nonprofits. His experience in business development, communication design, and project management spans both the private and nonprofit sectors, and includes work with HealthRIGHT 360, AltMount, and Please Touch Garden.
