Weekly Radar #304: A Proptech Excursion For The Ages, Stormproofing Against Mother Nature, To Lunar Infinity And Beyond
I couldn't be more excited to announce GEM's first international excursion, GEM Walks the Camino. The seven-day journey starting in Sarria, Spain and ending at the Cathedral Santiago de Compostela will take place in May 2025. The cultural experience has been on my radar for years...Heather Harmon's and my realization that we had the same hidden dream to go lit a spark between us to organize a GEM group to undertake the journey with us. Read on below for more background and details.
Industry exposure opportunity: Applications are open through June 21 to submit your pitch for the 2024 iOi Summit Pitch Battle. Finalists get a four-minute pitch + four-minute rapid fire Q&A in front of an in-person and live streamed audience. The winner receives $15k, media exposure, and a booth at the NAR NXT tradeshow. Submit your pitch here.
In this week's Weekly Radar, we cover:
- We are organizing a seven-day, 100 km walk on the Camino de Santiago, combining proptech and community building with a guided pilgrimage, complete with cultural experiences, scenic views, and gastronomic delights, to deepen personal and professional connections.
- The Army Corps of Engineers' $2.7 billion plan to protect Miami from storm surges offers opportunities for built environment tech companies but raises concerns about the city's long-term desirability.
- The HUD's Innovative Housing Showcase featured companies like Azure Printed Homes and NASA's lunar habitat prototype, highlighting robotic home building solutions and sparking discussions on government-funded innovations' impact on the housing industry.
- The GEM Proptech Index had a combined market cap of $232.713B, a .11% increase from the previous week.
As always, links surrounded by the ❇️ emoji indicate exclusive GEM Diamond content. If you would like to have access to all links, please consider GEM Diamond membership.
Geek Estate Blog Recap:
Geek Estate Team
Geek Estate Team
Geek Estate Team
Geek Estate Team
Geek Estate Team
Transmission Recap:
This week, Drew Meyers details how value aggregation playing out in the evolving brokerage landscape, and provide a few ideas for revenue tech leaders to use the strategy in their GTM efforts. Last week, Drew Meyers explored how Demi’s composting solution for urban multi-family residences could help lead to a food waste-free world.
GEM UPDATES
A PROPTECH EXCURSION FOR THE AGES
By: Heather Harmon
Over the last few weeks, Drew Meyers and I hatched an idea to fuse our personal desires to walk The Camino with our shared passion for proptech innovators. Enter GEM Walks the Camino, a seven-day journey starting in Sarria, Spain and ending at the Cathedral Santiago de Compostela.
The What
We are planning to walk 100 km of the entire 643 km, which is the minimum required to receive a stamped Compostela (a certificate that verifies completion of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage). Along the way, we will collect stamps in our Camino passports at churches, bars, and accommodation.
We’re organizing a supported version of the trip—a tour company will organize our accommodations (as opposed to booking rooms the day before or the same day, as is the custom for some pilgrims). Most also carry their belongings as they walk, however the tour company will offer support transferring a suitcase or backpack between our lodgings each day. The seven days will require walking roughly 20-25 km per day (that’s about 12-15 miles per day), and this portion of the Camino is mostly flat with gentle hills (and no steep ascents or descents).
Drew and I both are foodies, so expect delicious dinners that become cultural experiences replete with traditional Spanish food, local Galician specialties, and flavorful wines grown in the vineyards we’ll pass through along the way. The scenery on this part of The Camino is known for being quite special: rolling hills, forests, and countryside connect towns sharing rich history and culture. And the viewpoints: forts, temples, museums, castles, ruins, and bridges.
The Why
We view the trip as the next iteration of deep community building we began at the Proptech Getaway a few months back. As we spent time over the past few weeks incubating the concept, I felt myself smile when a quote I love by Naval came to mind: Today, if I could articulate how good my life is, they would have to lock me up because you can’t have people this happy running around in society. Most gravitate to the word “balance” as a way to sum up how to effectively create in both our careers and personal lives, but there is actually no feasible way to be in balance across the spectrum of everything that pulls at us in life. Obligations, responsibilities, careers, family, and then there’s what stirs us in our soul. How could we perfectly balance it all? I believe that the way forward is actually one that allows it all to be out of balance and remain at peace within. This requires an internal journey to find a way to surrender to the conflict and come to a place of knowing that none of it really matters, except this very moment. My own journey towards this state of being has been influenced by many different inputs—stoic philosophy, yoga and meditation, and authors like Neitzche, Alan Watts, Eckart Tolle, and Michael Singer. Of course my journey continues, and when I learned that there is an actual place on the planet that takes the inner journey and puts it into a physical experience, I decided I would go.
The Walk
One of the most beautiful aspects of The Camino is that it has served this purpose for over 1000 years to millions of people, and it doesn’t matter what “reason” you are coming to walk The Camino: It will meet you where-ever you are. Although it is historically a Catholic pilgrimage, there is no religion or creed required to walk The Camino and modern pilgrims come from all paths in life. All on the walk simply respect that this is a site where people are choosing to have a cultural and/or spiritual experience, for their own reasons. This trip to The Camino will be a first for both Drew and me. When we realized we had the same hidden dream to go, it lit up a spark between us to organize a GEM group to undertake the journey with us. We have no idea who will show up to join us, but we believe that whoever shows up, is meant to do so.
If you'd like to learn more about the event details and our preliminary cost estimates, please apply to join GEM Diamond.