What's The City You Are You Dreaming Of?
An Invitation To Attend An Event Exploring The Future of Cities This Week
(Exploring Stockholm with Usher and Quincy Jones III the “Cultural Mayor of Stockholm” )
There is something about the invitation to travel to a new city that I completely miss during this pandemic. Truth be told I spent the majority of my last 25 years on planes, trains, town cars and taxis so being home most of 2020 has been a big deal. My family has not seen me this much and I found myself the other day obsessively watching Queens Gambit on Netflix and day dreaming about a good room service meal. 4 years ago I decided to do something I had not done before which is to actually take the time to really understand and get to know cities, the people and the inspirations within. I built a tour called "Culture & Code" (yes the inspiration for this newsletter's name) and took my network (now called The Authenticated) to great cities like Detroit, Washington D.C., Miami, Stockholm and my second home Atlanta to dream about new possibilities and opportunities. We did this by exploring the center of where creativity, capital and business all meet and we did this in a 72 hour experience.
In Washington DC we partnered with MLB and Mayor's Office to look at the past and future of baseball and Washington DC
In Atlanta we nurtured young people from Usher's New Look Foundation and discussed possibilities in venture capital and technology
In Detroit we hosted a dinner with Dan Gilbert and discovered a young black entrepreneur named Delane Parnell who boldly raised his hand at our dinner and through our introductions went on a journey to raise over $90m
We believe in cities, care about how cities think about equity and are investing in people and ideas in cities. It's the cornerstone of The Authenticated and part of why we exist. I have been spending a lot of this pandemic envisioning The Authenticated as a "city in the cloud" and have been living virtually with the members hosting dinners, summits and gatherings for our "citizens." What has come up is the idea of what infrastructure, capital and physical space do we need in the future and how do we think differently about how we are building our businesses and creating spaces.
What Is The City You Dream Of?
We have been working for the last year with 2020 Visions to help produce, The New City, an incredible experience we are bringing to you this week. The prompt and provocation is what is the city you dream of? This partnership that also includes Union Theological is a 3 day exploration into art, culture, urban planning and the future with featured speakers including Andrew Yang, Sir David Adjaye, Matthew Ryder, Dror, Karenna Gore and Serene Jones
Different than probably most "virtual conferences" you have attended the experience that we are producing is happening in multiple platforms.
There are the highly produced panels and talks which require a ticket. Many are free with a few premium tickets for sale.
We are bringing together participants in a platform called Topia which we have built an experience that is uniquely designed for social interactivity and the imagination
For an ongoing exploration into 2020 Visions we have a membership community at Mighty Networks.
If you have any questions, please feel free to text me 415-843-8100. Would love to see you. Come check out the grand finale, I’m also the DJ.