Daily Business Report-Sept. 5, 2018

Founders and funders gather at Hera Venture Summit 2017. The one-day event returns to University of San Diego on Sept. 15.

Hera Labs Brings Hera Venture Summit

to San Diego for Women Entrepreneurs

 

On Saturday, Sept. 15, Hera Labs will host Hera Venture Summit, an event focused on connecting female founders and funders. Now in its fifth year, the summit at University of San Diego will welcome speakers and attendees from across the globe to discuss topics around gender-lens investing.

Barbara Bry, council president pro tem representing San Diego’s First City Council District, and Michael Lawless, University of San Diego’s academic director of entrepreneurship initiatives, will kick off the event, which will take place from 7:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. at 5998 Alcala Park in San Diego. Tech and startup advocates Erica Baker, Laura Gomez, and Maresa Friedman will deliver keynote presentations.

“We’re laser focused on creating partnerships between female founders and all funders who are ready to make a difference and make money,” says Dr. Silvia Mah, founder of Hera Labs. “It’s events and opportunities like Hera Venture Summit that are improving access to capital for women, and as a result, opportunities for female empowerment and social impact.”

The one-day intensive event will include:

An expo hall showcasing local businesses and products

A gamified pitch contest featuring seven startups. Unique to this year’s summit, local contestants will go head-to-head with participants from Washington D.C. and Phoenix

“Entrepreneur track” and “angel track” sessions

A happy hour networking event

Hera Venture Summit is organized by Hera Labs accelerator for women in collaboration with Hera Hub workspace for women and Hera Angels women investors group. The event is sponsored in part by Qualcomm Ventures. The cost to attend is $239 or $287 day-of. Please register at heraventuresummit.com_

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Housing Commission announces

$50 million available for affordable housing

The San Diego Housing Commission announced Tuesday that up to $50 million administered by the agency is now available to help fund the construction of new affordable rental housing, including units for the homeless or to rehabilitate existing affordable housing in the city.

Three new SDHC Notices of Funding Availability (NOFA) were announced at a morning news conference on the San Diego City College campus at 14th and C Streets, across the street from the current ongoing construction of an SDHC partnership affordable rental housing development for homeless San Diegans.

SDHC will award funds to developers through a competitive application process.Rental housing units created or rehabilitated with these funds will be required to remain affordable for at least 55 years.

The available development funding consists of:

• Up to $20 million to create affordable rental housing with supportive services for San Diegans experiencing homelessness.
• Up to $20 million to create affordable rental housing for low-income San Diegans.
• Up to $10 million to rehabilitate affordable rental housing and/or extend its affordability.

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Michael Knowles promoted

to lead Cubic’s defense segment

Dave Buss named senior adviser

Michael Knowles, former vice president and general manager of the air ranges business unit within Cubic’s global defense segment,

has been named corporate senior VP and president of the segment in a move that will take effect Oct. 1.

Knowles will succeed David Buss, a corporate SVP who will assume the role of senior adviser to oversee corporate strategy and growth efforts of the San Diego-based contractor’s defense business, Cubic said.

Buss, a 36-year U.S. Navy veteran and retired vice admiral, has been leading  Cubic’s global defense segment since May 2016.

Knowles is a retired Navy commander who held management and executive positions a Lockheed Martin, Rockwell Collins, Northrop Grumman and Photon Research Associates.

Jonas Furukrona, former director of Cubic’s air ranges business in Europe, Canada and Australia, will directly report to Knowles starting next month as VP and GM of the same unit.

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Upcoming major events

at the San Diego Convention Center:

• CEDIA Expo, Sept. 4-8 (18,000 attendees)
• Patient Centered Medical Health Congress 2018, Sept. 13-16 (1,200 attendees)
• Bridal Bazaar, Sept. 16 (4,000 attendees)
• 37th Annual San Diego Quilt Show, Sept. 20-22 (5,800 attendees)
• CRF / Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics Symposium, Sept. 21-25 (11,000 attendees)

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UCSD and Deerfield Management

create Poseidon Innovation

University of California San Diego and Deerfield Management announced the creation of Poseidon Innovation LLC to advance disease-curing therapeutics. Through Deerfield’s $65-million commitment in Poseidon, UC San Diego investigators will have the funding and support to weather risky early-stage processes and expedite the drug-development cycle, allowing patients to receive treatment faster.

Projects that enter Poseidon will be directed by a joint steering committee and have access to sufficient funding for a full drug development program.

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Geneticist Svante Pääbo to receive

2018 Nierenberg Prize for Science

Renowned geneticist Svante Pääbo has been selected by Scripps Institution of Oceanography as the recipient of the 2018 Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest. The public is invited to attend the award ceremony and a presentation from Pääbo in a free event on Oct. 3 at 6 p.m. at the Robert Paine Scripps Forum for Science, Society and the Environment on the Scripps campus.

The Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest has been awarded annually by Scripps Oceanography since 2001. The prize, which includes a bronze medal and $25,000, is awarded for outstanding contributions to science in the public interest. Previous Nierenberg Prize winners include NASA astronaut and administrator Charles Bolden, filmmaker Sir David Attenborough, and primatologist Dame Jane Goodall, among others.

Pääbo is a Swedish biologist and pioneer of paleogenetics, the study of preserved genetic material from the remains of ancient organisms, including ancient human DNA. He has served as director of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evoluntionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, since 1997.

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San Diego to host Veteran Women

Entrepreneurship Conference

The 20th Veteran Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship (V-Wise) Conference will bring 214 participants from across the country to San Diego at the Hilton San Diego Resort & Spa on Mission Bay Sept. 14-16.

This training program helps women veteran and military spouses find their passion and learn the business savvy skills necessary to turn an idea or start-up into a growing venture. V-WISE is part of the Arsenal, a suite of entrepreneurship programs, offered to veterans, service members and their families through the Institute for Veterans and Military Families.

Speakers at V-Wise include: Remi Adeleke, Transformers actor and former Navy seal; Angie Bastian, co-founder of Boom Chicka Pop Popcorn; Larry Broughton, co-founder and CEO of Broughton advisory and founder and CEO of broughtonHOTELS; Neale Godfrey, founder and CEO of Children’s Financial Network.

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San Diego Rotary names

Patti Roscoe ‘Ms. San Diego’

San Diego Rotary has named community leader Patti Roscoe as the 2018 “Ms. San Diego.”

“To say that Patti is an icon in our city and an individual who embodies the Rotary spirit of ‘Service Above Self’ is an understatement,” said Suzy Spafford, president of San Diego Rotary. “She is an inspiration to all who know her.”

Roscoe moved to San Diego from Buffalo, N.Y., in the mid-60s and discovered a career in hospitality, spending 15 years in the hotel and destination management segments of the industry. In 1981 she founded PRA Destination Management Company. In the mid-1990s, expansion plans led her to franchise her five Southern California offices. In 2007, Roscoe sold her then 19 offices to a European-based company. She is now happily and busily retired.

Roscoe has been a member of the San Diego Rotary Club since 1988 and served as its president 2003-2004. She is a multiple Paul Harris Fellow and is a member of its Silver Donor and Club 33 Bequest Society. In 2011, Roscoe received the Heilbron Award for exemplary service to the community.

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28th annual Economic Summit

to be staged on Sept. 14

Paul “The Ultimate” Vaden, San Diego native and former light middleweight world champion boxer, and Christopher Thornberg, founder of Beacon Economics, one of the most respected economic research organizations in California, will be the keynote speakers at this year’s South County Economic Development Council’s 28th annual Economic Summit on Sept. 14. San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Larry Emond, managing director of Gallup, will speak in the morning.

Thornberg became nationally known for forecasting the subprime mortgage market crash that began in 2007 and was one of the few economists on record to predict the global economic recession that followed. Vaden was born and raised in San Diego and compiled an incredible amateur boxing record of 327-10 as a young man. He turned professional boxer in 1991 and started his career with 18 consecutive victories. He retired from boxing in 2000 and has used his story of tragedy, struggle, and victory to inspire ever since.

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Personnel Announcements

Colleen Anderson joins San Diego Tourism Marketing District

The San Diego Tourism Marketing District (SDTMD) Corporation has selected hotel industry veteran Colleen Anderson to serve as the organization’s new executive director. Anderson is a hospitality industry veteran with nearly three decades of experience, many of those spent in San Diego. She has worked for Omni Hotels & Resorts for the last 15 years, most recently as general manager for the Omni San Diego.

During her tenure at Omni San Diego, she also served as a board member for SDTMD and the San Diego Hotel-Motel Association.

Anderson’s first order of business as executive director will be to oversee the funding grant application process for FY 2020, which begins in October. In FY 2019, TMD awarded a record $43 million in funding awards, which included $36 million for the San Diego Tourism Authority, over $1.5 million for 16 events that are intended to generate hotel stays at SDTMD- assessed hotels and $5 million to support marketing programs specifically targeting the pillars outlined in Experience San Diego.

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Sheena Parveen joins NBC 7 San Diego

NBC 7 San Diego / KNSD has named Sheena Parveen weekday morning and midday news meteorologist. Parveen will forecast San Diego’s weather on NBC 7 News Today 4:30-7 a.m. and on NBC 7 News Midday 11 a.m. to noon Monday through Friday. Parveen will make her on-air debut on Oct. 17 alongside NBC 7 Anchors Marianne Kushi and Greg Bledsoe.

Parveen joins NBC 7 from sister NBC station WRC in Washington, D.C. where she served as their weekday morning meteorologist. Prior to this, she was the weekday evening meteorologist for another sister NBC station, WCAU, in Philadelphia. Parveen started her broadcast meteorology degree in her home state of Florida.

Parveen is an American Meteorological Society Certified Broadcast Meteorologist. In her career, she’s forecasted and covered hurricanes, tornadoes, and blizzards. Parveen earned her bachelor’s degree in meteorology from Florida State University.