Daily Business Report-April 13, 2021
University of San Diego begins construction of the Knauss Center for Business Education
The University of San Diego announced the start of construction of a facility that represents the future of business education — the 72,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art Knauss Center for Business Education.
When completed alongside a renovation of the existing Olin Hall, the complex will total 120,000 square feet and will unify all of the USD School of Business’ academic programs, centers and institutes under one roof. The complex will include instructional spaces, collaboration spaces, data analytics and financial labs and is planned to open for classes in fall 2022.
The building is named for the chair of USD’s Board of Trustees, Don Knauss, the former CEO of Clorox, and his wife, Ellie Knauss. The Knauss’s $20 million gift in 2017 helped solidify the final planning and construction of the complex.
PHOTO: Rendering of USD’s Knauss Center for Business Education
Shelter opeations have helped the vulnerable — and the Convention Center itself
Voice of San Diego — After San Diego’s tourism economy shut down in March 2020, officials quickly announced that the Convention Center would become a homeless shelter. Dozens began moving in within days, and hundreds of people would eventually sleep there on cots spread six feet apart.
That decision, Lisa Halvertstadt writes in a new story, proved to be a smart business move during a pandemic that left many event centers vacant.
The Convention Center has long been considered a leading economic engine and its finances were looking bleak. More recently it pivoted to hosting young migrants, and won praise for the humanitarian effort.
Now, with new guidance from the state, Convention Center managers are preparing to transition back into an events center, but no one is sure when business travelers will return en masse with money to spend. The tourism industry and its works are waiting to see what happens next.
HUD awards $1.5 million to La Posta Band for new housing, rehabilitation
The La Posta Band of Mission Indians, a tribe located in the Laguna mountains of East County, has received a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to support new housing construction, housing rehabilitation and infrastructure projects. It was one of over $90 million in grants awarded by HUD.
The funds were awarded through HUD’s Indian Housing Block Grant (IHBG) Competitive program to help construct new housing units for low-income families living in tribal communities. It is projected that this funding will support the construction of approximately 350 new housing units, which will help spur economic opportunities in these communities.
DreamStart Labs awarded innovation grant to support women’s groups
DreamStart Labs, an award-winning provider of digital banking technology for emerging markets, announced it has been named a recipient of the Women Saving for Resilience Innovation Fund.
The SEEP Network’s Women Saving for Resilience program, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, seeks to help underserved women in the developing world who have been disproportionately impacted by the global pandemic. The successful proposal from DreamStart Labs was one of five selected from nearly 300 submissions.
DreamStart Labs will use funding from this grant to develop two new technologies that build financial and social resilience for underserved women. The first innovation will provide personal credit scores to millions of unbanked people in the developing world, while the second will make it easy to deliver messages, trainings, and surveys to vulnerable, hard-to-reach communities.
Habana Labs chosen by San Diego Computer Center to power Voyager Research
Habana Labs, a developer of purpose-built deep learning accelerators for a wide range of data centers, announced that its artificial intelligence (AI) training and inference accelerators have been selected by the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego to provide high-performance, high-efficiency AI compute in its Voyager supercomputer. Scheduled to be in service in the fall of 2021, Voyager will be dedicated to advancing AI research across a range of science and engineering domains. The system build-out, as well as ongoing community support and operations, are funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
SDSU to be primarily in-person this fall
Following an update to California’s reopening plans and both San Diego and Imperial counties moving into the “Orange Tier,” San Diego State University’s leadership announced plans for instruction and activities to be held primarily in-person this fall.
The university also plans to expand access to the SDSU Library and return the majority of faculty and staff to campus this fall along with students. Specific guidance and other details for managers as well as individual faculty and staff will be shared at a later time, as this information is being finalized.
Fortune Magazine names Scripps to Best Companies to Work For list
Scripps Health has been named among the top employers in the nation by Fortune magazine. Fortune’s 24th annual list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For ranked Scripps at No. 76. Scripps is the only San Diego-based company to make the list.
The selection was announced online Monday and marks the 13th time that Scripps has been included on the list.
Scripps Health has more than 15,000 employees at five hospital campuses and 28 outpatient centers and clinics.
California American Water spends more than $42 million with diverse businesses
California American Water met and exceeded its diverse supplier goal for 2020 by doing nearly 40 percent or $42 million of its business with minority, women, LGBTQ+ and/or disabled veteran-owned businesses during the year, the company announced on Monday.
The California Public Utilities Commission current diverse business spend goal for regulated is 21.5 percent annually. California American Water said it far exceeded this goal and has become a state leader in this important endeavor.
“To achieve 40 percent diverse spend comes only after years of hard work and committed outreach,” said California American Water’s business performance director Ed Simon, who heads up the company’s diverse supplier mission. “But the payoff of seeing the difference being made in the communities we serve makes it all worth it.”
