Re-watch the live presentation of this year’s winners of the Ivory Prize! In this presentation, the Ivory Prize Advisory Board addresses current market disruptions and answers audience questions on how we can best adapt, innovate, and find solutions. Faced with confusion and disruption, now is the perfect time to focus on innovative solutions for housing affordability and how we can deal with the challenges we all face.
2020 Ivory Prize Winners
2020 Finance Winner: Rhino
New York, New York
Rhino partners with building owners and managers to offer low-cost insurance as an alternative to cash security deposits. Acting as an insurer for property damages to the owner, Rhino allows the lessee to avoid the high-cost security deposit, and offers low monthly payments instead. The average American has less than $400 in savings. Rhino’s product helps both the landlord and the renter. The landlord no longer has to hold deposits in an escrow account, and the renter avoids cutting into savings for a large upfront deposit. CEO Paraag Sarva developed Rhino after years of experience managing and developing real estate, noticing the “wasted” money that sits in escrow accounts across the nation.
2020 Policy & Regulatory Reform Winner - Symbium
San Francisco, California
Symbium is a computational law platform that mechanizes the rules and regulations of planning codes to help homeowners, design professionals, and planners quickly determine if an ADU is allowed on a property, what the development standards are, and processes needed to build these units. Complaw™, Symbium’s key business function, translates law regulations into computer code. Zoning regulations and lack of access to public records often hinder efficient development. Led by CEO Leila Banijamali, Symbium’s computational law will allow private and public builders alike to navigate the possibilities of each piece of property across a city’s jurisdiction.
2020 Construction & Design Winner - Entekra
Modesto, California
Entekra is a design, engineering and construction company that designs Fully Integrated Offsite Solutions (FIOSS) for both residential and commercial facilities. Entekra is implementing a fully integrated off-site building technique that streamlines its panelized building process from permitting to assembly so that it can be completed in just a couple of days. FIOSS by Entekra uses a combination of software and construction to automate and lessen the costs associated with off-site construction. Led by Gerry McCaughey, a recipient of the Ernst and Young “Industry Entrepreneur of the Year” award, Entekra is changing the way homes are built across America by providing low-cost innovative solutions to the affordability crisis.
Public Sector Outstanding Achievement Award
The State of Oregon
Represented by 1,000 friends of Oregon & the Housing Alliance
Salem, Oregon
The State of Oregon expanded affordable housing options through the passage of HB 2001 in 2019. The law requires all Oregon cities with populations over 10,000 to allow duplexes on all residential lots on which a single-family home is allowed. Cities over 25,000 and Portland Metro jurisdictions must also allow triplexes, fourplexes, townhomes, and cottage clusters in areas where single-family homes are allowed.
City of Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota
The City of Minneapolis is “upzoning” nearly the entire city, which will allow more units to be built in areas that previously only contained single-family homes while promoting transit-oriented development and inclusionary zoning. The so-called Minneapolis 2040 Plan is unprecedented and transformative, providing a model for other cities to address affordability challenges associated with single-family-only zoning broadly.
2020 Ivory Prize Finalists
Digs - Chicago, Illinois
Digs is a financial platform that empowers a consumer to build wealth through their home. Digs' educational product allows renters to set and track savings goals leading up to buying their first home and existing homeowners to monitor their equity and optimize their mortgage. The company works with mortgage lenders as a way to help them build a relationship with their customers outside of the transaction.
ROC USA - Concord, New Hampshire
ROC USA is a nonprofit social venture that partners with homeowners in Manufactured (“Mobile”) Home Communities who want to purchase and operate their communities as Resident Owned Communities (“ROCs”). ROC USA serves its currently 253 ROCs in 17 states through a national Network of regional nonprofits for training and a national Treasury-certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) for financing.
ESUSU - New York, New York
Esusu is a digital platform that helps renters save and build credit. Users report their rent payments, which increases their credit score, and join online communities that help create accountability for saving.
Fullstack Modular - New York, New York
FullStack Modular merges modular building with new construction technologies to bring a higher level of control, predictability, and scalability to development. Fullstack is the first fully integrated modular solution, allowing the company to innovate modular building in the areas of design, manufacturing, and construction. FullStack Modular built the modules for 461 Dean Street in Brooklyn, NY, which currently is the tallest modular building in the world.
New Story Charity - San Francisco, California
New Story Charity is a Y Combinator-backed nonprofit that pioneers solutions to end global homelessness. New Story creates breakthrough tools, drives innovations, and identifies best practices to share with other nonprofits, governments, and businesses that are working towards building communities for the over 1.6 billion people in need of shelter.
2020 Ivory Prize Nomination & Finalists Map
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