Meet the innovators who are disrupting the coliving industry

When we put together the line-up for this year’s Co-Liv Summit a few months back, we asked ourselves:

Who is truly innovating in the coliving industry?

We know that everyone has their own ways to innovate:

Operators learn over time how to create better processes, from check-ins to check-outs and everything in between
PMS providers improve their functionalities, offering their platforms to a wider range of operators
Developers come up with new and improved positionings, making coliving more inclusive or niche (such as in the case of family-friendly shared living spaces)
Investors take new risks and invest into niche coliving startups, hence allowing real innovation to happen

And the list goes on.

Yes, we are all innovators - but who are the innovators that truly stand out?

For this year, we created the entire Co-Liv Summit line-up based on who we believe brought the most innovation in the coliving industry. And today, we want you to meet some of them before you can watch them share their story and experience on Monday at the Co-Liv Summit.

Meet Kelsea Crawford and Antonin Yuji Maeno, founders of PolyRoom

Ever heard of PolyRoom? Kelsea and Antonin, cofounders of Cutwork, developed a new prototype of a single studio unit. The fully custom interior and furniture have been designed to be reconfigured for different usages, opening a new range of possibilities in the compact space.

What does this mean? Concretely, it means that they were able to create the feeling of a 50 square-meter apartment within a single micro-unit environment.

PolyRoom is, in our opinion, one of the most innovative modular design and modular construction projects out there. On Monday, Kelsea is going to walk you through their design, show you all the details of this project, and hopefully inspire you and every coliving architect and interior designer to tackle one of the biggest problems in coliving: how to make create sense out of density!

Meet Stéphane Bounmy, creator of the first coliving blockchain project

There are many people that want to use blockchain technology to reinvent real estate - but few actually take action.

Stéphane is different. Founder of HackerHouse, one of the oldest coliving spaces in Paris, he decided to try it out. Last year, he launched HackerHouse Coin, the first crypto project dedicated to coliving.

The idea: that a percentage of every transaction goes back to owner, operators and residents of their coliving communities. Stéphane wrote an entire whitepaper about it and made key learnings from his project - which we will share on Monday with you!

Meet Marta Rocamora Gonzalez, founder of GroundInn

What is the financial value of community?

Marta is a former executive of WeWork. She’s seen a lot - and knows that community is a core of new businesses.

But how can one convince investors to invest into community? While it makes sense intellectually - higher community engagement means more referrals, more caretaking of properties and higher NPS scores - it’s hard to find arguments to convince with numbers.

In her talk “Community: the Double-Edged Sword”, Marta is going to showcase the reasons and rational arguments behind investing in community - a crucial point for every coliving actor!

Meet Goncalo Hall & Micaela Vieira, creators of the Digital Nomad Madeira initiative

Many coliving operators struggle to attract a new audience: digital nomads.

Meet Christian Schmitz, head of the Co-Liv Tech Community and global lead of shared living and workspaces at SALTO Systems

Christian is not new to coliving. As head of shared living at SALTO Systems, he’s been at the forefront of innovation in the coliving industry:

With SALTO Systems, he’s been supporting endless of coliving initiatives and organizations, including Co-Liv and Coliving Hub.

He’s also founded the Co-Liv Tech Community, the first think-tank dedicated to creating cooperation, improvements and partnerships between soft- and hard-ware providers of coliving spaces.

This year, Christian decided to support all innovators by making SALTO Systems a core partner of the Co-Liv Summit: all innovation talks are being brought to you by this amazing organization, without initiatives such as the Co-Liv Summit couldn’t exist!

Our director Gui Perdrix talked with Christian on why innovation is important to him and SALTO Systems - in this 10 minute interview, you can learn about which topics need innovation within the industry and how user-centric design is changing the way we innovate:

To learn more about SALTO Systems and their innovative ways to unlock the power of coliving, make sure to visit saltosystems.com.

And that’s not all!

In fact, these were only 5 profiles out of 40 different entrepreneurs, innovators and coliving actors who will share their stories and expertise at this year’s Co-Liv Summit!

Among others, you will also have to chance to hear:

Peter Fabor, founder of the Surf Office, talking about how revenue management can be reinvented
Virginia Scapinelli, one of the oldest coliving thought leaders, explaining the new trend of coliving for corporates
Marc Forster Algas, who launched Karisma Coliving, sharing how he pivoted towards the pop-up coliving model and why it makes more sense to start with this model as a first-hand operator
Filip Klementsson & Linnéa Brenden, who run Coly, distilling how they used psychological frameworks to create a tool that matches roommates based on personalities
Penny Clark, PHD doctorate and cofounder of Conscious Coliving, sharing months of research on how to implement sustainability frameworks into coliving spaces
Adi Cohen, one of the world’s first nomadic architect, showcasing highlight from her world tours of shared living best practices in design and architecture

...and many more topics that you can find on the schedule of the Co-Liv Summit ‘22!

Reminder: the Co-Liv Summit is happening this upcoming Monday!

Make sure to join the Summit and to bring your team. The level of information gathering, knowledge sharing and connections that are being made at the Summit are beyond any other coliving event.

And for those who are on holidays or in different time zones: you will have life-time access to all the talks and recordings after the Summit, including further resources from speakers and the special Co-Liv Summit report.

Hence, see you on Monday at the Summit!

Gui Perdrix

Co-Liv Director