Feature
‘LIC: Inspiring Innovation’
Sixth annual LIC Summit
explores ways to foster
innovation and community
building Photo courtesy of LIC Partnership
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
LIC Partnership hosted its sixth
annual LIC Summit, “LIC: In-spiring
Innovation,” at the Mu-seum
of the Moving Image
on Nov. 19.
The event, which was co-hosted by
Modern Spaces and Schneps Media,
brought together some of Long Island
City’s most influential companies and
businesses, both new and established,
for a series of panels and networking.
“Everybody’s doing their thing in
Long Island City, and people don’t
always remember how big it is and
how much activity there is,” Elizabeth
Lusskin, president of the LIC Partner-ship
and executive director of LIC’s
BID, told QNS.
“So because we’re so well located,
because we’re so dynamic and there’s
so much great, different kind of energy
here, it’s a great place for all these dif-ferent
and new approaches — whether
it’s living, business, etc. — to be both
finding customers and also evolving
and learning from the experience and
the new ways of doing what they do
for the future,” Lusskin added.
The summit began with welcom-ing
remarks from Lusskin, Modern
Space’s President and CEO Eric Be-naim,
Rockrose Development Corp’s
Senior Vice President Patricia Dunphy,
MoMI Deputy Director of Education
and Community Engagement Sara
Guerrero, and Schneps Media’s CEO
and Co-Publisher Joshua Schneps.
There were five panels throughout
the morning, starting with the keynote
panel.
Panelists ranged from educa-tors,
such as LaGuardia Community
College’s Interim President and LIC
Partnership board member Paul Ar-cario
and Greg Morrisett, Jack and
Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost,
Cornell Tech; and nonprofits, such as
NYC Economic Development Corp’s
President and CEO James Patchett
and Tech:NYC’s Executive Director
Julie Samuels.
The panel explored Long Island
City’s current innovative and entre-preneurial
resources, like LaGuardia’s
programs that are preparing the next
generation of tech professionals, as
well as what role it should be playing
so that the benefits of that innovation
reaches the community.
Samuels also talked about the
importance of diversity and inclusion
in the tech workforce in a time that
she called a “moment of great societal
transformation” that only happens once
in a century.
“I hope jobs grow in places like
New York where we are incredibly well
equipped to have those hard conver-sations,”
Samuels said. “Technology
will continue to grow, and jobs will
continue to grow … And we need
smart, diverse, interesting people in
those jobs so that we can grapple
with those kinds of hard questions. We
need LaGuardia students and Cornell
Tech students at the center.”
“We need that diverse coalition
of people dealing with these things
because if we got a lack of diversity
and a lack of diversity of thought and
experience, you’re gonna have a really
tough time getting those questions
right,” Samuels added.
At the end of the keynote panel,
38 DECEMBER 2019 I LIC COURIER I www.qns.com
From left, Greg Morrisett, James Patchett, Paul Arcario, Elizabeth Lusskin, Seth Pinsky and
Julie Samuels at the LIC Summit on Nov. 19
Patchett made a rhetorical question
that resonated throughout the day.
“There’s no doubt that NYC is a
center for tech and is going to be,
the question is: Are we going to be a
center for tech or are we going to be
a center for tech coma done respon-sibly,”
Patchett said.
Other panels consisted of a dis-cussion
on advancing mobility and
accessibility in LIC and another on life
sciences that emphasized the impor-tance
of mixed-use living and reliable
transportation in order to generate job
opportunities.
Another panel featured four differ-ent
brands that specialize in co-living
and co-working spaces that have made
LIC their home or are looking to do so,
including Ollie, The Collective, Studio
by Tishman Speyer and Spaces, a divi-sion
of International Workplace Group
that works out of the Falchi building.
Representatives from these com-panies
talked about their distinct busi-ness
models and how they’re steering
away from traditional living and work-ing
environments in order to offer new
forms of living within the community
and leasing work spaces.
“I think what it points out is that
this is an area that needs to meet
the needs of lots of different kinds
of people,” Lusskin said about these
new ways of looking at residency and
work accommodations. “There’s niches
that need to be filled in addition to
the traditional way of having an office
and the traditional way of having a
living space.”
One of the final panels of the
day, “Fastest Growing Companies
— Fastest Growing Neighborhood,”
featured representatives from a di-verse
group of companies in LIC
who emphasized the importance of
community building.
The panelists included members of
Estee Lauder Companies Inc., Vayner-
Media, JetBlue, Lady M Confections
and RUX Studios.
Nick Miaritis, EVP of VaynerMe-dia,
said that part of the reason their
advertising company was attracted
to Long Island City was due to the
community feeling and the familiarity
that comes with the neighborhood.
He added that it’s “on the busi-nesses
to do more for the community,
not the other way around.”
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