Before there were gas stations, roadways or traffic lights, people really couldn't drive their cars very much, or far. It took a while for momentum to build and create the pull for new services. During that time there were people who were just trying to get others to not use their horse.
Even with the technological advances we've seen in the last century, the pathway to recovery still involves jumping on your horse and going a quarter mile down the road.
I tell people all the time, as a psychologist and the founder of a tech company creating solutions to help people find treatment: There is a moment when someone decides they want help. When we come to it, we are filled with the simultaneous feeling of relief and dread. Relief that the person finally wants help, and dread about where to start and how to find them the right place in the brief window of time that desire to get help exists.
<p>
That is the window I've been dedicated to decreasing.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<a href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542367787-4baf35f3037d?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=400&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEzMzIxMn0" target="_blank"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDUyNTMwNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMTIxNDM1MH0.JhM4mTzMQc7sqtS94e9RbPy84aupVXXVgolIMeru0ho/image.jpg?width=980" id="d3c56" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ceb496fc3db5ccc28e2e118be181b387" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /></a>
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</small>
</p><h2>Mental Health Nonprofits and Their Struggles</h2><p>
When someone gets or makes that call for help in the mental health industry, there are countless directories, resource guides, websites and other attempts to capture both real-time information and basic essential information on resources.
</p><p>
The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), estimates that since COVID began, calls to their 800 number hotline have increased 1,000%. Yes, that's one thousand percent.
</p><p>
What do the people answering those calls depend on for their information? A postcard that is mailed out to facilities once a year and (hopefully) mailed back to SAMHSA. That's what they use to update their database. Many great organizations are often not listed or are out of date, duplicated or out of business when they are. Many of the providers I talk to don't remember ever getting that postcard.
</p><p>
They aren't the only government system that attempts to catalog this information. There are so many disparate, disjointed systems, it's impossible to properly inventory all of them. For example, the state of California has invested significantly in <a href="https://sapccis.ph.lacounty.gov/sbat/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a system called the Service and Bed Availability Tool </a>(SBAT). Any substance use disorder program receiving state or federal funding is required to update the system each day at a certain time of day. They need to do this manually, by either calling or by logging in to a portal and updating the information. Each SBAT system is managed separately by each county in the state. The data is not shared. Not with us, not with SAMHSA, and not with any other of the countless systems, databases or hotlines trying to get people help.
</p><p>
Meanwhile, Los Angeles County's homeless authority has their own "real-time bed availability system." The <a href="https://www.hhcla.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">city of Los Angeles</a>, too, dedicates some of their funding (both government and philanthropic) to creating a paper resource directory of available beds.
</p><p>
Non-government funded homeless shelters such as the <a href="https://urm.org/)" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Union Rescue Mission</a> and recovery houses such as <a href="https://awakeningrecovery.org/)" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Awakening Recovery</a> that also provide beds, can't be found in any of these systems because they do not receive government funding.
</p><p>
None of these systems are integrated with one another, all require a manual process of counting beds and updating a system, and none of it is anything a clinician in the public can easily or readily access.
</p><p>
How is a person making that midnight call to find someone help supposed to navigate all this? They can't.
</p><p>
It's not just a problem for those trying to solve homelessness. This happens amongst many programs and services across the county — and that same inefficiency, lack of coordination and miscommunication is replicated across the state and country.
</p><h2>Solving the Same Problem Again and Again</h2><p>
Even within this single space within a much larger industry there are nonprofit organizations competing with private enterprises for funding and resources, none of which are truly cooperating with one another. The for-profit, philanthropic and public businesses rarely cooperate. In fact, there are barriers to interact.
</p><p>
A hodgepodge of investors find themselves investing in an industry that desperately needs disruption. Alongside them are philanthropists who donate to nonprofits because they don't want to "make money" off helping the homeless or people with mental illness. Both end up investing deeply in disconnected or uncoordinated ideas.
</p><p>
Many, if not most, recovery residences are still operating using pen-and-paper methods to intake patients, track bed inventory and communicate with one another. At best, some programs use Excel or Google Sheets to communicate, or they pay for overly sophisticated electronic medical record (EMR) systems that are designed for clinical programs tailored for government or insurance billing practices.
</p><p>
Their marketing practices are often word-of-mouth, since programs such as these cannot advertise, even if they could afford to do so, on platforms such as Google, which requires facilities advertising any type of addiction treatment to be certified (which is often too lengthy and costly for non-clinical programs to undergo).
</p><p>
The industry must, by necessity, be more concerned with their daily operations and keeping their organization operating — making sure investors and donors are happy (i.e., beds are filled and patients moving through the program) than on attention to standards and outcomes. Even this is done in a vacuum, with each program focusing on their own goals and protocols, without effectively or efficiently communicating with one another.
</p><p>
What gets lost in all of this is the patient needing services.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-proxy-image">
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Homeboy_Grocery_Salsas.jpg" target="_blank"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vbWVkaWEucmJsLm1zL2ltYWdlP3U9JTJGd2lraXBlZGlhJTJGY29tbW9ucyUyRjIlMkYyOCUyRkhvbWVib3lfR3JvY2VyeV9TYWxzYXMuanBnJmhvPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGdXBsb2FkLndpa2ltZWRpYS5vcmcmcz0zNjcmaD01YTVlZjQ2Y2Q1NzQ3NDBhNGI0YjQwOGViYTE5ODM0MWI3ZmFkYTUwYTUwMzAxZjdjNjkxMzI0MTI0OWE4M2FlJnNpemU9OTgweCZjPTI3NTg0Njg2OTQiLCJleHBpcmVzX2F0IjoxNjQ1NDc2NTI2fQ.9S3zTdhetOCBM5GE3TYg71LG2Frqwcbm7pL8Pimd9bc/img.jpg" id="4decf" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7b31f9ff95b5fb5de32adb02d55b1d98" /></a>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">File:Homeboy Grocery Salsas.jpg - Wikimedia Commons</small>
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Homeboy_Grocery_Salsas.jpg">File:<strong>Homeboy</strong> Grocery Salsas.jpg - Wikimedia Commons</a>
</small>
</p><h2>The New Models </h2><p>
We see innovation happening on a small scale, at the individual program or regional association levels.
</p><p>
There are nonprofits creating positive cash flow with their donation monies, building a food kitchen, incentivizing and employing people who go through their programs who need employment, coming from vulnerable backgrounds.
</p><p>
Look at Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, which calls itself "the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world." Through their efforts they have created a bakery. Yes, rehabilitating gang members through bread making has turned into an industry of food chains, catering services and partnerships across the country. If you've been through LAX recently you've probably seen one of their restaurants.
</p><p>
These nonprofits are enterprising, opening and expanding business. They're organized as nonprofit hybrids that are breaking down the wall between nonprofit missions and private investment operations. They are partnering with other social enterprises and creating networks across the country and world.
</p><p>
The missing piece: connecting these organizations to one another, and giving professionals such as myself, and the public, access to find out more about them. We need these enterprises and programs connected in a platform that everyone can access.
</p><h2>A Post Pandemic World</h2><p>
What we are creating now is a new formula for success. In a post-pandemic era the need is greater than it's ever been.
</p><p>
The California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals (CCAPP) refers to this phenomenon as the "parallel pandemic," where we will see an increase in addiction overdose deaths and homelessness. "Saving lives endangered by addiction in the era of COVID-19 will take concerted leadership and a cross-systems approach," the consortium wrote in a report to the governor and Legislature.
</p><p>
Prior to the pandemic, Feeding America estimated that 1 in 7 Americans depended on a food pantry for weekly food. That number is only going to rise following the joblessness and homelessness resulting from the pandemic, while the means to locate and provide such services is just as difficult and disconnected as ever from other services and providers. Various nonprofits — again, all functioning and operating independently — and organizations such as <a href="https://www.foodpantries.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Foodpantries.org</a> are providing those services but are disconnected technologically from other search tools and engines.
</p><p>
A social worker would need to know where and how to access these services and provide that information to the individuals receiving services.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<a href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1489591805721-c677892cab65?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=400&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEzMzIxMn0" target="_blank"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDUyNTMxMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyOTc0OTE0N30.qpT7o7ZwmwXxjNwXlWion0JNDnHGvLHj2gonDdl2n4A/image.jpg?width=980" id="d24b0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7a03e993bb52e0d564db22e79716d9c6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /></a>
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</small>
</p><h2>Where Do We Go From Here?</h2><p>
We are seeing groups of people and organizations coming together now in new and unique ways. We are working with nonprofit organizations providing services, seeing those services get subsidized by philanthropic dollars, for technology that is backed by private investment dollars. All in the effort to get people off an oval track just going in circles, and onto a road, ultimately preparing them to drive down a superhighway that hasn't been built yet.
</p><p>
There is a nonprofit we are working with (can't mention the name yet), that received significant funding to create a digital resource directory. Rather than using that money to outsource technology developers to create a proprietary tool, we are partnering together, pooling our resources and sharing our technology to create something greater than the sum of our parts. Together, we are doing more than either of us could have done individually. This saves the nonprofit hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars paying for the creation and maintenance of the tools we'll need to work together.
</p><p>
It also allows us to combine our collective intelligence and expertise, and create an even better tool, maintain that tool, and benefit from the collective wisdom of other partners across the country, in other segments, serving different communities.
</p><p>
To realize this vision, we'll need to build new onramps for public, private, and philanthropic partnerships. We need money to pave that way for the impact we want to see. That is exactly what we are working on at GET HELP, with our partners and affiliates.
</p><p>
What we're planning and creating <em>together</em> is a new infrastructure. One that is built by visionary customers, entrepreneurs and the next generation of social impact investors. Amongst these are the next Rockefellers and Carnagies. They didn't build or invent the automobile, but they supplied and fueled the infrastructure that surrounded, supported and sustained it.
</p><p>
We are creating partnerships and affiliate programs with national and statewide associations such as CCAPP and the <a href="https://narronline.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">National Alliance for Recovery Residences</a> (NARR); with "feet on the street" organizations such as <a href="https://www.hopethrusoap.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Hope through Soap</a> in Atlanta, GA,; and with social-model recovery residence programs such as <a href="https://awakeningrecovery.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Awakening Recovery</a>; and large homeless shelters and service providers such as <a href="https://houseofhopesp.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">House of Hope</a> and the <a href="https://www.weingart.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Weingart Center</a>.
</p><p>
In addition, we are in collaborative conversations with seeming "competitors" in the private sector, where we are focused on the same vision: to raise the industry standards and improve the processes for collecting and sharing data.
</p><p>
It's better for everyone involved, including the ultimate beneficiary who may never know the work we are doing together to get help for them: The person suffering from mental health, addiction or homelessness.
</p><p>
What we — as the entrepreneurs and investors in the healthcare technology industry — are defining is a whole new infrastructure for a much longer journey to empowered recovery.
</p><p>
The question that we face on a daily basis is this: Who are the innovators both within the industry and without who are willing to invest time, effort and money into creating a new system?
</p><p>
Today, we see private automobiles driving on public roads --- those were built by public sector funds, and the public sector provides licensing and regulation. Using those models, we have to think broadly about sources of capital and how philanthropic, public and private companies can contribute to the journey.</p><p><em>Dr. Tony Greco is CEO and Founder of <a href="https://gethelp.com/" target="_blank">Get Help </a>and a licensed clinical psychologist and author with over 20 years of experience working with addiction and severe mental illness.</em></p>
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Palantir Technologies' stock rose more than 30% after the enigmatic, big data analytics company officially went public with a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday.
The stock under the ticker symbol PLTR ended the day at $9.50 per share or $2.25 above its $7.25 reference price.
<p>Direct listings are less common than IPOs which rely on investment bankers to underwrite an offering, but companies including Slack Technologies and Spotify have moved forward, betting on their broad brand name recognition, and to avoid incurring extra fees. Under the arrangement, employees and other early investors directly sell their shares upon the company's Wall Street debut. </p><p>But, Palantir's direct listing is unique in that it includes a lockup period that prevents employees and legacy investors from selling most of their stock. Analysts say this provides new shareholders the opportunity to participate in the listing without substantial risk of short-term decline in price.</p><p>Palantir's software offerings, including Gotham and Foundry, are used by 125 customers across more than 150 countries and in 36 industries. It has touted its government work as "central to defense and intelligence operations in the United States and its allies abroad," according to its Securities and Exchange Commission filing.</p><p>Industry analysts expressed concern that the company's overall customer count is low. Palantir Chief Financial Officer David Glazer declined to discuss how many of its clients are government versus enterprise in an interview Wednesday. Though it has increased its focus on the commercial market, Palantir's government portfolio has increased to 54% in the first half of 2020, wrote analyst Rohit Kulkarni, executive director of MKM Partners, in a note.</p><p>Glazer said that due to the company's 17-year history, "there's a real moat" that competitors have to overcome to match their software abilities. Glazer said that the company essentially "turned off our growth machine" to build out Foundry.</p><p>"You're really going to see us be able to scale" to more customers faster and at lower cost," Glazer said. "No one else is going to be able to do that without a huge amount of resources, huge amount of engineering talent against it, and so I think we have a very strong moat."</p><h2>Analysts ask: Does it Scale?
</h2><p>Because many of Palantir's largest and legacy customers are governments, Brendan Burke, a senior emerging tech analyst with PitchBook, said the overall low customer count "suggests that the platform has not scaled rapidly across new customers" and that Palantir "earns a relatively small percentage of its revenue from (those) recently won customers." He added that the company "will be challenged to maintain its expected 2020 revenue growth of 42% year-over-year given its reliance on new government contract wins and the long sales cycle of its data integration platform Foundry."</p><p>In its filings, Palantir estimates its total addressable market to be roughly $119 billion over both commercial and government sectors. And it has provided its software to commercial industries, including energy, transportation, financial services and healthcare. Burke said he found the addressable market in terms of actual end-user spending for data analytics is in the range of $24 billion, multiple times below Palantir's assessment.</p><p>For now, the company remains far from profitable. In its SEC filing, it warned investors that it has "incurred losses each year since its inception" and "may never achieve or maintain profitability."</p><p>While the company reported $742.6 million in revenue in 2019, it saw a loss of $579.6 million. Similarly, in 2018, the company recorded a $580 million loss on $595.4 million revenue. So far, in the first half of 2020, Palantir has reported a $164.7 million loss on $481.2 million in revenue.</p><p>Palantir, which employs more than 2,390 people globally, said it's in the process of entering new and emerging markets, including its newer foray into COVID-19 response efforts as well as defense, law enforcement, national security, and government agencies.</p><p>As of the first half of 2020, it reported its total remaining deal value of contracts awarded by government agencies was $1.2 billion.</p><p>Formerly based in Palo Alto, Calif., Palantir co-founder and chief executive Alexander Karp wrote a scathing rejection of Silicon Valley culture in his introduction to the company's S-1 filing, and the company moved its headquarters to Denver, Colorado this summer. </p><p>Founded in 2003, Palantir has always been accused of secrecy because of its government-related work, but it does have legit U.S. intelligence roots. The company's only early outside investment came from the Central Intelligence Agency's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, which helped develop its software to analyze reams of siloed data. Their tech was particularly well-suited to intelligence agency uses and has been primarily used for counterterrorism as well as law enforcement since its early days. Today it's used by the U.S. military, including the U.S. Special Operations Command, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Homeland Security and Securities and Exchange Commission, among others.</p><p>The use of its software by DHS has led to accusations that its software is being used by ICE to help it find and deport immigrants under the Trump administration. And the company has seen activists protest outside of its now former Palo Alto offices as a result. Co-founder and billionaire investor Peter Thiel is a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump.</p><p>Glazer said "the problem set that our software is deployed against is complex, it's nuanced, and we welcome the internal discussion." He added that "transparency is a great thing for the company" and that by going public "we'll be able to share more over time about our customers" though that will be more difficult for customers in the intelligence and government sector.</p><p>Kulkarni, the executive director of MKM Partners, wrote that "Palantir's products look extremely robust and truly 'battle tested'" — its software can be installed on a submarine and a tablet with no internet connectivity, for example — but that it is still early days with direct sales.</p><p>In addition to lack of profitability, investment risks include the company's many shareholders — and likely sellers once the lockup period ends after the company announces fourth quarter earnings. Its top three customers make up 33% of its revenue in 2018 and in 2019, those customers made up 28% and had been with the company on average for eight years.</p><p>Kulkarni criticized Palantir for providing a "very limited disclosure" even though it has more than 15 years of operating history.</p><p>"We found Palantir's S-1 filing fairly light on customer trends, SaaS metrics," Kulkarni wrote. "Also, the company has disclosed only six trailing quarters worth of financials and has not provided any guidance."</p><p>Still, Kulkarni wrote that he expected significant investor appetite given the company's "enigmatic" history and ongoing IPO pricing trends. He added that the company would trade at a slight discount to its relative growth rate, given its customer concentration, unclear visibility and customer size.<span></span></p>
<p>Such efforts are "the exception but not that rare," and he noted that the Ford family set up a similar structure to ensure their control of Ford Motor company as did Comcast. The variable structure allows the founders to control up to 49.999999% of the total voting power of the stock.<br/></p><p>Burke, a senior emerging tech analyst with PitchBook, said that while it's common for founder-led startups to remain controlled by the founder, Palantir has further pushed the envelope with this new share class structure.</p><p>"The broader impact is limiting the ability of shareholders to influence the company's strategy," Burke said. "This share class structure prevents common shareholders from making activist decisions for the company's future."</p><p>Kulkarni wrote that the structure gives the company's three founders "unilateral voting control over the company in perpetuity."</p><p>Burke said this is a continuing trend in the market, especially because there hasn't been significant pushback from investors.</p><p>Other concerns include worries about the "growing ethical orientation of investors" that could lead to backlash over Palantir's involvement with government agencies "shown to violate human rights," Burke said. "We haven't seen the company adapt to these concerns yet."</p><p>Perhaps to assuage this concern, Palantir pointed to its privacy and civil liberties safeguards, its focus on supporting "Western liberal democracy and its strategic allies" and it also took a stand on the Chinese Communist Party, assuring investors perhaps wary of another ByteDance Ltd.-related debacle that it doesn't work with the party or host its platforms in China because it is "inconsistent with our culture and mission."</p><p><em>*Editor's Note: Spencer Rascoff, the executive chairman and cofounder of dot.LA and Zillow, has been a member of Palantir's board of directors since July 2020 and is also an investor in the company.</em></p><p>___</p><p><em>Do you have a story that needs to be told? My DMs are open on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/latams" target="_blank"><em>Twitter @latams</em></a><em>. You can also email me at tami(at)dot.la, or ask for my Signal.</em></p>
Palantir's Unconventional Voting Structure
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQ1MTQyOC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNjQxODYzMX0.Hyi0HYB_4Uq1Knn1ZPZ7YRlUvy-jXxtNtEPirbw8WCI/img.png?width=980" id="29110" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="50a1e07f92e7f750629d4e2456763bb1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />'Transparency is a Great Thing': Secretive Big Data Firm Palantir Goes Public<p>The company's voting and governance structure has given many industry analysts pause. Michael Weisbach, the Ralph W. Kurtz finance chair at Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business, said it creates an extra class of stock that gives founders effective control of the company no matter how much stock they actually own.</p>
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These days, L.A. pedestrians share their sidewalks with diners. Restaurants across the city are moving outdoors to adapt to California's restrictions on indoor dining.
CityGrows, a Los Angeles-based startup with a mission to automate government workflow, aims to make the permit process for sidewalk dining a breeze.
<p>Founded in 2015, the company offers self-service software for local governments to speed up and streamline their systems. Through the CityGrows dashboard, governments and businesses can do everything from collecting reservations to processing online payments to issuing permits.</p><p>Some municipalities are ditching their old systems and moving online, a massive opportunity to reshape in-person bureaucracies that came to a halt when offices shut down, says CEO Catherine Geanuracos. </p><p>It takes about 19 minutes for a business owner to fill-out, receive and print a city of Los Angeles sidewalk permit application. The result of a program launched by CityGrows in late May. As long as the applicant completes the form and agrees to city requirements, a permit is issued immediately. </p><p>Switching the process from paper or PDF form to an online application shaves off between 50% to 75% of the time it takes to apply. It also makes the review process much easier, Geanuracos says. </p><p>Some governments are even defaulting to approving the permits on an interim basis, in an effort to support local businesses. For permit applications that require changes to a restaurant's insurance policy, cities may accept the application on a provisional basis so the business have to pause operations.</p><p>L.A.'s Department of Transportation has already made a lot of progress moving its schedules and systems online. Still, a spokesperson says the pandemic added a level of complexity that CityGrows helped them handle.</p><p>"When COVID-19 forced thousands of businesses to close their doors, we saw a need to meet this moment in a rapidfire way," L.A.DOT spokesman Colin Sweeney says. "CityGrows allowed us to stand up a new interdepartmental program within a matter of days — not months."</p><p>Santa Monica and West Hollywood have since adopted their own versions of the process.</p><p>"Governments don't compete with each other, so they can share their work and not have to reinvent the wheel each time," Geanuracos says. "We can help them kind-of clone one government's workflow and then customize it for themselves." </p><p>In a few Pennsylvania counties, CityGrows is offering detailed reopening guidance to restaurants in the form of safety checklists, she adds. </p><p>Geanuracos says government tech companies like hers expect slow growth. The sector is often viewed as a risk-averse market, hesitant to purchase new technology. </p><p>"I always say that govtech companies are venture scale, but not venture speed," Geanuracos says. "There's a lot of hesitancy from traditional investors to look at govtech companies at all."</p><p>Those changes started long before COVID, but the pandemic has sped up the shift. Access to affordable software-as-a-service opens the doors for smaller governments to change their operations. </p><p>"A bunch of the assumptions around government are no longer valid because of COVID," Geanuracos says. "They've had to change and adapt their technology almost in real time." </p><p>CityGrows got its start after winning the Santa Monica challenge program <a href="https://www.santamonica.gov/blog/hack-the-beach-building-real-solutions-for-real-problems" target="_blank">Hack the Beach</a>. Since its launch, the startup has supported counties and municipalities across seven states including California.</p>
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