Opportunities for Innovation with Diana Fisler, ADL Ventures

Calling All: Building material enthusiasts, building science gurus, off-site construction fans and young technical people (especially women) considering their career path ––this one's for YOU!

ADL Ventures connects legacy sector companies with emerging technology. It isn’t entirely focused on housing, but Diana is focused on driving innovation with the building product + materials sector.

How can we solve the barriers to energy-efficient off-site construction? Who needs to be at the table? What opportunities exist for innovation in process, materials, and business models?

Check out ADL Ventures and connect with Diana on LinkedIn. View more HerStoriesInHousing on our website.

The Alliance Off-site heat map was mentioned in this podcast. View it here.

Many thanks to our partners at the University of Denver for their editing and post-production talents, specifically Lija Miller and Lisette Zamora-Galarza.

The University of Denver Franklin L. Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management, teaches the full life cycle of the built environment. From integrated project leadership skills to a cohesive understanding of the built environment ––experience the only school of its kind!

"Upbeat Party" is brought to you by Scott Holmes, songwriter from Free Music Archive. 

Transcript

Eric Holt (00:05):

You're listening to the housing innovation Alliance podcast in partnership with the university of Denver's Franklin L burns school of real estate and construction management. The housing innovation Alliance is a nationwide community of game changers driving the future of home delivery through crowd accelerated innovation. We represent thought leaders from dirt to dweller with a focus on the production builders business environment.

Betsy Scott (00:35):

Hi, this is Betsy Scott with the housing innovation Alliance. I'm here with Diana Fisler from ADL Ventures. Good morning Diana. 

Diana Fisler (00:46):

The purpose of ADL ventures is to connect legacy sector companies with emerging technology that they need. So you know, the big, big old organizations, not necessarily, we sometimes use the word stodgy and usually they're not insulted by that because they know that they're not, they're not startups, they're not, you know, they're not Apple. They know that the reality of their business is typically either highly regulated or highly code bound and slang. So they also know that they have to innovate. And so what we provide is the seeking of and the mechanism for innovating with and like startups and entrepreneurs.

Betsy Scott (01:26):

We refer to those types of companies as elephants, they move slowly, but they have a lot of power, a lot of power and influence.

Diana Fisler (01:37):

And I like to point out there, there are very good reasons that they move slowly. I mean they're in industries that are slow to change and are very risk averse and it's the appropriate thing to do to be an elephant in those industries. But they also recognize that they're not going to grow and change if they don't put a certain amount of resources toward innovation.

Betsy Scott (01:58):

What types of innovation are you looking to drive? Right through ADL?

Diana Fisler (02:04):

So I'm, I'm particularly responsible for the building materials sector. I have uh, other, uh, colleagues and team members, the focus on other industries, utilities and things like that. But there's generally two approaches that we, and we'd like to use these phrases spin in and spin out. So spin in is, um, where we help the legacy organization identify technology breakthrough that they need to grow or change. And then we seek it. We send out calls, we find the technology that will meet that need. We evaluate it and present the opportunity to the legacy company. But we don't stop there. We actually take an active role in making sure that that technology can be integrated into the legacy company in whatever way suits both parties. So we don't just make the introduction and walk away because the two stakeholders, they speak different languages. Entrepreneurs don't speak the same language as the elephants.

Diana Fisler (03:02):

That mismatch can cause disappointment on all sides. So we help with that process and make sure that everyone gets what they need out of it. And then the other model, which is kind of interesting is spin out, which is one of the elephants has a technology that they'd love to dabble in or, or start to monetize, but it's not within their normal either market channel or within their usual customer base or it's just a slightly different way of going to market that is going to get orphaned within their businesses. So we spin that out to be its own startup and we can run it, we can form it. And then as it grows, let them slowly take it back within the main organization. When it becomes mature enough, our president calls that scaffolding, so we provide the scaffolding for the business until they're ready to to resource it themselves. So it's like creating little mini startups for these large organizations

Betsy Scott (03:59):

and it may be something that they find interesting too, but they don't want to commit mindspace or resources to longterm.

Diana Fisler (04:06):

That's right. We do risk it for them in a sense.

Betsy Scott (04:09):

That's very cool. Very cool. So a couple of years ago, I know there's a project that you're starting on shortly with the department of energy and the Alliance partnered with the department of energy a couple of years ago to do some benchmarking on the use of offsite construction among production home builders and developers in the housing environment. It seems as though this new project that you have is, is going to kind of dovetail into some of that research and build off of that effort. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're going to be doing with the DOE?

Diana Fisler (04:40):

So the, the lead on that project is mountain Institute and our company, ADL is a partner in that. The department of energy, I shouldn't speak for them, but I'll tell you that the department of energy has an interest in advancing energy efficient buildings. This funding is to form a collaborative that brings together all of the stakeholders that are required in order to really advance building construction for energy efficiency and for construction efficiency. And it relies heavily on prefabrication offsite construction componentization. It involves not just the fabricators who can do that, not just the builders and architects who would design it and implement it, but also other stakeholders like finance and insurance and you know, local officials to really educate the market. But also to bring the technologies that will enable the next generation of construction. Say in the U S

Betsy Scott (05:38):

you know, you and I have talked a bit, we had, we launched a tool a few months ago called our offsite heat map and that was really a followup to that work with the DOE where we were looking at, you know, what is the landscape of those offsite providers across the U S where are they located? You know, are there pockets where there isn't any just to give people information that they were waiting for to see, you know, is this a space they could viably get into. So as you're moving into this project, what are some of the other kind of data points that you'll be looking for to share with the industry and move that effort forward?

Diana Fisler (06:13):

I think what you said, which is you know, what kind of capacities out there, what kind of resources are available. If you're a builder, either a one off or a production type builder and you're looking for, if I want to build in, in Georgia for example, what kind of fabrication resources exists there and not just, but not just the fabricators too, but also the the infrastructure that you need transportation to the job site I think would be useful for, for builders to know. Are there set crews in that area so you know, are there people who are experienced at assembling and enabling offsite construction when it comes down to it? Because if you've got the pieces but you can't put them together effectively on the job site, if you don't have local trades and know how to deal with that, then the project isn't going to go forward effectively

Betsy Scott (07:02):

as an organization, as the Alliance or even in connection with those partners, what can the industry do to help you in this effort

Diana Fisler (07:12):

come to the table? Really? I mean we're going to have this collaborative and we really want to make sure that we've got, we've heard the voice of every buddy who could potentially enable our move to energy efficient offsite construction. And we sort of touched on, and you've touched on it, it's not just the builders who are curious and interested at using offsite construction and moving the needle on energy efficient construction, but it's also finance experts and, and insurance people, local jurisdictions. We want everyone to come and understand and offer their perspective on how we can really take building construction to the next level for energy efficiency and efficient construction.

Betsy Scott (07:53):

So what's the timetable for this project?

Diana Fisler (07:55):

We're finalizing the formation of the collaborative, the statement of work with the DOE right now. I expect that to be launched in June. Um, we've talked about having a kickoff summit pattern, very similar to your summits in the end of September. Location TBD, but it'll probably be in your neck of the woods, Betsy, for those of you who don't know. That's right. Yeah. Probably the Pittsburgh area. That's what we're leaning toward. And it'll just be a big summit where we will come together, launched the collaborative, begin to talk about what kind of technologies, educational materials, and and things that we can implement together as an industry and what's required to really move our technology forward.

Betsy Scott (08:34):

That's awesome. I'm looking forward to that. Hopefully it'll be in person by September. That might be the sweet spot this year before the, before we really get into the fall. Thank you so much for your time today and I'm very excited to continue working with you on this front and to do anything that we can to connect you to our community and help with the effort. Yeah, sounds

Speaker 2 (08:56):

great.

Eric Holt (09:02):

On behalf of the housing innovation Alliance and the university of Denver, this is Dr. Eric Holden. Thank you for being part of our journey. This is where innovation calls home. [inaudible].