Context Labs (CXL) is proud to announce the launch of Immutably™ for Opportunity Zones – a new type of offering in an emerging opportunity for economic inclusiveness and urban reinvestment. Our first public partnership will occur in Kansas City, MO with investment firm Blueprint Local under the development and leadership of partner organization Spherical | Analytics (S|A).
Opportunity Zones (OZ) emerged as a result of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. These areas represent historically under-served or economically distressed census tracts designated by each of the fifty states as eligible for preferential tax treatment. These tax breaks are then intended to incentivize investment into these communities that would typically not see the same level of financial flows compared to their more affluent neighbors.
The goal of the platform is to provide deep, specific insight into these OZs along several critical dimensions:
- Existing infrastructure investment, both public and private, to baseline what services exist in that OZ
- Industry and business clustering to best understand the present state of economic activity in the OZ
- Social graphing of ownership and investment to gain insights into existing investors and industrials operating within these OZs
The journey towards accomplishing these goals starts with data: meaningful, insightful, and provenanced data. With the platform’s all-source ingestion microservice, Immutably™ for OZ has the ability to ingest and scrape relevant, contextual data to begin painting the picture with existing data. To combat the era of fake news and noisy data, S|A then runs all data through our Proofworks™ multi-point cryptographic proofing service to ensure the continual veracity of the data through time before running it all through the Scrivener™ blockchain ledger to maintain the immutable record through time. Only then, after we have ensured that all data inputs into the platform are of the highest quality, do we begin the work of developing our descriptive and predictive analytics modeling and visualizations. This process ensures the highest level of pedigree across the board for data, models, analytics, and everything in between.
Making a significant capital or operational investment in a historically under-served area comes with a number of risks for investors. Many of these OZs have relatively low levels of urban innovation, early stage investment, financial inclusion, and social equality. Investment-grade intelligence around investment opportunities, infrastructure, and the local ecosystem exists in highly fragmented pockets – if it exists at all. Local investors and business owners require more information to feel more confident taking the leap and investing in an area that may be otherwise overlooked.
We believe that’s where Immutably™ for OZ comes in.
“Achieving immutable truth is our core mission,” stated CXL and S|A Founder and CEO Dan Harple. “We believe in making a positive social impact just as strongly as we believe in our core mission of being the world’s trusted repository of environmental data. Our platform has the potential to revolutionize the way under-served communities achieve economic prosperity and social equality like never before through data, analytics, blockchain, machine learning, and strong partnerships. We are really excited to begin this work here in Kansas City.”
As with most of our work, the collaboration with experts provides us with a tremendous and provides us with key differentiation. The insights and data that we have received from our partners at Blueprint Local, the City of Kansas City, the Kauffman Foundation, and countless other organizations, foundations, and agencies have enabled us to maximize the effect and impact of our work.
One of the most exciting aspects of the launch of Immutably™ for OZ is the potential impact the platform will have for the local people in these communities. By stimulating investment and re-investment in these places, we hope to see local leaders, business owners, and community organizers informed, engaged, and leading the way for the next generation of Kansas City residents to reap the benefits.
Stay tuned for updates on the Kansas City OZ platform, future work in Opportunity Zones, and everything else we do at:
Context Labs
Email: info@contextlabs.com
Website: www.contextlabs.com
Twitter: @contextlabsbv
Spherical | Analytics
Email: info@sphericalanalytics.io
Website: www.sphericalanalytics.io
Twitter: @SphereAnalytics