2022 Impact Report

Launched in 2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, East Bay Forward is a regional economic assessment and guide to best position the East Bay for a more equitable, resilient, and sustainable economic recovery.

In addition to quarterly meetings of our Land Use & Infrastructure Committee, we highlighted Industrial Land Use Trends for our speaker series in May, featured the Hyundai hydrogen fuel cell truck at the East Bay Innovation Block Party in June, toured GoMentum Station in September, and featured a discussion panel on East Bay Real Estate Trends for our Annual Membership Meeting in October. To learn more about transportation initiatives around the region, please visit our members: Alameda County Transportation Commission (ACTC) and Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA).

We kicked off 2022 with a focus on East Bay housing in our joint presentation featuring an insightful conversation with Assemblymember Buffy Wicks. Our community momentum  continued with the inaugural East Bay Innovation Block Party, which brought  small businesses, artists, elected officials, and innovative companies and organizations under one roof to celebrate the year’s nominees and finalists. We continued this theme at the 2022 East Bay Innovation Awards through a partnership with Pilot City, whose young alumni and members brought a lot of energy and inspiration to the event.

We are dedicated to supporting small to mid-sized businesses. Through a partnership with the U.S. Economic Development Administration, East Bay EDA is leading and implementing a project known as Resilient East Bay.

In July 2022, more than 20 regional business leaders and other stakeholders involved with East Bay EDA’s Resilient East Bay project visited Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and were welcomed by Berkeley Lab Director Mike Witherell. After providing an overview of the Lab’s operations, the group heard from Todd Pray, Chief Strategic Partnerships Officer of the Strategic Partnerships Office (SPO). SPO focuses on building connections between external partners with research happening at the Lab, which currently has teams working on some of the most pressing issues of our times, including water quality and supply, converting forest biomass to carbon-negative products and biofuels, and more.

In December 2022, East Bay EDA hosted an invitation-only tour of Enovix’s Fab 1 manufacturing facility in partnership with the City of Fremont. This curated, exclusive experience offered East Bay EDA members and leadership an inside look at the technology that is helping to power everything from electric vehicles to consumer electronics. Our tour was welcomed by Harrold Rust, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, who provided an overview of the company’s history and explained their signature 3D cell architecture which increases energy density and maintains high cycle life. After the presentation we got to see the unique processes and production that the now publicly-traded company is developing for markets.