Greetings,
As a former employment attorney, and now working in the venture capital business, this pandemic is allowing my two careers to converge. In California, we have been taking the direction from our Governor, Gavin Newsom, and our various mayors. Northern California was fortunate to have the decisive leadership from SF Mayor London Breed, who early on issued a Shelter-In-Place order, followed by many Northern California neighboring cities and counties.
As I’m sure you have read in the news, the United States really doesn’t have a federal plan for managing the pandemic or our re-opening; the plan is basically a patchwork of 50 different states, using different criteria, opening on different time tables, with different enforcement mechanisms and with different compliance metrics.
But each state has multiple different counties, so it’s not just 50 plans, it’s hundreds, probably thousands of plans. In California, for example, we have 58 counties. Governor Newsom set out a plan on April 14th for a four-stage approach for re-opening. To enter and progress through each stage a county has to meet certain criteria.
As of this week, Governor Newsom has authorized moving further into Phase Two, if a county can attest to certain factors. These factors include, among others, low prevalence of COVID-19 cases and certain healthcare capacity requirements, assurance of resources to protect essential critical infrastructure workers, testing capacity (e.g. a minimum of 1.5 tests per 1,000 residents, plus other criteria), containment capacity (i.e. contact tracing) and other protections for vulnerable populations.
Geodesic’s office in Foster City is in San Mateo County, so we are governed by the rules set out by our County Health Department. In California, a county can only open a sector once the state has developed sector guidance. For Geodesic, our sector is “Offices,” and there is guidance posted by the State of California on how to open safely. However, as of May 22nd, San Mateo County issued an order stating a “business may open its offices but only to the extent that persons working in offices cannot perform their job duties from home…”
We have been very busy since March 13th (the date our office officially closed) working at home and staying in touch with each other and with you! We are very fortunate that we have been able to execute on our goals remotely. Thus, we are confident that we can continue to perform our job duties from home and pursuant to the order issued by the County of San Mateo, we are not opening our offices at this time. We will continue to monitor not only the county orders, but the state guidance on safe practices once we are allowed to open.
If any of you in Silicon Valley have any questions about where to look for guidance or how to proceed, please feel free to give me a call.
Stay Healthy!
Susie and the Geodesic Team
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Geodesic & Our Portfolio Companies
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Recent Geodesic Article by Matt Fuller
After COVID-19, Japan Will Be a Greenfield Opportunity For Technology Companies
We recently dove into COVID-19's acceleration of digital transformation across corporations. Geodesic Partner, Matt Fuller, explores how this digitalization is further propelled in Japan, acting as a giant wake-up call and presenting a major opportunity for companies to invest in the Japanese market.
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Bright Machine Announcement
Funds, Factories and Resilience in a Time of Crisis
Bright Machine is helping factories get back to work with their newly announced Factory Resiliency Fund. The goal of the $50M fund is to "...help new customers take advantage of no-upfront-cost automation".
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UiPath Announcement
UiPath Signed Agreement with Cabinet Secretariat to Utilize RPA to Fight COVID-19
UiPath Japan CEO, Koichi Hasegawa, signed an agreement with Japan's Cabinet Secretariat of New Coronavirus Infection Control, Kozo Nishimura, on a joint effort to utilize robotic process automation (RPA) and AI for countermeasures related to COVID-19. Microsoft Japan president Hitoshi Yoshida also signed the agreement and was in attendance for a virtual signing ceremony to mark the occasion.
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RSAC 2020 Virtual Conference, Asia Pacific & Japan
Topic: RSAC is virtually hosting their annual conference, bringing together the industry’s most respected experts in cybersecurity. The event will center around the latest on cybersecurity, current best practices, and how to confront cyberthreats.
Date: Wednesday, July 15th & Thursday, July 16th
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