A regional alliance for Cathedral City, Coachella, DHS, Indian Wells, Indio, La Quinta, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, and Rancho Mirage.
A regional alliance for Cathedral City, Coachella, DHS, Indian Wells, Indio, La Quinta, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, and Rancho Mirage.
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This isn't an events company. It's infrastructure.
A 9-city alliance built to surface, connect, and elevate the people building real companies in the Coachella Valley.
Palm Springs · Tuesday, May 26, 2026 · Free Admission · Seats are limited · Reserve yours now.
We're learning from local entrepreneurs who chose to build here — and using that momentum to reconnect what's been fragmented across nine cities for too long.
We're building that room. City by city. In person.
For the first-timer. The career-changer. The one who just needs to see someone who looks like them standing at the front of a room and think: that could be me.
If you can see it, you can be it.
No panels for panels' sake. No institutional distance. Just real people, real backstories, and earned wisdom worth hearing up close. Any age. Any background. Any starting point.
May 7, 2026
Read ArticleNot keynote performers. Neighbors — with real backstories, real risks taken, and earned wisdom worth hearing up close.
The May 26 pilot is where we find out what this valley is ready for. Every person in the roomwill help shape what comes next.
Mona Babauta is a seasoned transit professional with over 27 years of experience serving communities across the Inland Empire, Bay Area, and the Los Angeles Metropolitan area.
She currently serves as the CEO/General Manager of SunLine Transit Agency in Southern California, a recognized leader in clean transportation innovation, particularly in hydrogen fuel cell buses and supporting infrastructure for over 30 years.
In addition to her professional experience, Babauta is an active leader in the transit industry and a passionate advocate for sustainable transportation and building healthy, engaged communities. She has contributed to numerous state, regional, and national efforts, including serving on the CALACT Board of Directors, the Executive Committee of the California Transit Association and the Board of Directors for The Center for Transportation and the Environment.
Mona holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Public Administration from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
Sarah Lacy is a veteran investigative journalist, serial entrepreneur, three-time author, independent bookstore owner, collaborative writer, and all around badass.
If you know Sarah Lacy you either love her or hate her. She is not someone who inspires “meh.”
As a journalist, she has written for BusinessWeek, Fortune, hosted TechTicker on Yahoo Finance, helped build TechCrunch, and co-founded Pando.com. She has written three books about entrepreneurship and Silicon Valley. She is known for her interviews of major technology founders, CEOs, and investors, which collectively have millions of views. She’s been written about in San Francisco Magazine, New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post— to name a few— and featured on Bloomberg, the Today Show, and CBS This Morning among many others.
In 2018, she also cofounded ChairmanMe, which started life as ChairmanMom and helped tends of thousands of working women achieve economic parity in the workplace.
These days, she splits her time between San Francisco, where she does collaborative writing and story consulting for many of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, and Palm Springs, where she co-owns the Best Bookstore in Palm Springs.
She lives with her partner in life and work, Paul Bradley Carr, her two ferocious teen-wolves, three opinionated cats, and a-way-too-clingy poodle.
Despite no longer being a journalist, she still manages to piss someone off every day.
CVIA is designed to grow — one city, one event, one community at a time. Every pilot teaches us something. Every founding sponsor shapes what comes next.
If you lead economic development for a Coachella Valley city, CVIA was built with you in mind.
Nine cities acting as a unified region can compete for resources, talent, and investment that no single city can attract alone. Municipal support costs nothing. The return is a more visible, more credible, more connected valley — and that's good for everyone at the table.
We'd love to talk.
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The Coachella Valley Innovation Alliance (CVIA) operates as a sponsored project of Caravanserai Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions made payable to Caravanserai Project with "CVIA" in the memo are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. Caravanserai Project is not responsible for the content or operations of CVIA programming.
Donate to our SponsorBlue Zones Project Palm Springs · Anchor Sponsor, May 26 Pilot · bluezones.com
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