Lavin Exclusive Speaker
Activist and entrepreneur Yale Fox is the CEO of Rentlogic: a rental search engine that scans government databases to rate landlords and buildings. He works with cities and communities to put power back into the hands of tenants—and to show how open data can serve the public’s interest. Previously, he turned a nightclub into a sociological research lab: a big data analysis earning him a TED Fellowship.
Yale Fox’s Rentlogic works with the City of New York to analyze millions of building inspection records and rank each building based on quality. Their listings include additional information that most renters wouldn’t know about until it’s too late—like mold, heat and hot water problems, rodents, cockroaches, broken elevators, unexpected rent increases, or if the landlord has a tendency to keep the security deposit—all so that renters can be fully informed before signing a lease.
He’s also the director of LandlordWatch: a website that combines citizen-journalism, housing activism and problem solving with social technologies. LandlordWatch uses open government data provided by the City of Toronto respecting building inspections in order to create transparency in the rental housing market.
Previously, Yale Fox focused on the evolutionary origin to music, and which factors influence popular taste. In 2010, he wrote a paper on how music can be used to drive bar sales in a nightclub environment. It was written under the supervision of Dr. Kip Pegley at Queen’s University in Canada. He was also the first to write and publish about Musical Attention Deficit Disorder, which he did under the supervision of Dr. Robert J. Brym at the University of Toronto. In 2011, he successfully proved the link between the state of the economy and what’s trending in popular music. His research has appeared in dozens of publications, international documentaries, textbooks, and online periodicals.