Building Floating Cities with Matteo Pietrobelli, Chief Systems Engineer at Oceanix

(Intro Narrator at 00:00:03) Hello, my friends. Today, Joel is talking to Matteo, Chief Systems Engineer at Oceanix, and we discuss how and why Oceanix is building floating cities next to coastal metropolitan areas, how Matteo's experience working on Hyperloop and 3D printing structures has prepared him for this, and how Oceanix is making sure floating cities will be friendly to the environment and accessible to all. All of this right here, right now on the Modern CTO podcast. Here we go.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:36) This is the Modern CTO podcast. I was so excited when I saw you on my calendar that I was going to get to hang out and talk with you. I mean, you are like a Elon Musk type person. Hyperloop, 3D printed houses, floating cities. How did you get so cool, man?

(Matteo at 00:01:03) Dude, it's just, you know, it's just hype. I'm kidding. I just enjoy what I do, and I actually think there's a lot that can be done in innovation in my industry, especially. So anything in relation to architecture, engineering, and construction, I do believe it needs some love from an innovation perspective. And so, you know, I'm not saying that I am the innovator, but I would love to be part of it. You know, it's very important for me.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:33) So when people ask you what you do, how do you respond to that?

(Matteo at 00:01:37) I'm an engineer that loves innovation. That's, uh, I am. I mean, I'm an engineer and I actually enjoy very much innovation. And I try to integrate different fields within each other. Right? So some of my background is not just civil engineering or marine engineering, it's also systems engineering. And I think it does allow me to understand better how different components or different systems are integrated within each other. And, you know, that's what I like to do in the industry as well.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:13) That's very cool. I've got a lot of systems engineering experience, but I have no structural engineering experience at all.

(Matteo at 00:02:21) I think, you know, it's a broader term. Right? Like, systems means what? It can be a digital system. It can be a very complex system like, I don't know, the International Space Station. Right? And so it can also be an organization. Organization is a system. Our body is a system. Right? Composed of different subsystems that, you know, working together, make the function of the system higher than the function of the individual subsystem. Right? So I think at a certain point, it's going to become to a level where you're going to have specializations, and it's good to be highly specialized in a certain way. But it's also good to make sure that all of these niches are integrated properly, because you want an end product that actually works, right, and that is able to achieve those requirements. So that's the way I see the industry itself. It's highly complex, it's clustered with a lot of niches and with a lot of new problems, such as, you know, the sea water level rising, for example, or the shortage of labor, as well as, you know, transportation is still relying on methods that have been developed almost 100 years ago. So we should actually innovate, and we should use different technologies and integrate them together.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:37) That is so cool. I'm excited to talk about the floating cities, but I first want to know, how did you get involved in the Hyperloop project?

(Matteo at 00:03:44) They called me.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:46) They called you?

(Matteo at 00:03:47) I got called. Yeah. Yeah. Literally. Literally. I remember receiving, it was either a call or an email from the recruiting team, and they said that they were looking for a person that had not just experience from a bridge construction engineering perspective, but experience from a structural health monitoring systems perspective. And, you know, I had just finished one of the biggest structural health monitoring systems that exist actually in the world, in New York, on the Tappan Zee Bridge, which was still under construction at the time. And so working on that gave me an edge over, I think, the competition overall, but also it really gave me perspective of how such a huge infrastructure project can and needs to be monitored for the lifespan, and, you know, how that can be then reapplied on other types of infrastructures. And Hyperloop was an example. You know, once you have a high speed transportation system that works with such sophisticated technology and such a new technology, you want to make sure that everything is monitored and checked and logged properly to a level that it's basically similar to what you have in the famous black boxes in the airplanes. Right? So those are data governance and policies in place that would allow you to really track everything. And it was important to have the same on the Hyperloop, and so that's what I worked on primarily.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:13) That's pretty cool. Yeah. It's pretty rare to find somebody who's creative, intelligent, but also enjoys structure and order. Like, those are typically, you get really creative people on one end, really organized people on the other. So you have a perfect blend of those that would make you an excellent fit for that project. Structural engineer is mentioned a lot in your bio. I don't know the term super well, but I'm curious. Is there a difference between structural engineer and architect?

(Matteo at 00:05:40) Yeah. I mean, we are very symbiotic in the sense that we tend to make sure that whatever is designed from the architect, from an architecture perspective, meaning, you're going to have a building, for example, and the building has this beautiful facade and the layout of the interiors are done in a certain way, but then you have to make sure that the building stands. Right? So who's going to design the slabs? Who's going to design the beams? Who's going to design the columns, the foundations? Who's going to design the core that takes care of all of the lateral forces and then is the one that basically is used to allocate the elevators? Right? So that's the job of a structural engineer from a building perspective. Same thing goes when you have a bridge. You know, bridges normally have less involvement from an architecture perspective. So we normally are involved from the architectural design to the structural design as well. But, let's say, stadiums. Stadium's architects and engineers are very well involved because it's a heavily parametric effort that requires a lot of iterations. And so, you know, what is the architecture feature becomes also the structural feature. But you want to make sure that both specialties speak together in order to basically make sure that it doesn't only come out as a cool design, but also as a safe design. And so that's the role of a structural engineer.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:01) I want to get a little bit nerdier for just one second. Is structural engineer a designation or some sort of thing you pass, a license you have, like an architect? I know there's an architecture license that you have. Right? Are they different licenses? Are they the same thing?

(Matteo at 00:07:14) Yeah. No. There are. And as a matter of fact, we'll go into the rabbit hole now. So depending on where you are in the world, you need a license. Right? So in the United States, it's called the PE. It's the Professional Engineering license. You have to go through a certification program. There's a test that goes all day in two sets of, basically, almost, if I remember correctly, it's six hours in the morning, six hours in the afternoon. And then you're basically allowed to stamp drawings that are basically the ones used then to be submitted to the Department of Buildings or the Department of Transportation. Basically, you're going to have your signature and you're liable for that. Also, that means that you are the person that checked everything and you're basically assuring or issuing, actually, that everything is done as per code and as per, you know, engineering standards. Then we have another one, which is the Structural Engineering license. It's required only in certain states. For example, in New York, you can get it after five years of experience with a PE. If you go in California, it's mandatory. It's actually even more important than the PE license. If you go in other places in the world, it's not required. For example, I'm Italian. In Italy, the structural engineer is also the professional engineer. It basically allows you to work on every realm of the civil engineering industry. Once you go into, for example, the structural engineering certification in Illinois, California, or other states, they're required only for certain specific types of structures or only for certain clients, such as government type of structures, hospitals or government buildings. So it has certain requirements or for certain types of bridges. If you're in Illinois, you can only get certain types of bridges designed if you have the SE. If you have the PE, it's a little bit smaller. So it really depends on the state.

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:59) Okay. No. Thanks. That's a good overview of it.

(Matteo at 00:09:01) Well, because it was a rabbit hole.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:03) Yeah. I know. But I wanted to know. I mean, it's kind of in my head, there's people that build buildings and there's a team of them, and I'm sure they do different things. But it's good to know, especially since we're about to talk about cities that are floating. But right before we get into the cities that are floating, what did you do with 3D printed structures? Did you do work there?

(Matteo at 00:09:21) Well, I've been getting interested in that from when I started to work with Hyperloop. So with Hyperloop, we started to have some ideas of how to optimize certain structural elements or members. And basically, 3D printing became one of the solutions, or I would say one of the options of doing that. And so I got exposed to that when it was 2018, more or less. You know, I got hooked. I loved it. I loved the idea. I saw great potential from an expedited point of view in terms of construction processes. And then I started to try to be exposed as much as possible until just recently, working for a nonprofit company in Madagascar. We literally just finished the first 3D printed school.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:06) That's pretty cool.

(Matteo at 00:10:06) Yeah. It was cool. I worked with two very talented architects that are almost my age. You know, it's very hard to find, I would say, older generations to actually be exposed or be interested to be exposed to this type of technology. And so it's a very young environment. It's a very young industry, not just because it's composed mainly by younger professionals, but also because it's a very young industry itself. It was born recently, only five years ago from a construction perspective. So, yeah, it's good to be exposed to that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:37) Yeah. I got to do an interview, I think, two or three years ago. I had seen there was a 3D printed house on Zillow.

(Matteo at 00:10:45) Yes. In Long Island. Yes. Yes.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:47) Yeah. Yeah. So I had him on the show, and he explained it to me and everything how they did it. But I thought it was super fascinating because once you get robots that can build these houses, you know, they'll improve over time. They can become semi-autonomous, and then you can just print entire neighborhoods. And it would be really, really neat to see that happen, especially in the emerging countries. Countries that don't have the amenities that the wealthier countries have as they come online and join the economy, it would actually be better even for us in wealthier countries because you have more players in the game, there's more money in the market. And so I think it's pretty exciting that we're sort of improving humanity in a very real way.

(Matteo at 00:11:30) That's true. You know, it's fascinating also to say that, you know, right now we're using only certain components. It's a cement-based mortar. Right? But then once you want to start to print with more of an adobe style material, so more clay-ish materials or geopolymer materials, there's a lot of, I mean, there are a lot of researchers that are going into that right now. And I do believe that in general, the construction industry will get to be more automated, or it will definitely need the help and support of automation and robotization, not just from an off-site manufacturing perspective, but also from an on-site manufacturing perspective. You know, if you have to replace a component instead of waiting for the component to come, you can actually 3D print it. Imagine that, right? Like if something like a gear breaks into a Caterpillar. Instead of waiting for the replacement, you're going to receive the file from Caterpillar. Right? Everything is, of course, protected by IP, and, you know, you can only print to be used on a Caterpillar and stuff like that. But then, you know, use the right type of layers or materials that compose basically the filaments for the printer, and you can print metal, and you can use it as a replacement.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:46) Oh, yeah. GE. I think it's GE. My team can correct me if I'm wrong. But the turbines, the airplane engines. They were printing parts so that they didn't have to ship them, and I was like, that is so cool.

(Matteo at 00:12:57) Yeah. I mentioned how that can disrupt the supply chain as well. Right? We're now overwhelmed by problems related to supply chain, and we're very much still involved in transportation that comes through vessels. Right? So you have boats that ship things from Taiwan, from the Port of Rotterdam into the United States or into Australia. You know, it takes time. And, you know, digitalization can cut those times and can really improve not just the speed of the supply chain itself, but I think it can really improve the speed of construction overall.

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:31) Yeah. And I was having a conversation about the molecular beverage printers. Like, you take a cup, you put it under, and it can print anything, essentially, as a liquid for your beverage. It's a company called Cana, C-A-N-A. And at first, I thought, like, oh, man, Coca-Cola is probably going to have them assassinated or something. But then he pointed out to me that he's actually removing the middleman of transportation and cutting their costs because now they can just license their formula directly to your house, and then they get their money. So—

(Matteo at 00:14:02) Mm-hmm.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:03) That's an interesting thing. I haven't really considered transportation to be a middleman, but it definitely is. It's a cost that's associated in between you and the consumer.

(Matteo at 00:14:13) And it's highly unreliable. Yeah. You know, unless we think about Amazon. But besides Amazon, it's really highly unreliable.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:23) Oh, yeah. And there's some interesting business models too. I talked to somebody who is mining minerals of some sort in remote locations, and when their Caterpillars would break down, they would spend an insane, like, we're talking $10,000, $20,000, $50,000, $100,000 to get a part there because the longer that that's down, the more money they're losing at scale. So they would, private jets would fly the part, you know, a $1,000 part there. And if you had a 3D printer, man, that's entirely over.

(Matteo at 00:14:51) Yeah. I mean, look. Of course, the thing is we have to think it thoroughly and also, I would say, more objectively. Right? It can really help, but I do believe that you still need the human intervention. Right? Like, the involvement of humans will still be needed, but it will streamline a lot of processes, such as the one you just mentioned, or other processes in the construction sequences, for example. Which honestly, I think it's a good thing in the sense that, you know, before sitting on a desk and designing things, I actually spent a lot of time on site. And I've seen from off-site manufacturing facilities to actually pure heavy construction sites.

(Matteo at 00:15:36) And the job is tiring. You cannot do it for all of your life. At a certain point, it gets to a point where the younger generation takes over and you become more of a superintendent, but then you still spend time on site. And you will still need those people on site to, of course, oversee the processes. But I see certain jobs and I ask myself, how can we really have a human being, such as the laborers that are doing the work right now, be used in a way that can be more enhancing for that specific human being? You know what I mean? It's like the production lines in a factory. How enhancing can it be spending twelve hours in front of a conveyor belt and doing the same routine task all the time? It's basically soul crushing, right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:26) Yeah.

(Matteo at 00:16:26) And so I do think at a certain point, labor shortage is playing already a big role. But in general, we will be able to guarantee new job opportunities through technology that will make people use their skills better, or in a better way, instead of doing a routine task or a task that's soul crushing. You know what I mean?

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:48) Yeah. And it's interesting because there's a lot of arguments. There was a big thing a few years ago where somebody on Twitter told the truckers to learn to program or something, and it was this big issue. And one thing that I saw from that entire argument that I hadn't heard talked about a lot is that the rate at which technology automates jobs is similar to the rate at which technology is automating things so that you need less technology skills to actually produce that. Right? Like, to write software today, there's so many tools to help you do that compared to twenty years ago. Right? There's tools to help you automate. GitHub just did a new thing that helps you with code completion. There's all of this material out there that makes it easier to do that, whereas it would be much more difficult twenty years ago.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:38) So—

(Matteo at 00:17:38) Oh, yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:39) I'm optimistic for sure on the long term of automation. I think there's gonna be pain in certain areas, and it'll take some time to work that out. But that's no different than how it's been since the beginning of time. Every generation we go through something, you know, industrial revolutions and things of that nature. We're always gaining and losing tons of jobs because we're always looking for the next thing, and we're solving problems. And then we put processes in place, and then we move forward and solve more problems. And then we can get to things like that project, building floating cities, is only possible because it's sitting on top of immense amounts of human technology in the sense of innovations that happened over the course of long periods of time. Tell me a little bit about what Oceanix is.

(Matteo at 00:18:30) So Oceanix is bringing the technologies that so far have been used in a silo and is incorporating them together to solve a problem that is gonna be a huge problem in the next ten to fifteen years, actually. And that problem is not just climate change, but also sea water level rising. And so what we're trying to do is use water and adapt to water, not to fight water. The idea goes alongside with a new terminology that now is becoming more popular, which is climate adaptation. We used to talk a lot about climate mitigation, and we're realizing now that it's necessary to actually put more emphasis also on climate adaptation. Like, how are we going to adapt when some things will change, and how are we going to adapt when certain areas of the world, because of the wet bulb condition, won't be livable anymore? We're gonna have entire communities that are gonna be relocated. Where are they gonna go? Or you're gonna have coastal cities and coastal areas that are gonna face a big issue, which is the seawater level rising. And so how are we going to, I would say, use the water to our advantage? And a good way is to basically, instead of fighting it, sit on top of it. And in order to sit on top of it, you need floating structures. The beauty of Oceanix is that we had, for the first time, integrated a big number of systems that allow not only safety, but allow livability, sea keeping, and I would say independency. Independency from the grid that comes from mainland. For now, we just submitted a concept design and unveiled it at the United Nations on April 26. And that showed to the world that we have a prototype of three platforms that can actually be completely independent from the mainland in terms of energy, in terms of water, in terms of food, and in terms of waste perspective.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:35) When I was looking at your site, I was curious. How do you say that? Busan?

(Matteo at 00:20:39) Busan. Yes.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:40) Busan. So this is not actually out there floating in the water right now. This is a 3D rendering?

(Matteo at 00:20:45) That is correct.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:46) Okay. So it looks like there's two or three buildings that are sort of floating independently, and they're kinda connected through these walkways. Can you walk me through what this is?

(Matteo at 00:20:57) Yes. So the three platforms right now are basically programmed. When I say programmed, I mean that on top of those sits three different programs. We have the hotels—that's the lodging, we call it—because we're trying to approach hotelry and hospitality from a very sustainable perspective. And so lodging, first of all, is a better terminology from the way we're trying to approach it. Also, all of these, all of the units and the systems themselves that are composing basically the building are completely independent and rely on energy coming from the sun, and water coming from the rain, harvested from the rain, and treated and polished to a point where it's actually even better than the drinkable water that comes out of the faucets right now in Busan. And so then we have the center, that's the housing. So that's basically the residential platform. And then we have the research platform, which is going to be sort of a mixed-use office space where we're gonna have research, tech center, and offices, mostly driven by, in terms of research and tech, in relation to what is the marine environment; in terms of tech, in relation to the blue technology, so related to the ocean; and for office spaces, of course, whatever is available in terms of offices. And so those are the three programs right now that we have in the prototype. But the idea is to scale this to more platforms. We did a sort of a simulation for the city of Busan. There you go. Yes. That's the one. You can see how we can grow from just three platforms to a certain, basically, floating habitat. So we go from a prototype of three platforms, and we can really scale these up.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:38) What are these pads? There's the three main structures, and then there's some pads that are kinda floating near the structures. What are these pads?

(Matteo at 00:22:46) Yeah. Those we call the pop-ups. They can be used for harvesting energy, so they can be just floating photovoltaic panels, or they are greenhouses. So basically, we use them for the purpose of growing food using, for example, aquaponic or hydroponic technologies.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:04) I thought they were party pads where people would hang out.

(Matteo at 00:23:08) Well, those we have also, but not that far away from the mainland. We're trying to put them a little bit closer to the main prototype.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:16) Busan's an actual city that exists in the world currently?

(Matteo at 00:23:20) Yeah. Yeah. It's in South Korea. It's going through a lot of digitalization and renovation from a digital point of view. It's been allocated from the South Korean government as the sandbox for the blockchain community.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:35) Yeah.

(Matteo at 00:23:35) And what you see right now, beside our prototype, is actually the North Port Redevelopment Program. So they're going to redevelop completely the North Port and transform it from what it is right now, which is a heavy commercial industrial port, to a more touristic and residential and retail space, basically. That's why you see all of those high rises, you see that marina, a lot of landscaping. If you look at it right now, it's completely different. This is what it's going to look like in the next five years.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:08) That's amazing. I especially like this because I was born and raised in a town called Sarasota, Florida, which is a coastal town. It's a beach town. And so, I mean, we've been hearing about sea level rise since I was born. Right? Because they just track it year over year. Yeah. Man, this is—is anything happening like this in the United States? Like, why isn't the United States doing amazing things like this?

(Matteo at 00:24:32) I mean, this is just a prototype. We had a couple of years ago—we signed an MOU through the United Nations with the city of Busan. And so the first prototype was basically dedicated, or I would say not just dedicated, but was due to Busan because they were the first adopters of the technology. However, we're currently having conversations around the world, and not just in the United States, but with other governments and countries that are interested in understanding how this technology can help them from different perspectives. So it's a technology that can be used everywhere, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be probably used everywhere. It's necessary to basically face certain risks.

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:18) I wanna talk about cost, because I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm always interested in that.

(Matteo at 00:25:22) Let's talk about it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:23) So you build a normal building on land. Obviously, you have to manipulate the land. You have to level it. You have to do certain things to shape the earth to build on top of it. And there's cost there. Right? And then for these, you have to build some sort of platform to then build the building on top. How do you make it so that it's realistic cost-wise?

(Matteo at 00:25:48) Well, so the platforms right now do not touch the land. They're actually floating. So, basically, they're made of a concrete caisson, almost in the same way you will see a ship that has voids inside, right? And you have a hull, and then you have the shape that basically allows it to navigate. Now ours are not gonna be—they're not designed to navigate, so they don't have that specific shape. They can have a flatbed on the bottom. Then there is space in between which allows us to use this for storage or for allocating areas to certain systems. And then we have the top slab, and on top of the top slab we build the building. So this is basically a massive concrete caisson that floats and basically can adapt to wave motion, it can adapt to tides, but doesn't move laterally because we basically have set up in place what we call dolphins, which are a certain type of piles that go down into the bedrock and then stick up to a certain level. They're hidden because they are still underneath the level of the water, so that basically they don't really create any troubles visually, but also in terms of operations. And those dolphins allow us to basically keep the position of the platforms from a lateral perspective in place. So, basically, they cannot move laterally. They can actually just move vertically in order to basically adapt to tides and, again, waves and, of course, seawater level rising.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:20) That's pretty cool. What's the cost comparison of building a foundation for a building that's on land versus building the foundation for one of these buildings that's in the water?

(Matteo at 00:27:33) So the comparison, it's a little hard to say in the sense that I can compare number to number, but that would not be the right thing to do. And I'm saying why, because there are certain components that do not exist on buildings that will exist on those platforms, and vice versa. Right? Imagine a huge high rise in New York City, right? That's not really the point of having floating cities, right? Having such a huge structure, it will really physically require to change completely the structure, the way we design it right now. And in general, that's not really the goal that we're trying to achieve. We're trying to achieve a sustainable floating city. In order to be sustainable, we need to guarantee that the right amount of people in relation to the systems that are related to that will guarantee, you know, a sort of circular economy point of view. And that means in terms of usage of energy, in terms of harvesting the energy, in terms of storing the energy, as well as in terms of reselling the energy, if necessary, to the grid. Same thing goes with the water, same thing goes with waste, and same thing goes with food or mobility. So the comparison can be really challenging to do. I can tell you that the cost right now that we're facing for the prototype is a little bit higher than what you will have as a standard building in Busan as well as in New York or in Florida, such as Miami, for example. But that's because it's a prototype, you know? Structures like skyscrapers or just more normal mid-rise structures tend to be a very consolidated technology that we've been doing for the last—skyscrapers has been at least for the last hundred years, but if we talk about housing, it has been something that we're doing from the beginning of humanity, right? So that's really very consolidated, and that's why I think the cost right now is only driven by geographies more than anything else. Once we will consolidate the design through prototyping and also through basically using the data that will come from the prototype, we will be able to streamline a lot of those processes and we will be able to streamline a lot of the usage of the systems. It will still be driven by geographies, right? If you are in Busan, you can rely a lot on the rainwater to basically harvest water. If you are in other areas of the world, you may not be able to do that because it doesn't rain a lot, so you may have to rely on other systems. But the real cost goes into the construction. And so once we can streamline those processes using, for example, modular structures, and once we can really standardize the size and the design of the whole, the idea is basically having something similar to what you have in product design. Tesla started in the same way, having a very expensive car, then they started to optimize everything. The chassis is almost the same for every type of car, unless you have, of course, the SUV. And that really cut costs because you have the same one over and over again. What changes are the systems. But the systems themselves are then integrated in the proper way, and that will again cut time and cut cost. So that's the way I see it going in general. The fact that we are already on a similar cost level, even though a little bit higher than a standard mid-rise, to me is actually very reassuring.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:47) Well, that's why I was interested because you're exactly right. That's how technology works. You first figure out how to just make it exist.

(Matteo at 00:30:56) Yes. That's true.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:57) And then once it exists, you make it better and figure out how to streamline it to reduce cost to make it available to more people. But I was just curious. I have found that the farther away the cost is—like, if it was a hundred times more expensive to build a floating city building than it was to build a landlocked building, that would mean it's, you know, that far off in the future. But if it's one to two times as expensive, I mean, we're gonna have floating cities here. That's something that's gonna happen in the next, you know, couple years. Because growing up in the coastal cities, what they would talk about all the time is the cost of repairing and dealing with the encroaching water. Right? So a city can easily—if it's close to normal price of a building, I mean, you can easily justify the spend because if you don't do it, the sea level rise is going to cause damage, and you're gonna pay to repair the damage, and you're gonna be in the exact same position. Whereas if you did this, you could just have a floating building.

(Matteo at 00:32:03) Yeah, you raise a good point. If you perceive this not just from a direct cost, but also from an indirect cost, meaning what are the savings in making sure that we are going to adapt to what is happening and what is coming, instead of actually waiting too long and trying to fight and trying to continue to rehabilitate and to refurbish areas of the coast, instead of just really adapting to it. It's massive. I mean, some of those federal programs cost billions of dollars. In comparison, that's not the cost of the prototype right now.

(Matteo at 00:32:38) So imagine what it's going to cost in the next five years or in the next ten years. Once adaptation becomes more frequent, the adopters of this technology around the world will start to be more than just Busan. I think we're going to be able to really drive a little bit the change, or in general, provide a solution that is sustainable. Because at the end of the day, a business needs to be sustainable. Otherwise, it's not a business. And it has to provide solutions, and those solutions need to be sustainable as well.

(Joel Beasley at 00:33:07) Yeah. I could see a city buying this from you today. I'm curious to know, so these are the stage you're in right now is just prototype, 3D renderings. And before, hold on one second. Before I go forward, I've wanted to say this six times. You have the most amazing design team ever. So giving them a huge high five because I'm a big design nerd. It is so beautiful. I want to live there. I see it, and I'm like, I want to live there.

(Matteo at 00:33:33) We have a key cast team for the prototype. We had so much fun. I mean, the last four months have been so intense, but yet the result and the engagement from every single team member was incredible. I have to say it. Every single component of the team was driven, passionate. Anyway, they're also cool people to work with, so what else do you want?

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:04) It's a dream. I'm curious, timelines. Where are we at? Do you have a contract to build this, or is it something that you're waiting for? When will you start construction on your first actual one that'll be in the water?

(Matteo at 00:34:19) So right now, we have an MOU, which is a memorandum of understanding with the city of Busan. What we're trying to actually go now is through permitting. So this is new for everybody. It's new also for South Korea. It's new for policy makers. It's new for different building departments, fishery and marine departments. So there are a lot of new things that needs to happen, but the beauty is that there is a lot of interest. The city of Busan, their departments and ministries, the central government in Seoul as well, they're very interested in trying to understand how we can make this a reality from also a law perspective and a policy perspective. And so they're really helping us in trying to address certain bottlenecks, or I would say just address areas where the law doesn't even exist for this type of structures. Because it will require a little bit of an open mind approach. And I have to say that in South Korea, I found incredibly open-minded individuals that belong to the government agencies that are helping us in going through the permitting process.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:23) That's amazing. And we do have some experience building water-based structures. I mean, the oil pipelines, the oil platforms are these massive platforms that are in the middle of the sea. Right?

(Matteo at 00:35:34) That's correct. The beauty of, I mean, the beauty, the I would say easiest part from that point of view is that nobody sees them. At the end of the day, they're in a very remote area. You have a contract if you're within territorial waters to basically drill and use the oil, but they're there. Nobody sees them unless you work there. For these floating structures that are really on the coast, because we're perceived as a plug-in of coastal cities, we're using water that is in front of land, that is right now used where people are living, where people are passing by. And, you know, it needs to be really addressed from that perspective, as well from the perspective that the idea is to stay there as a building would stay there, so for the next seventy-five, a hundred years. And so that will require an understanding of how the leasing process works, the financing process, and all of the regulation processes, as well as the design codes. You know, there are international guidelines, but there's not a design code that says that's how you should design a floating city. So we're using different pieces that come from different international codes and guidelines that are allowing us to actually make this safe, but has to be also perceived as from every country you are in, those codes needs to be perceived as the right approach. Because at the end of the day, a liability will need to be taken on that. So that's why it's important to address all of these issues before getting into construction.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:07) So you have the MOU with Busan. You're working right now with their policy and licensing and all of that to sort of figure out exactly how to put some structure around this, policy-wise. And at what point will you get to the money contract phase?

(Matteo at 00:37:26) Well, the idea that we have in our mind is to actually get there by the end of this year. Then, you know, breaking ground in construction will require a little bit of an additional component of design. We're going to have to go through probably some schematics, some design development. And the idea is to do this as a design-build approach. So we will break ground. I shouldn't even say break ground because we're not breaking ground, actually. So whatever happens with the foundations is going to happen, and then we're going to approach it with a design-build approach. So some design will continue while we're actually starting to build, and the idea is to move along with that until the project is finished.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:11) That's exciting. Well, when you break ground, let me know. I'll bring my kids. We'll bring our shovels and buckets, and we'll help.

(Matteo at 00:38:19) We're going to do it on a floating platform. Instead of a shovel, we're going to use a spoon.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:26) There you go. Yep. We'll make it work. This is so awesome. I mean, I'm just blown away. I feel like a kid in the candy factory. I'm looking at some of these buildings, and the fact that they're going to be real here in the next couple years is just is really, really neat. You know, I think cities like San Francisco that are known for technology, that are on, near water.

(Matteo at 00:38:53) I can't deny that we thought about San Francisco as well. The other beautiful thing, now that you're from Florida, at the United Nations roundtable when we unveiled this, actually the mayor, Mayor Cava, was present as well. I had a conversation with her in relation to safety. And, you know, of course, as a mayor, the first concern you have is how this structure behaves if a storm comes. Are they safe? Are they going to be as safe as they are when you are on land? And I was telling her the same thing. We're a plug-in to coastal cities. So coastal cities have already protected harbors. And one of the protected harbors, for example, the one in Busan, they know that if a storm comes, a smaller vessel will actually get into the harbor because the harbor is designed to be protected and to guarantee basically a safe haven for boats. And so the same thing will happen to the Oceanix Busan. Because we are already in the harbor, it will be protected from the storm.

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:53) Oh, yeah. Because I lived on the West Coast of Florida, so it had the bay. So while Miami constantly got hit with storms from the Pacific and was just devastated, we really never got anything more than high winds and rain because that bay really protects the area of Florida's coast.

(Matteo at 00:40:14) That makes sense. That makes sense. Which makes it even more enticing in terms of a potential spot if we talk about floating cities.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:22) Yeah. Come to Florida and make some floating cities. That'd be cool. Man, this is exciting. Is there anything that we didn't get to that you want to get out there to the world?

(Matteo at 00:40:34) I think the other very important component that is very keen to me is that we do not only think about us in the sense of humans, we also thought about the environment. And so we have another system in place, which we call the Habitat Regeneration System, that works in a way that allows the creation of a substrate right there, where basically the floating platforms are. And the substrate has been studied and used to regenerate coral reefs. And so it's a proprietary technology through one of our partners, and we're able to not just recreate coral reef through this proprietary tech, but we are also able to, once the coral reef is set up, we're actually able to attach to the coral reef seaweeds and salt marshes, any type of marine flora, and we can expedite the growth that is five times faster than outside of these coral reefs. So imagine, not only we're just recreating, we're creating a safe environment for people to live in, but the idea is also to make sure that wherever we are, we are also recreating a safe environment, safe habitat for marine environment.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:49) Oh, yeah. That would be super important because every time you do anything, people get upset.

(Matteo at 00:41:56) It is. And, you know, also a very important component. There are cities where because of pollution and polluted waters really became an issue. We're trying to make sure that wherever we are, we're not just being sustainable from a system perspective, but also being sustainable from an environmental perspective. And that's very important for us, because it's something that people have been talking about, the industry has been talking about, but it's important to actually apply it. And so that's something that I think whoever is going to listen to the podcast knows that we're actually doing that as well. And it's, for us, absolutely proprietary.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:33) Yes. And your website is oceanix.city. And you can see all the beautiful images, some 3D renderings, some videos of it. It's just beautiful, and it'll break down each building and the footprint and the height and all of that good stuff. It's quite detailed, and it's really easy to look at too. It's not too nerdy. It doesn't hurt your eyes. It's not like a spec sheet or something.

(Matteo at 00:43:03) Because we have a great team of graphic designers. That's why.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:06) Yes. Yes. I think it would be horrible of me if I did not ask you some of your thoughts on leadership because you're doing these difficult things. You have to get lots of people to work together in order to build something that doesn't exist. It's really tough. It's very entrepreneurial. What is your favorite leadership advice or thoughts on leadership?

(Matteo at 00:43:31) Well, I can use a sentence, which is my favorite sentence. It comes from, you know, I'm Italian, so it's going to be in Latin. It basically says, whatever happens, just keep your heads up and keep going. So the sentence is, "Rebus adversis animum submittere noli."

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:54) I like it. It sounds beautiful.

(Matteo at 00:43:56) Look, I do believe, you know, difficulties happen all the time. Life is tough. It's only us that we just grow stronger day by day. Once we go into endeavors that are really paradigm changers, it's necessary to have thick skin and big shoulders and just go with it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:15) Yeah. I'm learning that a lot. I'm 34 now, and I have a wife. I've got two kids and a third on the way. And I'm always doing difficult things and trying to push the boundaries. But one thing that I've noticed with everything that's happened since the pandemic, from the pandemic itself to the wars, it's really put a premium on your ability to focus on what's going right, to stay optimistic, and to not get sucked down into a negativity pit. And so I've noticed myself it's important in leadership too. But I've noticed that it's like a muscle that I've been working on. And I think lately, over the past three years for humanity, that's something that a lot of people have had to work harder at.

(Matteo at 00:45:05) No. That's very true. That's absolutely very true.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:09) So I like your quote because it helps with that. Right?

(Matteo at 00:45:11) I mean, look, I made it easy in the sense that, you know, everybody says, oh, yeah. Of course. Just keep going. That's easy to say it, and it's true, it's easy to say it. I think being perseverant and continue to persevere on your road and your path, intelligently, not just blindly, it's important. It's actually probably the key of achieving what you want to achieve.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:34) Yes. And I second that because when I started, I didn't know anything. And so what I thought was, okay. I don't know enough to be smart about what I'm doing, but if I just go after it blindly really, really, really hard, I was so inefficient or whatever, but I got something going. And then once you get something going, you can really refine it. But yeah.

(Matteo at 00:45:59) Yeah. Then you're docked.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:01) Yeah. Yes. Man, this is fantastic. I want to have you on maybe next year when you've made some progress with permitting or wherever you're at next year so that we can keep updating the audience on the status of this project because I'm super excited about it.

(Matteo at 00:46:18) I would be glad to actually participate again. The other thing I want to say if I actually forgot because it's important. I've been seeing a lot of comments from our videos on YouTube and our Instagram accounts and et cetera, and they are actually legit comments. Every time you see these cities, you're perceived as the guy or the group that is creating a safe haven for the riches.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:41) Oh, really?

(Matteo at 00:46:42) Yes. It's a common trend. And I can understand why it can be perceived as that, but I'm trying to say is, for us, it's very important to share the fact that we're trying and we're designing, actually, these cities to be as much inclusive as possible. We have allocated, as per the UN requirements, 20% of housing to affordable housing. And the same goes into the lodging. The lodging has four layers of pricing, so that everybody can actually stay, sleep, and enjoy the lodging on one of the platforms. And the same goes with the residential. So for us, it's very important to actually share this. This is not a safe haven for the riches. This is for everybody. We're trying to guarantee and to create a solution that is good for everybody.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:35) Yeah. Although I would support you if it was a safe haven for the riches because back to the Tesla business model, you have to get it out there to reduce the cost. I mean, you just do. It's just part of the world that we live in.

(Matteo at 00:47:47) And that works very well when you have a specific product like a car. Because it's really commoditized. And so it really allows you to reach a wider clientele. When you have cities, even though you might end up having some investors coming from overseas or from other areas of the country, you don't want to end up with an empty shell where nobody's living in it. This just has to be used. I mean, the idea is to actually have something that is used and can show and prove a concept. And so it's important for us that because we're very much geographically driven, you know, we're going to be in a certain place, and once we build it, it's going to be there for a long time. We want to make sure that it's used by everybody. And that means you can go and have walks, people with different incomes will actually have the access to it. It's really a city for everybody, and that's what we want to really reinforce as a concept.

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:49) Well, absolutely. Especially if governments are backing it. I mean, if you make a public, there's no reason why one of those things can't be public space. Right? And you can go for a walk there. I mean, we have in Sarasota, there's a place called Marina Jack's.

(Matteo at 00:49:04) Mhmm.

(Joel Beasley at 00:49:05) And it's got this one area where there's a harbor.

(Matteo at 00:49:09) Mhmm.

(Joel Beasley at 00:49:09) And there's sort of a peninsula that comes out, and then on that, there's a running track around it. There's a splash park. There's benches. It's manicured in the sense that it's landscaped really well.

(Matteo at 00:49:21) Mhmm.

(Joel Beasley at 00:49:21) And you can see the water all around you. It's a nice public space. I mean, you kind of have to walk a little bit out to it, but the only difference between that public space and a floating one is just what's underneath it.

(Matteo at 00:49:35) That's true. That's absolutely, absolutely.

(Joel Beasley at 00:49:38) Dude, this is cool, man. This is so neat. I'm so glad we've got smart people on this planet that are pushing forward things like this. Thank you.

(Matteo at 00:49:46) Look, my pleasure. And I just want to acknowledge the fact that it's me here speaking, but it wasn't done by Matteo. This was a project done by the whole team. Now I would love to have every single one of them with me here because it really requires global effort from people from everywhere.

(Matteo at 00:50:05) We had Korean teams, we had our American team, we even had Italians actually. One of the team was directly from Italy. So it's important to reinforce this. You don't do this alone, and in general, nothing as complicated as that can be done alone.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:22) 100%. Absolutely. And I'm sure they're really great people because, typically, great people attract great people, especially when you're doing new difficult things. You need premium human beings to do that.

(Matteo at 00:50:35) Yeah. No, that's absolutely true. There are great people with great energy, so let's keep going.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:42) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn, or send me an email joelmoderncto.io. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.