The keynote speaker for the 2016 Big 10 Housing Officers Conference will be Melissa Crounse, Executive Director of The Garage at Northwestern University. Crounse is an ex-Googler, startup veteran and entrepreneur with a decade of experience at consumer technologies companies in Silicon Valley. Her experience helping consumer startups with business strategy, marketing, and strategic developments have been invaluable as she has begun the process of building up The Garage’s leadership team and resources. The Garage is a campus feature which is largely unique in the Big 10. Intentionally designed to bring students, faculty, staff, and entrepreneurs together for creative, academic, professional, and social purposes, The Garage blurs the lines between work, play, learning, and innovation. It captures many of the design considerations and programmatic goals of residential settings with flexible furniture, spaces of varying sizes, and advanced technology resources.