An Arlington entrepreneur and a father-daughter duo have begun hosting events for young innovators at George Mason University’s new Fuse building.
“Oasis Hill” — a project by Shy Pahlevani, founder of the local startups LiveSafe and HUNGRY, alongside the real estate development pair Hossein and Ivana Goal — set up shop at 3401 Fairfax Drive earlier this year.
Hoping to help young professionals form connections, the founders have been hosting pitch competitions and panels with experts in industries like AI and medical technology. They hope to take advantage of the Fuse building’s numerous spaces for conferences and panels, plus areas set aside for 3D printing, flying drones and building robots.
“There’s a great synergy there between us [and Fuse],” Pahlevani said. “Other schools don’t have a building like this. They’re missing something like this. We found this great gem, and now we’re here to highlight it, showcase it and help accelerate people.”
Fuse at Mason Square, which is meant to serve as a place for GMU students to learn and innovate, opened for commercial use in December and will fully open in August.
“We’re bringing a community together to provide to young professionals a networking space,” Ivana Goal said. “We’re basically the venue, so every month we’ve held different events with different industry experts and panel discussions.”
In June, Oasis Hill hosted a launch event in the building with a panel focused on the intersection between AI and health care. Last Saturday, they hosted another panel tackling sales technology.
After the Goals acquired a 10-acre property they own near Alexandria, Pahlevani reached out hoping to get involved.
“When we saw this building, we saw the same vision we had for the land,” Hossein Goal said. “So, we thought, wow, we go in here as a springboard for us and also test the market to show the community and everybody else.”
Oasis Hill is a for-profit business, but it’s currently funded solely by its founders. Eventually, they hope that developing their Alexandria-area parcel will make the business sustainable, but they plan to remain at Fuse even after they take that next step.
The ultimate goal is to use both buildings to work with entrepreneurs and startups across industries, at all stages of business development.
“We said, we can get back to our community and try to help our community at large here — people in all phases,” Hossein Goal said.
