MIT Asia Real Estate Initiative Innovation & Technology Trends
in the Real Estate and Construction Sectors

Steve Weikal is a lecturer, researcher, and thought leader driving innovation in real estate. At MIT, he chairs the Real Estate Transformation Lab and teaches the Proptech Ventures course. As Managing Partner of MET Fund II, he invests in early-stage startups advancing the built environment transition.

Previously, Steve led industry relations at MIT's Center for Real Estate, produced the MIT World Real Estate Forum, and founded MIT Real Disruption, a landmark conference series on real estate technology. His insights have been featured in USA Today, The Boston Globe, TechInsider, and at global forums including ULI, CoreNet, and CREtech.

Steve holds dual master's degrees from MIT (Real Estate Development and City Planning) and a JD from Suffolk University Law School.

Jay Shah is the founder of Kaizen AI, an AI-powered design optimization platform that has unlocked over $5.4 billion in profitability across 200+ large-scale real estate projects globally, including major developments in the US, Middle East, and India. A Columbia University graduate and licensed architect, Jay combines deep design expertise with advanced technology to help developers boost ROI and reduce both embodied and operational carbon—often without altering design contours or the approved building envelope.

Kaizen AI uses multi-objective parameter optimization to run 100,000+ iterations, harmonizing conflicting parameters such as profitability, efficiency, and sustainability. Kaizen AI distills these iterations into the most effective, client-focused solutions—balancing every priority to deliver outcomes that maximize value. This enables performance-driven outcomes at a speed and depth that human teams alone cannot achieve.

Prasan Kale is reinventing the way people work in commercial real estate. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Outcome, a comprehensive AI-enabled workflow solution that ingests and structures data from any source to seamlessly automate hours of manual work, unlocking valuable business intelligence and insights for strategic decision making, with direct applications to asset management. He was previously Co-Founder & CEO of Rise Buildings, a property operations and tenant experience technology company used by top landlords including Blackstone, Hines, and CIM Group that was acquired by New York-based VTS in 2021.

Prasan's extensive experience in the real estate industry working with and alongside owners, operators, developers, and asset managers has given him a unique insight into creating operational efficiencies and occupant experiences in buildings. Over the course of his career, he has had development roles on projects ranging from the iconic 90-story Waterview Tower, 60-story Elysian Hotel and Private Residences, 3,600-unit master-planned Riverline developments in Chicago, to a 2,700-acre master-planned island development in the Caribbean, and several notable urban multifamily high-rise developments.