Speakers
Dean, UC Berkeley, Rausser College of Natural Resources
Co-Founder & CEO, Iron Ox
Co-founder & CEO, Quaise Energy
Managing Director, Obvious Ventures
Co-Founder & CEO, Impossible Foods
Advisor, Lime, Former Administrator, EPA
President, JetBlue Technology Ventures
CEO & President, Chemonics International
Managing Partner, Strawberry Creek Ventures / Alumni Ventures
Chancellor, University of California, Berkeley
Co-founder & COO, Oklo Inc.
Professor in Residence, Earth & Planetary Science; Director, Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Founder, Executive Director, ProspectSV
CEO, Pulsenics
Co-founder & Chair, unspun
Partner – Co Leads the Climate Technology Investment Team, Fifth Wall
Partner, Breakthrough Energy Ventures
Founder, Breakthrough Energy
Secretary of Energy, U.S. Department of Energy
Partner & Head of Direct Tech, Decisive Capital Management SA
Founder & CEO, AMP Robotics
Co-founder & CEO, PERSEFONI
CEO, Swell Energy
Partner & Senior Director, IndieBio & SOSV
General Manager, Sustainability Solutions, Microsoft
Professor of Chemistry and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, UC Berkeley
CEO & Co-Founder, DiviGas
Director of Account Management, DroneSeed
Founder and CEO, Solid Ox Motors
Founder & CEO, Full Harvest
Co-founder & CEO, Nth Cycle
Co-Founder & CEO, Platform.sh
Partner & Creation Lead, Defy.vc
SOSV Partner and HAX Chief Science Officer, HAX
Partner, SOSV's IndieBio
Executive Managing Director, Extreme Tech Challenge
Founding Managing Partner, Walden Catalyst Ventures; Former Corporate President & Chief Strategy Officer, Samsung Electronics; Co-Founder, Extreme Tech Challenge; Chairman of the Board, HARMAN International, Walden Catalyst Ventures
Managing Partner, DCVC
Partner, Khosla Ventures
, Angel Investor; Partner Emeritus CRV; Co-Founder, Extreme Tech Challenge
CEO, Lime
Co-founder & CEO, Novoloop
Partner, SOSV HAX
General Partner, SOSV & CTO, IndieBio, SOSV
Vice Chancellor for Research, UC Berkeley
CEO, Huue
David Ackerly
Dean, UC Berkeley, Rausser College of Natural ResourcesDavid Ackerly is the Dean of the Rausser College of Natural Resources and has a joint appointment in the departments of Integrative Biology and Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California Berkeley. Current research in his lab examines drought tolerance of native tree species, potential impacts of climate change on plant communities, and post-fire forest dynamics at sites that burned in the 2017 and 2019 northern California wildfires. His research is used to inform strategies of biodiversity conservation in the face of climate change, with a focus on California parks and open space. Ackerly received his B.A. in Biological Sciences from Yale University in 1984 and his Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University in 1993. He taught at Stanford from 1996-2004 and joined the faculty at UC Berkeley in 2005.
Brandon Alexander is the CEO of Iron Ox, a company that is pioneering sustainable and precise growing techniques including AI, robotics and plant science, to reduce agriculture’s impact on global climate. He took his experience of growing up on his family farm and combined that with his career in robotics at Willow Garage and then Google to inspire him to found Iron Ox with the goal of solving global climate through food.
Carlos Araque is the co-founder and CEO of Quaise Energy. He leads a team that intends to unlock the heat beneath our feet, a feat that could ultimately power the world with clean energy. To make that energy — supercritical geothermal power — available to all, Carlos is leveraging his considerable experience solving difficult technical challenges in the oil industry for Schlumberger and as technical director for The Engine, MIT’s groundbreaking fund and platform to commercialize world-changing technologies. Carlos believes that supercritical geothermal power has the potential to replace fossil fuels as the world’s dominant energy source.
Andrew helps build companies with category-creating entrepreneurs that are decarbonizing the global economy, electrifying all modes of transportation, and upgrading urban environments. He leads Obvious’ investments that scale renewable energy adoption with Mosaic, Sighten (acquired), Inspire (acquired), and Enbala (acquired); positively transform and electrify transportation with Proterra (IPO), Lilium (IPO), LightshipRV, Forum Mobility, and Amply (acquired); elevate cities with Plant Prefab, RenoRun, and Canvas; and help companies decarbonize with SINAI Technologies. Before joining Obvious, Andrew led Distributed Generation for Nextera Energy, the largest clean energy developer in the United States. Previously he was at Suntech, which became the largest solar company in the world under his tenure as Chief Commercial Officer. Andrew joined Suntech after the company acquired Energy Innovations, a major solar developer that he founded in 2003. Before his clean tech career, Andrew spent a decade building “Web 1.0” companies like Bigstep.com, an e-commerce platform designed to serve the needs of small businesses entering the Internet age. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College. Andrew also supports purpose-driven founders via organizations like The Elemental Excelerator, NREL, and Women Who Tech. Andrew was born in New York City and spent his formative years on an avocado ranch in Ojai, California. He is a woodworker in his spare time, building wooden boats and furniture.
Patrick Brown
Co-Founder & CEO, Impossible FoodsPatrick O. Brown is Chief Visionary Officer and founder of Impossible Foods, a company at the forefront of making nutritious, delicious meat and dairy products from plants to satisfy meat lovers and address the environmental impact of animal farming. The idea for Impossible Foods came to Pat while he was on sabbatical from his position as an HHMI investigator and professor of biochemistry at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In reflecting on how he could use his training and experience to make the largest positive impact on the world, he realized there was a way to make delicious, affordable meat and dairy products, directly from plants – that would be better for the environment and for consumers. In 2011, Pat chose to devote himself full time to Impossible Foods. After receiving his BA, MD and PhD (in Biochemistry) at the University of Chicago, Pat completed a residency in pediatrics at Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital. As a fellow with Mike Bishop and Harold Varmus, he defined the mechanism by which HIV and other retroviruses incorporate their genes into the genomes of the cells they infect. At Stanford, Pat and colleagues developed DNA microarrays – a new technology that made it possible to monitor the activity of all the genes in a genome – along with the first methods for analyzing, visualizing and interpreting global gene expression programs. He pioneered the use of gene expression patterns to classify cancers and improve prediction of their clinical course. He has also been a leader in making scientific and medical research results freely available to scientists, physicians and the public. With Harold Varmus, then Director of the National Institutes of Health, and Berkeley professor Michael Eisen, he founded the Public Library of Science, a nonprofit scientific publisher that has transformed the publishing industry by making scientific and medical research results freely available to the public. Pat is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine and recipient of the American Cancer Society Medal of Honor.
Carol M. Browner brings nearly four decades of experience advising on environmental and energy policies affecting global energy, environmental, public health, and business matters. Carol served as Assistant to President Barack Obama and Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, where she oversaw the coordination of environmental, energy, climate, transport, and related policy across the U.S. federal government. During her tenure, the White House secured the largest investment ever in clean energy and established the cleaner cars standards that included both new automobile fuel efficiency standards and first ever greenhouse gas reduction standards. Carol is the longest serving Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. As Administrator, she adopted the most stringent air pollution standards in U.S. history; set the first fine particle clean air standard; and spearheaded the reauthorization of the Safe Drinking Water Act as well as the Food Quality Protection Act. Carol was known for working with both environmentalists and industry to find solutions and focusing on protecting vulnerable populations and promote environmental equity. Carol is Senior of Counsel at Covington where she provides counsel to industry leaders in the energy, transportation, and consumer product sectors on regulatory matters, environmental impact issues, corporate sustainability, and strategic partnership development to advance clean energy, ESG, and other business priorities. Additionally, Carol serves as Chair of the Board of the League of Conservation Voters, as Chair of the Sustainability Committee of the Board of Directors for Bunge Limited, and as an Advisor to Lime.
Amy Burr is the President of JetBlue Technology Ventures (JTV), the venture capital arm of JetBlue Airways. As President, Amy shapes the strategic venture investment direction of JetBlue and facilitates integration of successful startup programs into the airline’s overall corporate innovation initiatives. She has been with JTV since 2018 as the Managing Director of Operations and Partnerships, where she built an ecosystem of partners and deployment opportunities for the many technologies of JTV’s portfolio companies. Prior to JTV Amy led the Virgin America merger with Alaska Airlines. Amy earned her MBA from Moore School of Business at University of South Carolina.
Jamey Butcher
CEO & President, Chemonics InternationalSince joining Chemonics in 1998, President and CEO Jamey Butcher has served across a variety of roles and regions. Most recently, Mr. Butcher oversaw Chemonics’ global health and supply chain portfolio. In that capacity, he led efforts to implement sustainable supply chains, improve health service delivery, and scale up innovative approaches in developing country environments. He also championed the development of Chemonics’ knowledge sharing and learning hub that provides continual learning opportunities for Chemonics’ global network of more than 5,000 employees. Previously, Mr. Butcher served as senior vice president of the Europe and Eurasia, Global Health, Africa, and then East Africa business units. In addition to diversifying and expanding the company’s portfolio, he developed a quality assurance approach to new business and trained staff in innovative enterprise development methods. While providing strategic management and operational oversight of Chemonics, Mr. Butcher draws from experience as a private sector development specialist with more than 20 years of experience in Eurasia, Latin America, and Asia. He has conducted technical assignments on international trade, competitiveness, and micro-, small, and medium enterprise development. He also served as chief of party of the Armenia Micro Enterprise Development Initiative (MEDI). Mr. Butcher received an M.A. from American University in international political economy and a B.A. in political science from Colorado State University.
Matt Caspari is the Managing Partner of Strawberry Creek Ventures, an Alumni Ventures Fund that invests on behalf of Berkeley alumni, community members and friends. Alumni Ventures was recognized as the #3 most active venture firm in the world (Pitchbook, 2021). Matt has had a long-term passion for sustainable innovation. He was the founder/CEO of Aurora Biofuels (raised $100m+, acq. by Reliance Industries) which converted CO2 emissions into transportation fuel, and he was a leader of the sustainability team at Nike. He’s invested in many sustainability/ climate companies including Mainspring Energy, New Culture, Nitricity, Sepion Technologies and The Better Meat Co. Matt holds an MBA with a Certificate in Entrepreneurship from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and a BS in Biochemistry from Georgetown University.
Carol Christ began her term as the 11th chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley on July 1, 2017. A celebrated scholar of Victorian literature, Christ is also well known as an advocate for quality, accessible public higher education, a proponent of the value of a broad education in the liberal arts and sciences, and a champion of women’s issues and diversity on college campuses. Christ spent more than three decades as a professor and administrator at UC Berkeley before serving as president of Smith College, one of the country’s most distinguished liberal arts colleges, from 2002 to 2013. She returned to Berkeley in January 2015 to direct the campus’s Center for Studies in Higher Education, and was appointed interim executive vice chancellor and provost in April 2016 before being named chancellor in March 2017. Since her return to Berkeley, she has worked to foster community and improve the campus climate for people of all backgrounds, celebrate the institution’s longstanding commitment to free speech, strengthen Berkeley’s financial position, address a housing shortage, and develop a ten-year strategic plan for the campus. As president of Smith for more than a decade, Christ supervised the development of the nation’s only accredited engineering program at a women’s college, oversaw a significant rise in student diversity, expanded Smith’s global activities and reach, managed a major campus capital planning program, and shepherded the college through strategic planning exercises designed to improve its academic and financial models within the context of changing trends in higher education. Prior to joining Smith, Christ served as UC Berkeley’s executive vice chancellor and provost from 1994 until 2000. During her six years as the campus’s top academic officer, she sharpened Berkeley’s intellectual focus, strengthening many of the institution’s top-rated departments in the humanities and sciences as well as advancing major initiatives in areas including neuroscience and bioengineering. Christ received her B.A. (1966) from Douglass College, and her M.Ph. (1969) and Ph.D. (1970) from Yale University. She joined the Berkeley English faculty in 1970, and in addition to her other roles, has served as chair of that department, dean of the Division of Humanities, and provost for the College of Letters and Science. Christ has authored two books, The Finer Optic: The Aesthetic of Particularity in Victorian Poetry (1975) and Victorian and Modern Poetics (1994), and has edited or co-edited several others, including The Norton Anthology of English Literature. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. Christ was married for 21 years to Paul Alpers, a professor of English and founding director of UC Berkeley’s Townsend Center for the Humanities, until his death in 2013. She has two grown children, Jonathan and Elizabeth Sklute, from a previous marriage, as well as two grandchildren. She lives in Berkeley.
Caroline Cochran is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Oklo Inc., a company developing advanced fission clean technology. As the co-founder and COO of Oklo, Caroline is working to build emission-free power plants with advanced fission, powered by nuclear waste. She has been a founder in multiple organizations, and she was one of the youngest recipients of the University of Oklahoma Regent’s Alumni Award. Caroline is a former member of the U.S. Department of Energy Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee and was a panel member at the 9th Clean Energy Ministerial. Caroline received a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma, and her S.M. in Nuclear Engineering from MIT.
William Collins
Professor in Residence, Earth & Planetary Science; Director, Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryWilliam Collins is an internationally recognized expert in climate modeling and climate change science. His personal research concerns the interactions among greenhouse gases and aerosols, the coupled climate system, and global environmental change. Dr. Collins’s is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Physical Society (APS), and the American Geophysical Union (AGU). He was awarded the AGU’s Tyndall History of Global Environmental Change Lectureship in 2019. He was a Lead Author on the Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for which the IPCC was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and has also served as Lead Author on the Fifth and upcoming Sixth Assessments. His role as Chief Scientist in launching the Department of Energy’s Accelerated Climate Model for Energy (ACME) program was awarded the U.S. Department of Energy Secretary’s Achievement Award on May 7, 2015.
Doug Davenport is the Founder of Prospect Silicon Valley, a nonprofit organization focused on supporting innovative startups in the transportation, energy, and infrastructure sectors. Since its beginnings in 2013, ProspectSV has grown to engage more than 65 high-impact startups and corporate partners and has implemented $30M in grant funding and $80M in public financing to improve the lives and surroundings of people in the Bay Area. Doug is an active member of the Bay Area Council and is a founding member of both the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator Program and the Innovate Energy Network. He holds master’s degrees in civil engineering and business from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Essam Elsahwi
CEO, PulsenicsEssam Elsahwi is co-founder and CEO at Pulsenics, which introduces capabilities to monitor and manage the efficiencies of clean energy processes at scale. Their mission is to change how energy for industrial processes that make up 15% of the world’s GDP is being used. Previously, he was the co-founder of an industrial electrochemical water treatment company and a hardware engineer at Advanced Micro Devices. He holds a B.A.Sc. in engineering and economics and a Ph.D. in optimization of electrochemical systems from the University of Toronto.
Beth Esponnette is the co-founder and executive chair of unspun, a startup that makes custom-fit jeans from a body scan using machine learning and 3D weaving.
Peter Gajdoš is a partner at Fifth Wall, where he co-leads the Climate Technology Investment team.
Christian is a Partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures (“BEV”), a multi-billion dollar venture fund focused on climate change. Christian was the first of two team members at BEV and helped build out the platform that has since invested in ~100 companies tackling some of the world’s hardest problems in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Christian has worked in climate venture capital for over a decade, and prior to BEV helped manage venture investments at Cascade, the Gates family investment office. Christian began his career at Boeing Phantom Works, where he worked on next generation spacecraft, and has served in engineering or operating roles at industry leaders Honeywell and Schlumberger. Christian holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. Christian grew up in the border town of Laredo, Texas – the son of Mexican immigrant parents. He spends his free timing in the mountains – mostly hiking and paddling in the summers, and ice climbing and mountaineering in the winters.
After transitioning from his day-to-day work at Microsoft, which he co-founded with Paul Allen in 1975, Bill Gates has focused on the global health and education work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and climate change efforts of Breakthrough Energy. At Breakthrough Energy, he’s putting his experience as an innovator and problem-solver to work to address climate change by supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs, big thinkers, and clean technologies. Bill uses his experience partnering with global leaders across sectors to help drive the policy, market, and technological changes required for a clean energy transition.
Jennifer M. Granholm was sworn in as the 16th Secretary of Energy on February 25, 2021, becoming just the second woman to lead the U.S. Department of Energy. Secretary Granholm will lead the Department in helping America achieve President Biden’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 by advancing cutting-edge clean energy technologies, creating millions of good-paying union clean energy jobs, and building an equitable clean energy future. Secretary Granholm will also oversee DOE’s core missions of promoting American leadership in scientific discovery, maintaining the nuclear deterrent and reducing nuclear danger, and remediating the environmental harms caused by legacy defense programs.
Philipp Gruener
Partner & Head of Direct Tech, Decisive Capital Management SAPhilipp is the Head of Private Markets Due Diligence at Decisive. He leads the build-up of the Direct Tech Investment Team. Philipp brings experience in venture capital and private equity investments. He has advised a diverse client portfolio including family offices, venture capital and private equity funds. He has previously worked for Morgan Stanley as well as Bain & Company. He holds a Bachelor in Business from WHU from Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar in Germany. Philipp speaks English and German fluently.
Dr. Matanya Horowitz is the founder and CEO of AMP Robotics, an industrial artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics company applying automation to modernize recycling and enable a world without waste. Horowitz developed and commercialized AMP’s breakthrough AI platform, AMP Neuron™, and robotics system, AMP Cortex™, which automates the identification and sorting of recyclables from mixed material streams. AMP’s AI platform continuously trains itself by recognizing different colors, textures, shapes, sizes, patterns, and even brand labels to identify materials and their recyclability. Neuron then guides robots to pick and place the material to be recycled. AMP’s technology recovers recyclables from municipal waste, precious commodities from electronic waste, and high-value materials from construction and demolition debris at superhuman speeds with extremely high accuracy. Horowitz earned four bachelor’s degrees, in electrical engineering, computer science, applied mathematics, and economics, along with a master’s degree in electrical engineering, from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He holds a doctorate in control and dynamical systems from the California Institute of Technology, with publications and research in control theory, path planning, and computer vision.
Kentaro Kawamori, the CEO and Co-founder of Persefoni, was the youngest Chief Digital Officer ever at a Fortune 500 energy company. His career has focused on the software space and includes time spent as a Cloud strategy consultant at Accenture, and a Venture Partner focused on early-stage SaaS companies. Kentaro is also a Co-Founder & Board Director at Umbrage and an Advisor at Rehab.com. In 2020, Kentaro was recognized by Forbes on its 30 Under 30 list. Affiliations: Co-Founder & Board Director at Umbrage Advisor at Rehab.com Forbes 30 under 30
As CEO of Swell Energy, an energy and grid services company, Suleman directs Swell’s project development, project finance and grid services efforts. In the decade prior to launching Swell, Suleman worked within renewable energy and structured finance, productizing solar and energy storage applications for the residential and commercial markets. Suleman helped establish new energy divisions within various companies including Tesla, NRG and FirstSolar, and assisted in launching a number of renewable energy and consumer finance startups. Suleman previously worked on the structured credit products desk at Citigroup, as well as within Citigroup’s investment banking division and Prudential’s alternative investments group. Suleman also served as Senior Advisor to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission under the Obama administration’s safeguard initiatives. Prior to his capital markets work, Suleman worked within the microfinance sector with global and regional organizations including the UNDP and the Zimbabwe Association of Microfinance Institutions. Suleman has an academic background in financial engineering and political science and has served as advisor to various energy access and water reclamation initiatives.
At IndieBio Alex focuses on finding, funding, and supporting science-based startups solving for human and planetary health.
Mark Kroese
General Manager, Sustainability Solutions, MicrosoftMark Kroese is the General Manager for Sustainability Solutions in Microsoft’s Environmental Sustainability team. His team oversees Microsoft’s sustainability product strategy, customer and partner engagements, and the $1 billion Climate Innovation Fund. Mark is a 22-year Microsoft veteran and believes that technology will play a critical role in the world’s journey to net zero. Outside of Microsoft, Mark has been instrumental in several forest preservation projects, including the creation of the Central Suriname Conservation Corridor and a REDD project in the Orientale Provence of the DRC. When he’s not working, Mark enjoys climbing and skiing in the mountains. Mark served as board President for the American Alpine Club—a nonprofit climber’s advocacy organization and is a 2016 Harvard Advanced Leadership Fellow.
Jeffrey R. Long
Professor of Chemistry and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, UC BerkeleyJeffrey R. Long is a Professor of Chemistry and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and a Faculty Senior Scientist in the Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He served as Chair of the Division of Inorganic Chemistry of the American Chemical Society in 2012 and as a founding Associate Editor of the journal Chemical Science. He co-founded two companies: Mosaic Materials, which was recently acquired by Baker Hughes and is developing metal–organic frameworks for low-energy carbon dioxide capture, and Flux Technology, which is producing high-performance polymer membranes for gas purification. His 375 publications have received more than 83,000 citations, and his recent awards include election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the 2019 American Chemical Society F. Albert Cotton Award in Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry, and the 2020 Royal Society of Chemistry Ludwig Mond Award.
Andre Lorenceau
CEO & Co-Founder, DiviGasAndre Lorenceau is the CEO & Founder of DiviGas. A serial company-builder and a Forbes 30under30 listmaker. He has founded and advanced startups to beyond series B with millions of users, revenue and has raised over $20m throughout his career. Andre has worked in a variety of sector such as media software, consumer products and now heavy industrial hardware.
Cassie Meigs is the Director of Account Management for Seattle-based startup DroneSeed, a vertically-integrated reforestation company that combines proven practices with new technology to regrow healthy, resilient, climate-adapted forests that have been lost to wildfires. She is the DroneSeed Sales Lead helping to build a future where seed, seedlings, and drone operations are used to conduct reforestation and afforestation practices throughout the world as a crucial method of carbon sequestration. Cassie is experienced with the use of remote sensing/geospatial technologies and helps lead DroneSeed’s efforts in selling forward-looking carbon offsets that lock in CO2 removal for at least 100 years.
Jared Moore is a research fellow at the Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Mumbai and was recently an instructor of computer ethics at the University of Washington.
Christine Moseley, Full Harvest Founder + CEO, is a passionate serial social entrepreneur. Currently, at Full Harvest, she is solving the massive food waste problem at the farm level. Full Harvest is the first B2B platform for surplus and imperfect produce, connecting large farms directly to food & beverage companies. Christine has more than 15 years of experience in the logistics and food industries at both Fortune 100 companies (Maersk, P&G) as well as high-growth food start-ups. In her last corporate role, she assisted Organic Avenue, an NYC healthy food + juice start-up, in doubling in size as Head of Strategic Projects and Business Development. Christine holds an MBA from Wharton Business School and a BA from the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill. She was recently recognized as Inc.’s Top 100 Female Founders and Fortune’s #2 Most Innovative Woman in Food & Drink and a World Economic Forum SDG Champion. You can learn more at www.christinemoseley.com.
Megan O’Connor is co-founder and CEO of Nth Cycle, a metal processing company that has developed technology to enable a clean, domestic, and streamlined supply of critical minerals for the clean energy transition. Dr. O’Connor leverages years of experience working on sustainable technology in many of America’s top research labs, where she helped develop the electro-extraction processes she and her team are commercializing at Nth Cycle. Prior to founding Nth Cycle, Dr. O’Connor was an Entrepreneurial Fellow in the Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and was a visiting researcher at Yale University’s Center for Green Chemistry & Green Engineering. Dr. O’Connor received her PhD in environmental engineering from Duke University and was recognized by Forbes on its “30 under 30” energy list in 2019. Nth Cycle is based in Boston, Massachusetts, and is supported by a world-class team of investors including Clean Energy Ventures, VoLo Earth Venture Fund, the Department of Energy, and Elemental Excelerator.
Co-founder and CEO of Platform.sh, Fred is a serial entrepreneur who has been building and running digital products and teams since 2000. Fred is passionate about startups, and around building and managing international teams and impactful projects. Startups are a marathon, not a sprint, and it’s all about the journey!
Kamil is a Partner and Creation Lead at Defy.vc where he has led deals in companies such as Bazaar and Greenwork and others yet to be announced. He started his venture career on the ground floor at Aspect Ventures where he was the first hire and was most recently a Principal at Ridge Ventures. Originally from Sudan, Kamil is a believer in the potential of technology to aid in the social, economic, and political development of emerging markets and leads the frontier market investing effort at Defy. He’s extremely excited by companies that provide a societal benefit and has previously invested in such companies including Chime, The Mom Project and OhmConnect.
Susan Schofer
SOSV Partner and HAX Chief Science Officer, HAXSusan was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Stockholm and Uppsala Universities, where she worked to develop catalyst systems for artificial photosynthesis. She holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Caltech and an Sc.B. in chemistry from Brown.
Parikshit Sharma
Partner, SOSV's IndieBioAs a Partner at SOSV’s IndieBio, Parikshit is engaged in investments and operations at all stages of the fund, from sourcing to growth. In addition to investing, he is dedicated to company formation and company building for human and planetary health space. He works with portfolio companies on fundraising strategy, building data rooms, and financial/techno-economic modeling. Parikshit actively tracks the latest in artificial intelligence and machine learning research, with specific interests in novel computation architectures for biology. Beyond computational biology, his investment thesis research spans project finance for new infrastructure and problems in operations research to fine-tune means of production and distribution. Parikshit is passionate about accelerating technology adoption in emerging markets and he advises startup incubators and startups across the Global South.
Victoria Slivkoff is the Executive Managing Director of Extreme Tech Challenge, the world’s largest startup competition and ecosystem for founders building tech innovations to improve the world, as inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. She also serves as the Head of Ecosystem at Walden Catalyst Ventures, a VC firm helping early-stage companies in the U.S., Europe, and Israel build the next generation of category-defining businesses in deep tech, with a focus on AI and data. Victoria is passionate about driving high-impact vision, strategy, and operations to transform complex innovation ecosystems at scale, and serving as a trusted partner for entrepreneurs with breakthrough technologies creating future-defining companies. Victoria comes from a multidisciplinary background in corporate development, investment, investor relations, business strategy & operations, and management consulting. She’s experienced in forming public-private partnerships to drive investments and scale innovative technologies in the U.S., Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and Europe.
Young Sohn
Founding Managing Partner, Walden Catalyst Ventures; Former Corporate President & Chief Strategy Officer, Samsung Electronics; Co-Founder, Extreme Tech Challenge; Chairman of the Board, HARMAN International, Walden Catalyst VenturesYoung Sohn is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose passion is building businesses and fostering emerging technologies that have the potential to transform the world for the better. Currently, he serves as Chairman of the Board of HARMAN and is a Founding Managing Partner at Walden Catalyst Ventures. He most recently was Corporate President and Chief Strategy Officer of Samsung Electronics, where he led strategy for global innovation, investment, new business creation, and spearheaded the company’s $8 billion acquisition of HARMAN. Young served as CEO of two successful, public Silicon Valley companies and on the boards of Arm, Cymer (ASML), and others. Under his leadership as CEO and board member, he took PLX Technologies, Synnex Technologies, and Inphi public. He was also a seed investor in some of the industry’s most innovative companies including Berkeley Lights, Fungible, Zoom, Graphcore, and TTTech Auto. Young co-founded the Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC), a global startup competition inspired by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He also serves as a senior advisor to the private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, is a member of the board of directors at Cadence, and is an advisor for the University of California Innovation Council.
Kiersten is a Managing Partner at DCVC Bio, a Venture Capital Fund that supports companies that have a deep-tech advantage and are building products for life science industries: therapeutics, agriculture and synthetic biology. Previously, Kiersten was a Scientist and holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology & Genetics and an MBA in Finance. She is a lead investor in companies like Abcellera ($ABCL), Blue River Technology (ac John Deere), Umoja, Mycoworks, Novome, Plexium, and others, as well as serving as a director for a few not-for -profit scientific organizations.
Rajesh is a Partner at Khosla Ventures and brings with him two decades of experience assisting and investing in deeptech startups. At KV, Rajesh assists entrepreneurs and manages investments across batteries, hydrogen, solar, sustainable plastics, carbon capture, foodtech, healthcare – focusing on materials science driven innovations that have a large societal impact. Before joining Khosla Ventures, Rajesh served as the Head of Applied Ventures (AV), the VC arm of Applied Materials (AMAT) and at Third Point Ventures. At AV, Rajesh managed a portfolio of 85 deeptech startups. Previously, at Lucent’s Bell Labs, he drove technology partnerships with several Optical, MEMS, RF device startups. During his MBA at the Harvard Business School, he worked at Deutsche Bank’s cleantech banking team, and with Khosla Ventures. Rajesh pursued an M.S. from the University of Maryland at College Park, and received his Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.
Bill Tai has been funding startups as a Venture Capitalist since 1991 and has had 22 of his startups become listed companies. He has served as Board Director of 8 publicly listed companies (AWRD EGHT HUT8 IAWK NPIX TMTA TUNE and IMGO) that grew from startups he funded at their formative stages. Originally trained as a chip designer, he holds a BSEE with Honors from University of Illinois and an MBA from Harvard. He co-founded as Chairman – Treasure Data (acquired by ARM/Softbank), IPInfusion.com (Tokyo TSE:4813) and iAsiaWorks (IPO via Goldman Sachs & Morgan Stanley) and is Board Chairman of Hut8 Mining (NASDAQ:HUT). He is among the first angel investors in Canva, Color Genomics, Class.com, Dapper Labs (Cryptokitties / NBA Topshot), Safety Culture, Tweetdeck/Twitter, and Zoom Video, where he was the 1st committed backer. He is co-founder of ACTAI Global a 501(c)3 community of Athletes Conservationists Technologists Artists & Innovators supporting 1) environmental conservation and 2) economic empowerment via entrepreneurship. He is creator or cofounder of the worldwide startup competition www.ExtremeTechChallenge.org, the annual www.NeckerBlockchainSummit.com and the annual www.WestTechFest.com, Western Australia’s largest technology festival held annually in Perth where he is an Adjunct Professor at Curtin University.
Wayne Ting is Lime’s Chief Executive Officer, a role he has held since May 2020. Wayne joined Lime in 2018 as Global Head of Operations and Strategy and has been instrumental in driving the company toward its mission to build a future for transportation that is shared, affordable and carbon-free. Over the past year, Wayne has focused the company on its relentless pursuit toward operational excellence and keeping it on a path to profitability. Before joining Lime, Wayne spent four years at Uber in various roles, including Chief of Staff to CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, and General Manager of Uber’s Northern California business. Wayne previously served as a Senior Policy Advisor on the White House’s National Economic Council under President Obama. Prior to the White House, Wayne worked at Bain Capital and at McKinsey & Company. In college, he co-founded CampusNetwork.com, the first college-based social networking site (started about 6 months before Facebook). Wayne is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Business School.
Miranda Wang is a venture-backed climate tech entrepreneur building the most innovative plastic transformation company. She is the Co-founder and CEO of Novoloop, a low-carbon advanced upcycling and sustainable materials provider that upgrades common plastic waste into performance materials. Miranda’s dream is to build healthy organizations that make our world a better place. For the majority of her life, she has led, founded, and volunteered for community and entrepreneurial projects. Miranda graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was introduced to engineering entrepreneurship. Over the years, Miranda has channeled her love for creating and desire to do good into leading Novoloop through technology development, growth, and financing. Outside of company-building, Miranda is an avid gardener with plans for establishing a botanical garden later in her life.
Garrett Winther is a partner and program director at HAX, SOSV’s venture program for hard tech. An engineer by training, venture builder by trade, he is bringing hard-tech ventures to life at SOSV, IDEO and MIT.
Pae is a General Partner at SOSV and CTO at IndieBio, where she is responsible for portfolio management and technical oversight. Pae has invested in high risk solutions to intractable problems in both government and corporate contexts. She applies rigorous science and engineering to transform emerging technologies into solutions for national defense, humanity, and the planet. She is especially passionate about bridging engineered materials and systems to biology. Prior to joining IndieBio, Pae served as the Scientific Director of Telefónica’s moonshot factory – Alpha (Barcelona), Science Director at the US Office of Naval Research – Global (Singapore), and technical consultant at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). She holds degrees in Electrical Engineering from Duke (PhD) and Princeton (BS).
Kathy Yelick
Vice Chancellor for Research, UC BerkeleyKathy Yelick is the Robert S. Pepper Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and the Vice Chancellor for Research at UC Berkeley. She is also a Senior Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Her research is in high performance computing, programming languages, compilers, parallel algorithms, and automatic performance tuning. She previously held leadership positions at LBNL and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC). Yelick earned her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT and has been a professor at UC Berkeley since 1991 with a joint research appointment at LBNL since 1996. Yelick is a member of National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and she is a Fellow of both the Association for Computing Machinery and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Michelle Zhu
CEO, HuueMichelle Zhu is CEO & Co-founder of Huue, a biotechnology company creating the world’s most sustainable dyes for the industries that are shaping the future of the Earth, starting with the indigo in your jeans. Its mission is to minimize the amount of toxic chemicals used in the dye production and application process. With a family background in fashion and a career in business operations and strategy, Michelle currently manages all aspects of Huue’s operations, fundraising, and sales efforts. Michelle received her BSBA from Washington University in St. Louis. Michelle has been named an 2021 Inc Female Founder and a 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 in Manufacturing.
Are You A Series A to B Startup?
Exhibit at Disrupt 2024 at a discount & connect with 10,000 attendees through the ScaleUp Program.
Subscribe
Event Updates
Get the latest workshop announcements, special discounts and other event offers straight to your inbox!