The Practice of Self Care

The Journey to Well-Being: A Series on Mental Health and the Unique Demands of Entrepreneurship

With Mental Health Awareness Month around the corner in May, we are kicking off a series of posts focused on the intersection of entrepreneurship and mental health. Activate exists to find, foster, and celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit within mission-driven scientists. And key to that work is supporting our fellows’ wellness—and that of the wider entrepreneurial ecosystem.

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Mentorship from the World’s Most Powerful Women

Kezi Cheng (Cohort 2021, FLO Materials) and Yajing Zhao (Cohort 2022, Mesophase) attended the Forbes 30/50 Summit in Abu Dhabi, a one-of-a-kind event bringing together legendary women icons and Forbes 30 Under 30 and 50 Over 50 “listers” for cross-generational mentorship. Find out what advice the world’s most powerful women had for the next generation of innovators.

Keeping Reading

"Activate is not there for your equity. They are there for the good of humanity."
Hear more from Miguel Sierra Aznar, Cohort 2018, about how the Activate Fellowship helped him found Noble Thermodynamic Systems.

Are you interested in applying to be part of the first cohort of fellows in the Activate Houston Community? Take your first step towards something big by signing up for updates and be the first to know when applications open this summer. Do you know a scientist or engineer with an idea that could change the world? Nominate them for Cohort 2024.

Sarah Richardson (Cohort 2017, MicroByre) and Andee Wallace (Cohort 2022, Robigo) were recognized by Forbes as “women founders taking the synthetic biology world by storm.” The article highlighted ten entrepreneurs at the helm of some of today’s most innovative synthetic biology companies.

Brendan Hermalyn (Cohort 2021, Thalo Labs) spoke with the New York Times about how Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation's unique support for green technology companies has helped enable Thalo's carbon dioxide removal (CDR) tech, which reduces emissions from buildings by making a special filter that captures greenhouse gases and converts them into a powder that can be recycled.

IN OUR ECOSYSTEM
Upcoming events, relevant opportunities, and what we're reading.

Upcoming Events

Join the Energy Tech Summit in Warsaw, Poland on Apr 26-27 to hear from investors, entrepreneurs, and government leaders about the challenges and future of decarbonization.
On May 3 at 4pm ET, Hannah Murnen (managing director, Activate Anywhere), Jill Fuss (managing director, Activate Berkeley) and Karin Lion (chief growth officer, Activate) will join Austin Hickman (Cohort 2022, Soctera) for a webinar with the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure on how the Activate Fellowship transforms scientists into high-impact entrepreneurs.
The Carbon Unbound Summit will take place in New York City on May 11-12. Access unrivaled networking opportunities with like-minded leaders and scaling partners from across the world, and discover the latest market insights through panels, presentations, pitching, and breakout sessions.
America's Seed Fund Startup Expo 2023 will bring together the federal organizations that award Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funds, small businesses who have received funding to further their innovation efforts, and support organizations across federal, state, and local regions during America’s Seed Fund Week from May 15-18.
The Spring SBIR/STTR Innovation Conference is happening June 20-21 in Washington, DC. Participants will learn more about submitting competitive proposals, finding free assistance, and increasing commercialization success. The event includes an SBIR Pavilion allowing direct engagement with federal SBIR program managers from many SBIR/STTR agencies.
Carbon Unbound, a two-day, in-person summit that brings together CDR leaders to accelerate innovation, investment, and collaboration in the sector has its first European edition in London on October 3–4.

Relevant Opportunities

Evergreen Climate Innovations’ 501vc® Investment Fund invests up to $300K in early-stage climate-tech startups in the Greater Midwest region of the United States. Evergreen looks for early-stage climate-tech companies that are developing innovations to solve environmental challenges. Applications are considered on a rolling basis.
The Carbon to Value (C2V) Initiative—a unique partnership among Urban Future Lab at New York University-Tandon, Greentown Labs, and Fraunhofer USA, and supported by NYSERDA—is a world-class partnership accelerator program, bringing exclusive access to industry leaders and nonprofit experts who are shaping the carbon-tech marketplace of tomorrow. Apply by March 31.
Elemental Excelerator is offering up to $1M in funding and in-depth support to deploy a transformational commercial project in any global market. Applications will be accepted through May 31.
The Ray of Hope Prize identifies the top nature-inspired startups in the world and fosters their growth by providing sustainable business training, communications support, and opportunities for non-dilutive funding—the top being a $100K equity-free prize. Apply by April 28.
C2M is now accepting climate-tech applications for its 2023 cohort. Focus areas are low-carbon energy, green chemistry, food, and water technologies covering both mitigation and adaptation. For those technologies selected, C2M will hand-pick interdisciplinary teams of UC Berkeley grad students to help entrepreneurs identify the most viable initial markets, prospective customers and partners, funding sources, and related strategies. Applications are due April 30 at 6pm PT.
Climate Vine is a membership community meant to accelerate individual and collective climate impact. Each curated group of experts has diverse backgrounds, ranging from policy, investment, corporate, nonprofit, entrepreneurship, and tech & science. The annual membership starts with a three-month themed cohort, during which members spend about one to three hours a week in curated small groups, socials, and off-the-record conversations with climate leaders. Applications are rolling.
The U.S. National Science Foundation's Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) program assists researchers and innovators from academia, nonprofit, and public organizations in accelerating the development of breakthrough technologies and speeding solutions forward. Researchers can now receive up to $1M for translational research, technology scale-up, and demonstration. The first proposal deadline is May 2.
The Direct Air Capture (DAC) Pre-Commercial Technology Prize awards up to $3.2M in cash prizes and $800K in technical assistance vouchers to teams that identify a critical need in the DAC industry, develop a solution to address this gap, and test the idea to a degree of scale. Submissions are due September 26.

Activate Voices

At San Francisco Climate Week, several Activate Fellows took to the stage. Etosha Cave (Twelve, Cohort 2015) was a panelist with several other San Francisco-based climate entrepreneurs discussing how the city is fostering these startups and once again serving as the epicenter for big ideas that can positively impact the world. Cave was also joined by Andy Zhao (Cohort 2022, Limelight Steel) for a panel discussion hosted by Cantos Ventures on the current state of industrial decarbonization.
Watch UMARO Foods co-founder Beth Zotter describe the journey she and co-founder Amanda Stiles (Cohort 2020) took to bring the company’s seaweed-based bacon to mouths and markets.
MIT Technology Review featured Antora Energy (co-founded by David Bierman, Cohort 2017 and Justin Briggs and Andrew Ponec, Cohort 2018) in an overview of how thermal brick storage is enabling industrial heat from renewable sources.
Grayson Zulauf (Cohort 2020, Resonant Link) was a guest on the New Warehouse Podcast, where he discussed Resonant Link’s new 19.2 kilowatt, 400 A wireless lift truck charger, part of the company’s innovations that could lower operating costs, lower capital expenses, and drive revenue in the materials handling industry.
Kezi Cheng (Cohort 2021, FLO Materials) discussed her company’s approach to developing infinitely recyclable polymers on the podcast It’s a Materials World—including recycling vs. creating new plastic products, the global landscape for infinitely recyclable polymers, and her experience as a woman innovator and CEO.

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