Activate Updates: January 2023

Activate Updates

Jan 31

Written By Leanna Yu

This Month's Features

Big Science in a Big State: Fervo Energy Leader’s Return Home to Houston
A Startup Curriculum that Biases Science Entrepreneurs Towards Success
Activate Leadership Council: Climate-Tech Predictions for 2023

Plus

Activate Fellow wins
Ecosystem news
Job opportunities

Big Science in a Big State: Fervo Energy Leader’s Return Home to Houston

For Tim Latimer (Cohort 2018), the energy transition in Texas is personal. He was born in Houston, returned as a drilling engineer in the oil and gas industry, and is now back home again—this time, creating a carbon-free future as CEO and co-founder of Fervo Energy, a Houston-based next-generation geothermal company.

Read on

A Startup Curriculum that Biases Science Entrepreneurs Towards Success

For science entrepreneurs to bring transformative products to market, they themselves must transform. It might seem like there’s no playbook for this kind of personal growth, which requires shifting mindsets, honing skills, cultivating deep connections, and learning a lot about business, fast. But Activate has designed a powerful curriculum that walks fellows through this journey, step by step, and in a community. And there are exciting new changes on the horizon for 2023.

Read On

Activate Leadership Council Predicts These Trends in Climate Tech for 2023

Which challenges, opportunities, and surprises will shape climate tech in 2023? Activate advisors from Impact Science Ventures, Berkeley Catalyst Fund, and Day One Ventures share their insider perspectives.

Read On

Sublime Systems Raises $40M Series A
Sublime Systems, co-founded by Leah Ellis (Cohort 2020), announced a $40M Series A funding round to continue commercializing Sublime’s decarbonized cement technology. With cement responsible for eight percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, reducing its environmental cost is crucial for achieving net zero. In her own words, hear from Leah about how the Activate Fellowship helped her build Sublime Systems, which will in turn lay the foundations of the future using low-carbon cement.

Watch

Chris Graves (Cohort 2018) co-founded Noon Energy to enable long-duration energy storage using carbon and oxygen. With the recent close of its new $28M Series A, Noon will build demonstration projects to test its ultra-low-cost, energy-dense batteries in the field.

Co-founded by Deepak Dugar (Cohort 2015), Visolis raised $8M to continue to enable its use of novel synthetic biology to reduce the cost of bringing new molecules to market, enabling its production of sustainable, carbon-negative ingredients.

In their own words: Vince Romanin & Richard Wang on Lab to Startup
Vince Romanin (Gradient, Cohort 2017) and Richard Wang (Cuberg, Cohort 2016) each discussed their entrepreneurial journeys on Lab to Startup, a podcast hosted by Naresh Sunkara, founder and executive director of the Berkeley Postdoc Entrepreneurship Program at the University of California, Berkeley.

#ReasonsToBeOptimistic

The world needs scientists, now more than ever. Each day on Twitter and Instagram, we’ll celebrate the people who are working to reinvent our economy to be sustainable, resilient, and equitable—and the brightest milestones along the way.

Track our fellows' progress in real-time on our social media feeds.

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

Upcoming Events

The 2023 AAAS Annual Meeting will convene in Washington, DC and online from March 2-5. The event will feature sessions, lectures, and workshops on multi-disciplinary STEM research.
CERA Week will take place in Houston, TX from March 6-10, bringing together thought leaders, policymakers, and executives from across energy, finance, technology, and industry to discuss the intersection of energy, climate, and security.
The Hello Tomorrow Global Summit will take place in Paris from March 9-10. The Summit brings together founders and innovators presenting solutions to the greatest challenges of our time alongside investors, thought leaders, and industry experts. Let us know if you’re planning to attend!
The thirteenth annual Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Energy Innovation Summit will be March 22-24 in Washington, DC. The ARPA-E Summit is the preeminent event of the year for professionals addressing America’s top energy challenges and supporting the latest energy technologies as they build a path to the marketplace. Let us know if you’re planning to attend and would like to connect!

Relevant Opportunities

The O’Shaughnessy Fellowship is a one year program that provides $100K, equity-free, for innovative creators to work on whatever they choose. Applications are selected throughout the year on a rolling basis; the organization recommends applying early as applications will be closed once 12 fellows are identified for the year.
The Keeling Curve Prize awards $50K to ten organizations across five categories (carbon sinks; energy; finance; social and cultural pathways; and transport and mobility) with a proven track record of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Applications are due February 10.
Nominations are open for the 2023 C3E awards, which recognize outstanding leadership and extraordinary achievement by mid-career women in clean energy. Submit nominations by February 22.
The first stage of CalSEED’s Concept Award applications open February 17. This California program supports the next generation of clean energy entrepreneurs through early-stage grants of up to $600K. Applications will be open through March 5.
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 $1 million for translational research, technology scale-up, and demonstration. The first proposal deadline is May 2.

Activate Voices

Sarah Richardson (Cohort 2017) spoke on My Climate Journey podcast about her path from academia to co-founding MicroByre, which domesticates novel bacteria and uses biology to make chemicals traditionally produced with petroleum.
While the conversation around gas stoves has lit up online over the past month, Sam Calisch (Cohort 2020) has been working to advance electrification for years. On the podcast Volts, Sam discusses building home appliances engineered for the decarbonized future.
CBS News spoke with Brimstone co-founder Cody Finke (Cohort 2019) for its Earth 365 series to learn about the climate impact of traditional cement manufacturing and how startups like Brimstone are working to reduce CO2 emitted from cement production—which currently accounts for eight percent of global emissions.
Founded by Ray Weitekamp (Cohort 2015), polySpectra’s prototyping tool, "Massless," uses augmented reality to reduce waste from 3D printing, explained a feature in Additive Manufacturing.
Tyfast Energy, co-founded by GJ la’ O and Haodong Liu (Cohort 2022), received a $2.82M grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a new fast-charging, long-lasting lithium-ion battery using a new anode material.

Want us to highlight an upcoming event or relevant opportunity in next month's newsletter? Let us know.

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