2021 Speakers

Audun Abelsnes is the Managing Director of the Equinor & Techstars Energy Accelerator. He is an active participant in panels at energy and innovation conferences around the world. For several years, Audun Abelsnes has been a visiting lecturer at the master-level course "New Venture Creation" (5th year) at the Norwegian Business School. He has founded and later sold one company and is an active seed/early stage investor. Audun Abelsnes has spent several years in PWC management consulting and holds a Master of Science in International Marketing from the Norwegian Business School.

Azeem Azhar is an entrepreneur, investor and author. He is the founder of Exponential View, the leading newsletter and podcast. Exponential View explores the political economy of the Exponential Age. It reaches more than 200,000 readers around the world. He is also an active startup investor, with investments in AI, work-from-home and climate change. He is on the board of the Ada Lovelace Institute and sits on the World Economic Forum's Global Futures Council on Digital Economy & Society, on the board of the Ada Lovelace Institute. Previously, he founded PeerIndex, a big data analytics firm acquired in 2015. He has had senior roles in global media businesses and started his career as a journalist where he was a writer for The Economist and The Guardian. In 2020, he co-authored the State of Climate Tech, a global analysis of venture capital trends in climate change investing, with PwC. His first book, Exponential, which explores the transition to the Exponential Age will be published in autumn of 2021.

Zack’s belief that systems-level thinking integral to environmental science, coupled with deep tech and computation, can help address pressing real-world challenges led him to co-found DCVC. He brings to bear nearly 20 years of experience in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, advisor, attorney, and angel investor. Zack’s investment interests include next-generation space informatics platforms like Planet Labs, disruptive financial services platforms using machine learning to serve the unbanked and underbanked more quickly and fairly, like Tala & LendUp, and AI & robotics platforms for computational drug discovery like Recursion Pharmaceuticals & Vium. Zack also leads DCVC’s investments in other transformational companies like Merlon Intelligence, Plenty, and Opus 12. In 2015, the World Economic Forum named Zack a Young Global Leader in recognition of Zack’s leadership at the intersection of transformative technology and urgent global issues, and he is active in the Davos community, including his annual “Deep Tech in Davos” event. As an angel investor, Zack invested in startups like Square (SQ), Docker, and Uber. Zack co-founded and is a managing partner of Founders Den, one of the first modern co-working spaces and communities of experienced technology entrepreneurs. Zack previously co-founded and ran Montara Capital Partners, a real estate fund, and practiced law at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Zack serves on the non-profit boards of the East Palo Alto Charter School and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Zack graduated with honors from Harvard University in Environmental Science and earned his JD with honors from Georgetown Law School, where he was executive editor for The Tax Lawyer.

Po is passionate about reconceptualizing complex challenges into more elegant forms, to broaden understanding and highlight priorities. He’s been at IndieBio SF since 2018. Po is a longtime science journalist honored with nine national awards, and author of seven bestselling books that are available in 28 languages worldwide. His work has been cited in 185 academic journals and 503 books. His background is in Economics. He learned finance at Credit Suisse and consulting at a division of Arthur Andersen. Prior to IndieBio he spent four years as a Futurist with Attention Span Media, consulting corporate innovation efforts for globally-recognized brands. Most recently, Po is the author of Decoding the World: A Roadmap for the Questioner, published by Twelve Books, a division of the Hachette Publishing Group.

Tadeu is Chairman and CEO at Boston Metal. He brings 40 years of metal industry leadership and technology experience to Boston Metal. As CEO of CBMM (80% global market share for niobium) he grew revenue from $100M to over $2B. In his 30 years with CBMM, Tadeu led a global strategy that grew the niobium market by over 8x through a rigorous program of customer-focused application and technology development. Tadeu is the lead independent director at Ivanhoe Mines (copper, zinc, nickel and platinum group metals). He is an invited lecturer at the Department of Material Science and Engineering at MIT. Tadeu recently joined the advisory board of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Heart and Vascular Center in Boston, MA.

Gwen is a Partner at IndieBio NY, advising and investing in companies at all stages of growth. Even before officially joining SOSV, Gwen was an active investor in IndieBio companies, including Tinctorium Bio/Huue, Lupa Bio/Intrinsic Medicine, and SyntheX. Gwen was a Venture Partner at Fusion Fund, an early stage fund in Palo Alto focused on AI/ML, robotics and medical devices, and a Director at Studio X, a machine learning venture studio based in Austin. Gwen spent 3 years with Singularity University Ventures, an impact-focused accelerator, and helped launch their first batch of startups in the Nordic campus. Prior to venture, Gwen spent 18 years on Wall Street investing in public equities, started her career at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and promoted to portfolio manager at a $300 million innovation-themed hedge fund. Gwen is bilingual in computer science programming languages and wet lab research protocols. On the computer science side, she received her bachelor’s degree in math/economics with a minor in computer science electrical engineering. One of her four business school MBA concentrations was econometrics/statistical learning. She has completed all sixteen machine learning certification courses offered by DeepLearning.ai. On the wet lab biology side, Gwen spent 2 years at UCSF researching immunotherapy (CAR-T) for glioblastomas, and was second author on two publications. She spent summers researching x-ray protein crystallography, nitric oxide as an oncology therapeutic, and image recognition of breast cancer histology. Gwen is a Chartered Financial Analyst charterholder. She currently sits on the Advisory Board of the Yale University School of Medicine.

Danny Crichton analyzes technology and power as head of editorial at Lux Capital, a VC firm investing in emerging science and technology ventures. Previously, he was managing editor at TechCrunch as well as a foreign correspondent based in Seoul, South Korea. He’s been a venture capitalist with General Catalyst in Palo Alto and Charles River Ventures in Boston and New York. He was awarded a Fulbright research scholarship to South Korea, where he researched the development of Korea’s startup ecosystem. He is a PhD dropout from Harvard where he studied public policy, and an honors graduate of Stanford, where he studied mathematical and computational sciences. Danny is based in Brooklyn.

Dr. Lisa Dyson is a mission-driven entrepreneur with a passion for creative problem solving. She is the founder and CEO of Air Protein, a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer company that is reinventing how food is produced in order to sustainably feed the global population, which is estimated to reach 10 billion people by 2050. Air Protein uses a unique, innovative process that makes meat from elements of the air. Dr. Dyson is also the founder of Kiverdi, a biotechnology company working with corporations to make the circular economy a reality by creating game changing products and systems using the science of carbon transformation. Raised by an entrepreneur, Dr. Dyson was able to see business ideas come to fruition first-hand. As a scientist and entrepreneur at her core she loves solving difficult problems. While a Management Consultant at The Boston Consulting Group, she worked with executives of Fortune 100 companies to help them solve business challenges, including developing high-impact strategies and execution plans to expand into new markets, facilitate post-merger integrations, define international governance models, and identify millions of dollars in operational cost inefficiencies. Dr. Dyson has a PhD in Physics from MIT where she conducted research in Theoretical Physics. She was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of London, where she received an MS in Physics with an emphasis in Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces, and she has degrees in Mathematics and Physics from Brandeis University. She has also done research in bioengineering, physics, and energy at Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University, the University of California, San Francisco, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories.

Ira Ehrenpreis is Founder and Managing Partner of DBL Partners, a leading impact investing venture capital firm, currently managing more than $1 billion of capital. DBL invests in companies that can deliver top-tier financial returns, while simultaneously driving social or environmental change. Ira is a recognized leader in the venture capital industry, having served on the Board, Executive Committee, and as Annual Meeting Chairman of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). He currently serves as the Chairman of the VCNetwork, the largest and most active California venture capital organization, and the President of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists (WAVC), the oldest venture capital organization in California. Ira was awarded the NACD Directorship 100 for being “one of the most influential leaders in the boardroom and corporate governance community.” In 2007, he was named one of the “Top 50 Most Influential Men Under 45" (when he was under 45!) and in 2014 was inducted into the International Green Industry Hall of Fame. Ira serves on the board of Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA) and currently supports DBL’s investments in several companies including Apeel, Better Place Forests, The Boring Company, Mapbox, Planet, R-Zero, and SpaceX. Ira served for several years as the Chairman of the Silicon Valley Technology Innovation & Entrepreneurship Forum (SVIEF). He is the Founder and Chairman of one of the most prominent annual energy innovation industry events, the World Energy Innovation Forum (WEIF), which convenes the who's-who in the industry to discuss the important energy issues and opportunities of our time. Ira also served for many years on the Advisory Board of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (FWE). Ira is also an active leader at Stanford University, where he has served on the Board of Visitors of Stanford Law School and is currently an advisory board member of the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy (PIE) Advisory Council and the Stanford Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP). Ira has also been a guest lecturer, including helping to teach a course on Venture Capital. Ira received his JD/MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford Law School, where he was an Associate Editor of Stanford Law Review. He holds a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude.

Leah Ellis is co-founder and CEO at Sublime Systems, a company that has developed a breakthrough process to produce carbon-neutral cement. Sublime’s technology was co-invented by Leah and Sublime's co-founder, Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang, at MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering during Leah's tenure as NSERC/Banting Postdoctoral Fellow. Prior to working on cement at MIT, Leah earned her PhD in chemistry with Professor Jeff Dahn at Dalhousie University, Canada, where she worked on optimizing lithium-ion cell lifetime in partnerships with 3M and Tesla. Leah is an Activate Boston Entrepreneurial Fellow and was recently named among MIT Technology Review's 35 Innovators under 35.

Darrell Etherington is a News Editor at TechCrunch. He’s spent most of his career at TC, with a couple of breaks to gain experience in industry-leading technology companies including Apple and Shopify.

Tony is an active investor and entrepreneur with a 30+ year history of founding companies and designing products that profoundly improve people’s lives. He is the Principal at Future Shape, an investment and advisory firm coaching deep tech startups. Currently, Future Shape is coaching over 200+ startups innovating game-changing technologies. He is the founder and former CEO of Nest, the company that pioneered the “Internet of Things.” Tony was the SVP of Apple’s iPod Division and led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone. Throughout his career Tony has authored more than 300 patents. In May 2016, TIME named the Nest Learning Thermostat, the iPod and the iPhone as three of the “50 Most Influential Gadgets of All Time.”

Suzanne Fletcher joined Prime Movers Lab in 2019 and is a General Partner. Prime Movers Lab is a deeptech venture capital fund that invests in breakthrough scientific inventions that have the ability to transform billions of lives across 6 sectors: energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, agriculture and longevity. Suzanne serves as Director on a number of boards, including Upward Farms. From 2015 to 2019, Suzanne served as the Fund Manager of the Stanford-StartX Fund at StartX. She was previously a Managing Director at Paul Capital and an investment banker with Morgan Stanley. As Fund Manager at StartX, Suzanne oversaw $175M of direct investments in 300 startups across 500+ rounds from seed through Seres D, in industries ranging across Enterprise, Consumer, Hardware and Medical. She earned an MBA from Stanford University and a BS in Finance and Information Systems from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania magna cum laude.

Bill Gates is a technologist, business leader, and philanthropist. He grew up in Seattle, Washington, with an amazing and supportive family who encouraged his interest in computers at an early age. He dropped out of college to start Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Today, Bill co-chairs the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with Melinda French Gates, where he works to give his wealth back to society. Bill grew up in Seattle with his two sisters. His late father, William H. Gates Sr., was a Seattle attorney and one of the co-chairs of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His late mother, Mary Gates, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington regent, and chairwoman of United Way International. Bill has three children.

Dr. Jennifer Gerbi, Deputy Director for Technology at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), is currently serving as Acting Director. Dr. Gerbi leads the Agency’s development, launch, and execution of high-risk, high-reward energy R&D programs. Previously as a Program Director at the Agency, her programmatic focus at ARPA-E included improving the energy efficiency and management of buildings via advanced sensing systems and storage, novel insulating materials for windows, and renewable energy generation via photovoltaics. Prior to joining ARPA-E, Gerbi worked at Dow Corning in multiple capacities. She started at the company in 2011 as a Program Leader in the company’s Business and Technology Incubator. In this role, Gerbi built and led a next-generation solar portfolio. Gerbi then managed a global team as a Business Builder, leading new business development for a lithium-ion battery program. Gerbi’s most recent role at Dow Corning was as an Applied Engineering and Technical Service Leader, where she led an electronics application engineering and development team, working directly with large global customers to enable technical solutions via silicones in consumer and crossover healthcare electronics markets. From 2007 to 2011, Gerbi served as a Senior Materials Scientist at The Dow Chemical Company, focusing on the copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar technology effort, which included growing a small lab-scale environment into a commercial-scale effort within three years. Gerbi served her postdoctoral fellowship at Argonne National Laboratory, developing thin film diamond coatings for electronics and healthcare markets. She also worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Illinois on novel diffusion barriers. Dr. Gerbi holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She also received an M.S. in Physics from the University of Virginia and a B.A. in Physics from Bard College.

Alex Greenhalgh is the CEO and co-founder of Spintex, using the inspiration of Nature’s greatest textile engineer, the spider, to produce the next-generation of sustainable and high performance textiles for fashion and beyond. A biologist by training, he enjoys nature, and has always believed that to overcome the problems we face as a species, we must look to Nature for inspiration.

Bill Gross is the founder of more than 150 companies in the last 30 years with more than 50 successful IPOs and acquisitions, and 7 exits at over $1 billion each. He currently serves as the CEO of Heliogen, a renewable energy technology company he founded to replace fossil fuels with sunlight and decarbonize heavy industry. In July 2021, Heliogen announced its $2B SPAC combination with Athena. Bill also founded and serves as the chairman of Idealab, the longest-running technology startup incubator. He is considered the inventor of paid search and the cost-per-click business model. The company he founded, GoTo.com was acquired by Yahoo for $1.6 billion and later became the foundation of Google’s search advertising business. Bill has a mechanical engineering degree from the California Institute of Technology, and has served on the Caltech Board of Trustees for more than 20 years.

Arvind Gupta co-leads Mayfield’s Engineering Biology practice whose mission is to invest in science based companies that could change history. Ranging from reinventing our food system to stopping climate change to novel therapeutics, Arvind was the first investor in breakout companies such as Geltor, Synthex, Prime Roots, NotCo, Prellis, New Culture, DNA Lite, Catalog, Prellis and Memphis Meats. As Founder of IndieBio, Arvind redefined the pace and possibilities of early stage biotech, investing in over 136 companies in five years, defining human and planetary health, and growing the IndieBio portfolio into billions of dollars in value. Under his leadership, IndieBio expanded to New York and grew to fifteen investment professionals with a world renowned adjunct partner board. He now serves as Venture Advisor at IndieBio. Arvind is the author of Decoding the World: A Roadmap for the Questioner, published by Twelve Books, a division of the Hachette Publishing Group. He was honored with the F50 Global Award for Impact in HealthTech Innovation. He is a frequent speaker at TechCrunch Disrupt, Slush, TedX and Future FoodTech. His work has been profiled in global media outlets such as Bloomberg News, Forbes, The Guardian UK, Neo.life, Nikkei News, Rotman, The Times of India, and CGTN in China. Arvind has been a guest lecturer at UCSF, MIT and Harvard and is a judge at the annual BIO conference startup stadium. Prior to founding IndieBio, Arvind was Design Director at IDEO in Shanghai where he earned numerous international design awards and presented his work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He was also a BASE jumper and big wall climber and now fights professional grappling. Arvind received his B.S. in Genetic Engineering from UCSB. He holds 8 patents. Arvind is married to an Icelander and has two daughters.

Amy Harder is executive editor of Cipher by Breakthrough Energy. Amy is one of the top national energy and climate change reporters in the country, having built up a reputation of being a uniquely balanced and influential journalist with respect across the spectrum. She joined Breakthrough Energy in early 2021 to help launch Cipher, a publication covering the opportunities and challenges of the energy transition. Before joining Breakthrough, Amy was with Axios full time since shortly after it launched in 2017, based in Washington DC. In that role, Amy reported on trends and exclusive scoops, while also distilling into understandable formats complex energy and climate issues. Harder has interviewed some of the most well-known leaders in this space, and at the same time bridges the gap between what leaders say and what everyday people care about. She was the inaugural journalism fellow for the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute for the 2018-2019 school year, where she moderated events and took part in other university initiatives. Previously, she covered similar issues for The Wall Street Journal, based out of its Washington, DC, bureau. Earlier in her career, she wrote for National Journal, also in Washington DC. She has appeared on PBS' NewsHour, CSPAN, MSNBC, CBS, and NPR, among many other media outlets. She is regularly sought out to speak and participate in events, including moderating and participating in panel discussions, and giving speeches around the country and world. Amy is originally from Washington State and moved back in 2020, after a dozen years in the other Washington. She received a BA in journalism with honors from Western Washington University. She loves running and cross-country skiing the Pacific Northwest’s best trails.

Nina is the CEO at Katapult Accelerator, a globally leading impact tech accelerator headquartered in Oslo, Norway. She’s now leading Katapult’s new thematic investment and accelerator vertical Katapult Climate. Katapult as a system has since 2017 invested in an accelerated 90 impact tech startups from 32 countries across its existing verticals, and will by the end of 2021 invest in up to 20 new companies on climate- and ocean tech. Nina is also an angel investor and previous founder and is passionate about the role technology and entrepreneurship play in making the world a better place for both people and the planet.

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren is CEO of revolutionary carbon recycling company, LanzaTech. Prior to joining LanzaTech, Dr. Holmgren was VP and General Manager of the Renewable Energy and Chemicals business unit at UOP LLC, a Honeywell Company. She was one of the key drivers of UOP’s leadership in low carbon aviation biofuels, and under her management, UOP technology became instrumental in producing nearly all of the initial fuels used by commercial airlines and the military for testing and certification of alternative aviation fuel. Today, under Dr. Holmgren’s guidance, LanzaTech is working towards developing a variety of platform chemicals and fuels, including the world’s first alternative jet fuel derived from industrial waste gases. Jennifer is also the Director and Chair of the LanzaJet Board of Directors. LanzaJet, Inc., is a new company that will produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for a sector requiring climate friendly fuel options. Dr. Holmgren is the author or co-author of 50 US patents and more than 30 scientific publications and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. In 2003, she was the first woman awarded the Malcolm E. Pruitt Award from the Council for Chemical Research (CCR). In 2010, she was the recipient of the Leadership Award from the Civil Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative (CAAFI) for her work in establishing the technical and commercial viability of sustainable aviation biofuels. In 2015 Dr. Holmgren and her team at LanzaTech were awarded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Presidential Green Chemistry Award and she was awarded the BIO Rosalind Franklin Award for Leadership in Industrial Biotechnology. Sustainability magazine, Salt, named Dr. Holmgren as the world’s most compassionate businesswoman in 2015. In October 2015, Dr. Holmgren was awarded the Outstanding Leader Award in Corporate Social Innovation from the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago. Dr. Holmgren was named as #1 of the 100 most influential leaders in the Bioeconomy in 2017 and received a Global Bioenergy Leadership Award in 2018 and the 2020 William C. Holmberg Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Advanced Bioeconomy by the Digest, the most widely read online bioeconomy journal. A TEDx Chicago speaker, Jennifer is also the 2018 recipient of the AIChE Fuels & Petrochemicals Division Award as well as the Biofuels Digest Global Bioenergy Leadership Award. In 2021 Jennifer received the Edison Achievement Award for making a significant and lasting contribution to the world of innovation.

Scott Jacobs is the CEO and co-founder of Generate, a leading sustainable infrastructure platform delivering affordable, reliable resource solutions to companies, communities, and cities. Prior to Generate, in 2007, Scott joined McKinsey & Company to co-found its global Clean Technologies Practice, advising companies, institutional investors, NGOs, and governments around the world on the economic imperatives of resource productivity and climate solutions. Prior to that, Scott spent over a decade in technology and venture capital, helping start and grow a number of companies. Scott has dedicated much of his professional life to the “resource revolution” and is a regular writer, keynote speaker, and conference panelist on the topics of thematic investing and risk management, climate- and resource-related innovation, and building values-based and people-centric businesses. Scott earned his MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was named a George F. Baker Scholar, and his BA cum laude from Dartmouth College.

Jason is a longtime entrepreneur, most recently as founder/CEO of Runkeeper, one of the largest mobile fitness apps and communities, which was acquired by ASICS in 2016 for $85m. He is now a Partner at MCJ Collective, a platform that consists of a podcast and newsletter, a vibrant member community, and a fund, that has backed more than 70 of the most promising climate tech companies across stages and sectors over the last 18 months. The goal with MCJ Collective is not to convert anyone to a specific worldview, but to learn publicly about climate change and the best ways to address it while helping bring in more capital and talent, breaking down silos, fostering more education and collaboration, and accelerating climate innovation.

Mateo Jaramillo is co-founder and CEO of Form Energy. He was formerly Vice President of Products and Programs for Tesla’s stationary energy storage program, an effort he started. In that role, he was responsible for Tesla Energy’s product line and business model definition, as well as global policy and business development. Mateo joined Tesla in 2009 as the Director of Powertrain Business Development, serving as commercial lead on over $100M in new development and $500M in production contracts signed for electric powertrain sales. Prior to Tesla, Mateo was Chief Operating Officer and part of the founding team at Gaia Power Technologies, a pioneering distributed energy storage firm. Mateo earned his A.B. in Economics from Harvard and a Masters in Theology from Yale Divinity School.

Benjamin Joffe is a partner at SOSV (www.sosv.com), a global deep tech fund focused on planetary and human health. SOSV has been the most active investor in climate tech since 2017 with over 150 startups backed. Benjamin works on deal flow, strategy and the annual SOSV Climate Tech Summit  (www.sosvclimatetech.com - Sept 26-27), a virtual and free event featuring top VCs and founders like Bill Gates and Chris Sacca, that attracts thousands every year. Born in France, Benjamin graduated with two MSc in Engineering, and worked in consulting, telecom, gaming for over a decade in China, Japan, South Korea and more, and was the founder of a cross-border consultancy on digital innovation. He is an angel investor in 20 startups including one unicorn. He has lectured at top universities including Berkely Haas, National University of Singapore and Zhejiang University where he gave a course on Deep Tech Ventures. He has written for TechCrunch, Forbes, VentureBeat and IEEE Spectrum, been featured on Bloomberg TV, WSJ, The Economist, Nature, Wired and spoke at tech events in over 30 countries.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Jeff Johnson is a Managing Director at Temasek where he leads and drives high impact and emerging sustainability initiatives for the Singapore-headquartered global investment firm. He has worked in, advised and raised capital for numerous sustainable start-ups while also advising multiple large corporations and investment firms on sustainable investing strategies. Prior to running his own advisory business, which he relinquished upon joining Temasek, Jeff worked in an innovation business development function under the Executive Committee at ABB between 2012 to 2014 leading growth initiatives for new sustainable products and services. Before his time at ABB, Jeff worked at Better Place, an electric vehicle start-up, from 2008 to 2011 overseeing equity and debt fund raising and partnership development with automotive and electricity utility partners. Between 2005 to 2007, Jeff worked in data science functions at Vendavo and Rapt (acquired by Microsoft) where he was responsible for developing and growing pricing optimization enterprise software solutions. Jeff began his career at Intel Corporation in 2001 as a data science engineer focusing on software development to optimize production planning globally. Jeff graduated from University of Florida, with a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering with Highest Honors in 2001 and obtained a Master of Science in Engineering Systems from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005. He is married and has an eleven-year-old son.

As a partner and program director at SOSV HAX, Ji Ke is responsible for driving the content and delivery of the HAX program in Shenzhen. He oversees all elements of recruitment, application review and due diligence, curriculum development, mentorship development and program execution. He also provides ongoing mentorship and support for teams in-program and HAX alumni. Ji is a mechanical engineer by training, who comes to HAX most recently from IDEO. He brings with him a unique combination of experience in factory automation, product design and high speed machinery. He is skilled in designing complex mechanisms for a wide range of industries. His patent portfolio includes DMLS, machine vision, nursery products, industrial machineries, air compressors and diesel engine components. In his spare time, Ji enjoys tinkering with machines and electronics and frequently visits his workshop in South China to produce and test out new inventions.

Vinod Khosla is an entrepreneur, investor, and technology fan. He is the founder of Khosla Ventures, focused on impactful technology investments in software, AI, robotics, 3D printing, healthcare and more. Mr. Khosla was a co-founder of Daisy systems and founding CEO of Sun Microsystems where he pioneered open systems and commercial RISC processors. One of Mr. Khosla’s greatest passions is being a mentor to entrepreneurs, assisting entrepreneurs and helping them build technology-based businesses. Mr. Khosla is driven by the desire to make a positive impact through using technology to reinvent societal infrastructure and multiply resources. He is also passionate about Social Entrepreneurship. Vinod holds a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from IIT, New Delhi, a Master's in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Clea is a Partner and The Head of Science at Lowercarbon Capital where she leads many of the fund's core investments as well as leads the firm’s technical research, diligence, and scientific strategy efforts.

As Senior Director and Partner at IndieBio, Alex is responsible for managing all of the day-to-day operations associated with the program, demo day, and the alumni network. He works closely with teams during the program on customer discovery and sales, as well as with investors, press, and partners to build and sustain the IndieBio ecosystem. Alex comes from a clinical background having earned a PharmD from the University of Iowa. He has experience ranging from global health regulations, consumer health and behavior change design, building social impact partnerships. running large events, and one on one patient care. In his free time Alex likes to surf, climb, and hike.

Gabriel Kra co-founded Prelude Ventures in 2013, after almost 25 years as an investor, entrepreneur, scientist, activist, and ski-bum. Before launching Prelude Ventures, Gabriel spent four years as an investment banker with Deutsche Bank in its solar and semiconductor groups. He also was an early employee at venture-backed telecommunications and semiconductor start-ups, where he was instrumental in raising money, launching products, developing technology and getting acquired. Gabriel’s early experience working a summer at Yellowstone National Park and for Greenpeace sparked his lifelong commitment to fighting climate change. ​ Gabriel serves on the Boards of Directors of Renew Financial, Ripple Foods, Sense Labs, Natron Energy, ClearMetal, Raxium, and Form Energy, and is active with Meati, Metalenz, Zymergen, Planet, Catalog, and Spark Thermionics. Other investments at Prelude include PLANT PV, Suniva (ShunFeng Clean Energy), SolarBridge (SPWR), and Clean Urban Energy. Gabriel also serves on the Board of Directors of Activate and The CREO Syndicate, and on advisory boards for Prime Coalition and Carbon180. ​ Gabriel holds MBAs from the Columbia Business School and the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, an MS in atmospheric chemistry from SUNY Stony Brook and a BA in philosophy from Columbia College. Gabriel is still an avid skier, and spends as much of his free time as possible in the mountains, with his wife and four children. Gabriel now roots for the San Francisco Giants after years as a New Yorker, and his favorite guilty pleasure, much to his wife’s chagrin, is Clash of Clans.

Loizos has been reporting on Silicon Valley since the late '90s, when she joined the original Red Herring magazine. She is currently the Silicon Valley Editor of TechCrunch. She's also the founder of StrictlyVC, a daily e-newsletter and lecture series.

Kevin Martin is co-founder & CTO of unspun- a robotics and digital apparel company building custom jeans for each consumer, on-demand. Their mission is to reduce global carbon emissions by 1% through automated, localized, and intentional manufacturing. By using the iPhone FaceID sensor to create a digital avatar, unspun can instantly tailor and build each garment to the actual customer, delivering a completely custom product at off-the-rack prices— all while eliminating unsold inventory waste (a $150B/year loss industry-wide). Recently included in Time's Best Inventions & Fast Company's World Changing Ideas, unspun aims to rapidly transition the $1.4T apparel world into one that is more intentional, inclusive, and efficient by focusing on the overlap between sustainability and profitability. They also happen to make the best-fitting jeans on the planet.

Francesco is an innovation manager with 20 years of experience spent as a researcher in materials science, as a Corporate R&D Manager within the field of technologies for renewable energy production and storage, and as an intermediary of knowledge trying to exploit the research results within the field of energy and environment. As R&D Corporate manager, he also cofounded and directed several start-ups and joint-labs managing public-private partnerships. As a facilitator of knowledge exploitation (IoK), he co-managed publicly funded projects, as well as Emilia Romagna Climate-KIC Innovation Centre, Dhitech Living Lab on Nanotechnologies, Emilia-Romagna Greentech Clust-ER. Francesco acted as scientific expert within the Vanguard Initiative ADMA Pilot, reviewer of research projects, co-authored over 30 scientific papers, 5 patents, and was Visiting Professor at the University of Ferrara as well as speakers in many conferences and workshops.

Rajesh Mehta, Ph.D., is a Program Director in the Small Business Innovation Research Program at the U. S. National Science Foundation. He currently manages its Environmental Technologies portfolio consisting of close to 100 science- & engineering-based technology start-ups addressing various environmental challenges. Since joining NSF in 2012, he has made close to 450 awards mostly to start-ups. A chemical engineering graduate of IIT-Bombay, he has advanced degrees from Penn State, RIT, and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Imperial College. Prior to joining NSF, he was with Kodak for over 25 years.

After Sean O’Sullivan’s first startup went public in 1994, he founded SOSV in 1995 as a “super angel”. In 2007, based off the success of two dozen investments that had done remarkably well, Sean began aggressively expanding SOSV, transitioning it from a personal investment vehicle into an organization which today has over 110 staff supporting investments in over 120 new startups every year. In 2022, SOSV has 12 general partners operating globally, with SOSV’s major offices in San Francisco, New York City, Newark, Taipei, Cork and Tokyo. Sean got his entrepreneurial start in 1985 as a founder of MapInfo, bringing street mapping technology to personal computers. MapInfo went on to become a $200 million revenue public company with over 1,000 employees worldwide. In 1996, while at the helm of his second company, NetCentric, he created “software for inside the Internet” and is credited with co-creating the term “cloud computing” alongside George Favaloro from Compaq. Sean continued as an entrepreneur and investor, creating and supporting a range of business, humanitarian and educational endeavors. A major promoter of economic and social development, he founded JumpStart International in 2003. JumpStart was a leading humanitarian engineering organization based in Baghdad and which operated throughout Iraq during the post-war period of 2003-2006. He spent a few years running JumpStart, which for a time had a staff of over 3000, running up to 80 projects at a time in Baghdad, Fallujah, and Najaf. As benefactor of the O’Sullivan Foundation, Sean has also been a primary funder of organizations such as the Khan Academy, Mathletes and CoderDojo. As the founding Chairman of the Irish Entrepreneurship Forum and founder of Open Ireland, he was a leader and influencer of Irish government policy in fueling economic growth and recovery in the technology sector. Sean was a regular investment panelist on the popular RTÉ TV show Dragon’s Den, and an occasional columnist for Ireland’s Sunday Business Post. Sean holds a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Masters of Fine Arts in Film Production from the University of Southern California.

Matt leads Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, a $2B investment program focused on supporting companies building new technologies that make the goal of becoming net-zero achievable. An experienced technology executive, Matt joined Amazon in 2006 as a member of the company’s Corporate Development group, where he helped develop and execute M&A and investment strategies for multiple business units. In addition, he led product development for a number of new initiatives involving digital media and advertising. Prior to Amazon, Matt worked in private equity and co-founded an Internet startup. He also implemented microcredit lending programs for small businesses in Central America as a Peace Corps volunteer. Matt received a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Dartmouth College and an MBA, with concentrations in business strategy and analytical finance, from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Jason Pontin is a Partner at DCVC, where his belief that emerging technologies and new scientific insights can solve urgent challenges and expand human possibilities inspires his investments in Deep Tech and life sciences companies. Among his operational responsibilities at DCVC, he helps portfolio companies tell their stories. He was the first investor in DCVC-backed Totus Medicines, where he is a founding board member, and in Menten.AI. Before joining DCVC, he was a senior partner and senior advisor at Flagship Pioneering in Cambridge, MA, where he worked with the enterprise’s therapeutics and agriculture companies. Jason was CEO and editor in chief of MIT Technology Review and editor of Red Herring magazine, the bible of the dot.com boom. At MIT, he founded MIT Solve, the Institute’s open innovation platform, which deploys capital and other resources toward solutions to grand challenges; chaired the MIT Enterprise Forum, the Institute’s global entrepreneurial community; and was senior advisor to MIT’s 16th President, Susan Hockfield. He has written for a range of publications including a column for the New York Times and articles for many other newspapers and magazines like The Economist, The Financial Times, The Boston Globe and The Believer. He still writes, mostly for WIRED. At TED 2013, he delivered a Talk, “Can technology solve our big problems?” which has been seen 1.6 million times. Jason was raised in Berkeley and on a farm on the North Coast of California, where his family raised game birds for restaurants in the Bay Area. He was educated in the United Kingdom at Keble College, Oxford University, where he was awarded a B.A. and M.A in humanities fields completely unrelated to his investment interests.

Sophie Purdom invests in and supports early-stage climate tech founders & their companies via her venture capital fund Planeteer Capital. She also writes CTVC, a strategic data platform and climate innovation newsletter with 50,000+ subscribers that's been cited in the WSJ, Financial Times, and NYTimes. Prior, Sophie launched an ESG fund at a major endowment, consulted at Bain & Co., published a book on sustainable investing, and helped found a carbon-negative ammonia fertilizer company.

Chen Qiufan (aka Stanley Chan) is an award-winning author, translator, creative producer, and curator. He is the president of the World Chinese Science Fiction Association. His works include Waste Tide, Future Disease, and The Algorithms for Life. The founder of Thema Mundi, a content development studio, he lives in Beijing and Shanghai.

Originally from beautiful Split, Croatia, Inja received her PhD from Cambridge University in molecular and synthetic biology and masters from ETH Zurich in biophysics and protein structure. After completing further academic research, she worked in analytical consulting in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries before joining Matt Gibson to co-found New Culture as part of IndieBio, the world’s leading biotech start-up accelerator. Inja also led social impact projects in Mozambique and Tanzania and was awarded a national scholarship from the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education, and Sports as an undergrad in Zagreb. She is a devoted foodie, former dancer and badminton player, and a data geek to the core.

Katie serves as the CEO & Managing Partner of The Engine, a venture capital fund built by MIT, that invests in early-stage companies solving the world’s biggest problems through the convergence of breakthrough science, engineering and leadership. She serves as a Board Member at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Form Energy, Via Separations, and Lilac Solutions. Katie has advised hundreds of founders and invested in over 100 companies. Key investments include Pillpack (acquired by Amazon for $1 billion), Bevi, GrabCad, Synack, Zagster, NBD Nano, Neurala and Amino. She holds an MBA from Yale and BA in Biology from Oberlin College.

Dr. Emily Reichert serves as Chief Executive Officer of Greentown Labs, the largest climatetech incubator in North America. As the organization’s first employee, Emily spearheaded the rapid growth of Greentown Labs, incubating hundreds of climate-focused startups that have created thousands of jobs and attracted partners from around the world. Today, Greentown Labs has grown to 35 employees managing a community of nearly 130 startups across two locations – Somerville, MA (HQ) and Houston, TX. Emily started her career at Arthur D. Little as a Ph.D. scientist and progressed into R&D, business development and general management roles. Prior to Greentown Labs, she was the Director of Business Operations at the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry where she helped grow the angel-funded startup into a sustainable contract R&D business with a mission to minimize environmental impact of chemical products. Emily has been appointed to leadership positions on innovation, economic development, entrepreneurship, and clean technology commercialization at the city, state, and federal level including the City of Somerville’s Chamber of Commerce, the Massachusetts Governor’s Economic Development Planning Council, the Massachusetts Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative, and the U.S. Secretary of Commerce’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She holds a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and earned her MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.

David Rowan was founding Editor-in-Chief of WIRED magazine’s UK edition before becoming a prolific angel investor and author. He runs a not-for-profit community called VOYAGERS, which connects mission-driven founders through meetups, weekend adventures and online networking. VOYAGERS has strong climate-tech and health-tech communities, and David is currently running a community-based investment fund built on the climate-tech community.

Kevin’s expertise in policy and strategic communications spans climate, public health, national security, and tech. He served in the Obama Administration as a policy and communications advisor to multiple cabinet secretaries, including speechwriter to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Chief Speechwriter and advisor to Gina McCarthy (then-Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, now President Biden's Climate Advisor). Prior to EPA, Kevin served on President Obama's climate team; during his tenure at the Pentagon, he earned 2016 Forbes 30 under 30 recognition in the Law and Policy category. Kevin is also a member of the energy policy discipline at the Truman National Security Project. During graduate study at Yale University’s School of the Environment in climate policy and international affairs, he worked as a climate negotiations advisor at the UN. Kevin's experience advising executive leadership on policy and communications goes beyond federal government -- spanning philanthropy, academic medicine, city politics, and world-leading tech and interactive-media companies (ex: The Walt Disney Company). Today, Kevin leads growth strategy and sustainability at R-Zero Systems, a fast-growing public health tech company fundamentally raising the bar for smart and healthy buildings in a post-pandemic world. In addition, Kevin spends time advising multinational companies on sustainability and climate goals and facilitates dialogues between climate tech innovators and policymakers.

Josh Santos is the co-founder and CEO of Noya, a company that’s reversing climate change by capturing CO2 from the sky using existing commercial cooling towers. Before starting Noya, he took the technical skills he learned during his time studying chemical engineering at MIT and applied them in the business world. After graduating, Josh was the Chief of Staff at Labdoor, a startup that tests dietary supplements on behalf of consumers, where he built B2B products and services from scratch. He then went on to become a Project Manager on the Model 3 program at Tesla, where he helped to scale the production rate of the Model 3 after it launched, and then on to become the first EV Program Manager in Harley-Davidson’s new electric vehicle division, where he helped the team scale from 6 to 30 people in the newly-opened Mountain View office. Outside of the office, you can find Josh reading or sailing in the San Francisco Bay.

Jon Shieber is a venture partner and the editor in chief at Footprint Coalition. He was a senior editor at Techcrunch and previously worked as a senior reporter for Dow Jones & Co., covering venture capital and private equity investment in cleantech, climate tech, and energy from Los Angeles, New York and Shanghai.

Dr. Sandhya Sriram, PhD is the CEO and Co-founder of Shiok Meats Pte. Ltd., Singapore, the first cell-based seafood & meat company in Southeast Asia and the first cell-based Crustacean company globally. With her at the helm, Shiok Meats has raised USD 30 Million in funding since its inception in 2018, from a global suite of investors - USA, Europe, Singapore, Japan, South Korea to name a few. A stem cell biologist and scientist by training and education, a former business development professional, a serial entrepreneur, and a thought leader - all in one - Sandhya was recently named as part of the 2021 class of Bloomberg New Economy Catalysts and as one of Forbes Women in Tech. She is also an advisor and investor to trailblazing Food Tech start-ups and has spoken at leading industry conferences worldwide. A proud mother to an 8-year-old, a conscious lifestyle blogger, and an avid traveller, Sandhya likes to call herself a productive juggler. General Profile: Sandhya has over ten years of experience working with muscle, adipose, cells, and stem cells. After graduating with a Ph.D. from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Sandhya pursued her postdoctoral work at A*STAR in Singapore. Following four years of postdoctoral work, she took up business development at a research institute.

Kiersten is a Managing Partner at DCVC Bio where she invests in early stage companies that work tirelessly to build Deep Tech platforms to develop therapeutics, improve agriculture and food, and build novel businesses in industrial biotechnology. Prior to DCVC, Kiersten was an Investment Director at Monsanto Growth Ventures (MGV), which invested in a similar thesis. Kiersten serves on the boards of multiple Deep Tech companies, including past roles in acquired companies Blue River Technology (John Deere) and Vital Fields (The Climate Corporation). She is also a member of the Investment Committee of Genome Canada GAAP, is on the Keystone Symposia Scientific Advisory Board, and the Danforth Center Board. Previously, Kiersten was a Management Consultant specialized in early stage company development. She was a Scientist in Genetics & Molecular Biology at the University of Alberta and at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Kiersten received a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology & Genetics and an MBA in finance from the University of Alberta.

Driven by a passionate belief in the power of science and the desire to create meaningful change, Karsten Temme, Ph.D., has focused his work on improving farmer economics. Currently CEO and co-founder of Pivot Bio, Karsten and his team have developed a microbial nitrogen fertilizer that improves farmer outcomes without environmental downsides of synthetic nitrogen. Karsten earned his BS and MS degrees in biomedical engineering from the University of Iowa and his Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of California-Berkeley Joint Graduate Group.

Jason Thompson is the Chief Financial Officer at Redwood Materials. Prior to joining Redwood, he spent four years as Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis and Treasurer for Valvoline, a global finished lubricant manufacturer and marketer. He also had leadership responsibility for investor relations and enterprise risk management while at Valvoline. Prior to that Jason spent six years with Ashland, a global specialty chemical manufacturer, where he led the process of separating Valvoline and Ashland into two independent companies and the subsequent initial public offering of Valvoline in 2016. Previously, Jason served in the United States Navy and worked at the National Security Agency as a language and intelligence analyst.

In 2017, achieving the goal of his search fund, David engaged with NovoNutrients: investing in it, pivoting it, and taking his current role as its CEO. NovoNutrients transforms waste, industrial CO2 into feed ingredients through industrial biotech – initially for the fast-growing aquaculture sector. For the prior dozen years, David was the sole manager of another fund, Aquacopia. That five-company, seed-stage portfolio had a thematic focus on aquaculture. The companies ranged from an aquafeed ingredient manufacturer to a distributor and marketer of sustainable seafood. The fund also led investments into Open Blue, InnovaSea, and Futuna. Including a prior start-up that David co-founded, those six companies raised $250M. That prior start-up, an online industrial marketplace called NetworkOil and then Network International, was acquired by Liquidity Services (NASDAQ: LQDT). After earning an economics A.B. from Princeton, David’s career had started in “web 1.0” internet sector roles around general management, entrepreneurial corporate development, and consultative technology sales.

Dr. Uma Valeti is the CEO and Founder of UPSIDE Foods, the world’s leading cultivated meat company. UPSIDE Foods was the first company focused on growing meat directly from animal cells and has led the industry ever since. Since 2015, UPSIDE Foods has achieved numerous industry-defining milestones, including being the first company to produce multiple species of cultivated meat (beef, chicken and duck), to partner with the existing meat industry, and to sell a cultivated meat product in the United States. UPSIDE Foods has raised over $600 million from a diverse coalition of investors including Richard Branson, John Mackey, Bill Gates, Temasek, ADG, Softbank, Threshold, Baillie Gifford, Norwest, Cargill, Tyson Foods and Whole Foods. Uma’s vision is to enable people around the world to eat the meat they love, while transforming the food system to become more sustainable and humane. Uma has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Aspen Ideas Festival and SXSW. In 2019 he was named a “Global Thinker of the Decade” by Foreign Policy magazine. Uma is a Mayo Clinic-trained cardiologist and an adjunct professor in Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University.

Garrett Winther is a Partner at HAX, the world’s first and largest venture capital backed program for Hard Tech. He empowers new startups with early stage investment, defining go-to-market strategies, and continuous development of HAX’s global ecosystem of founders, partners, and investors. Prior to joining HAX, Garrett enjoyed eight years with IDEO, a global design and innovation firm, where he lead large innovation programs and global client relationships across a diverse portfolio of automotive, healthcare, retail, and consumer electronics businesses. During his time at IDEO, he and his teams influenced over eighty billion dollars in client’s annual revenue, launched numerous corporate ventures, and instilled cultures of ongoing innovation around the world. Garrett also constantly draws from the highs and lows of launching his own venture-backed hardware startups in the past. Garrett is continuously learning and building new ventures which has lead to a breadth of capabilities that complement his degree in Mechanical Engineering from M.I.T…

Julie Wolf is the CSO Communications Director of IndieBio NY, where she promotes breakthrough biotech applications and the founders who develop them. She uses social media, audio, video, written content, and live events to engage with audiences and empowers enterprising scientists to do the same. Prior to joining IndieBio, Julie worked in communications for the American Society for Microbiology. She has built multi-partner communities around science education, application, and entrepreneurship in the nonprofit, academic, and startup fields. She also hosted the popular podcast Meet the Microbiologist. Julie was part of the founding team at synthetic biology start-up Brooklyn Bio Inc., and she maintains a strong commitment to scientific education and teaches molecular biology at the New York community biolab, Genspace. Julie earned her Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Minnesota and has 15 years experience in molecular biology as a research scientist. She is passionate about making science accessible and relevant to everyone.

Pae is a General Partner at SOSV and CTO at IndieBio, where she is responsible for portfolio management and technical oversight. Prior to joining IndieBio, Pae served as the Scientific Director of Telefónica’s moonshot factory, Alpha (in Barcelona). She was Science Director at the US Office of Naval Research – Global (out of Singapore), and technical consultant at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Her whole career, Pae has been investing in high risk solutions to intractable problems for national defense, humanity, and the planet. Pae earned her PhD at Duke in Electrical Engineering and her BSE from Princeton.

Larissa Zimberoff is an author and journalist covering the intersection of food, business and technology. Her book, Technically Food: Inside Silicon Valley's Mission to Change What We Eat, is out now. She's written on the promise of fake eggs, the potential of peas, and how artificial intelligence saved a winery. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Time, Bloomberg Businessweek, Insider and many more publications. She worked in the tech industry in San Francisco for over a decade before moving to the east coast and embarking on a new career. She received her MFA from The New School, and almost became a New Yorker after living there for seven years. Her decade spent working in tech helps her to translate the frenzy over today’s food startups. Her hard-earned belief in technology is matched by an equally precious hope for foods that come from the natural world. When not chasing a story you can find her hiking up steep mountains or cycling around town looking for the best bakery.