2022 Speakers

Mona Alsubaei, member of the investment team of USV, is focused on its $162 million Climate Fund. Before USV, Mona worked at CrossBoundary, an emerging markets investment advisory firm where she was responsible for growing the firm’s Middle East and Central Asia presence. Mona started her career in policy and international economics at the United Nations. Mona is a global nomad who lived and worked in over eight countries but always has a special place in her heart for her hometown – Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Candice Ammori is the founder of The Climate Vine and advises climate tech startups. She was most recently the Founding Director of On Deck Climate Tech, where she built a startup ecosystem and invested in climate tech companies. In the last year, she brought together 750+ people from across the global climate tech ecosystem, from policy experts to investors and founders, and helped talented folks start dozens of impactful organizations. Before that, her career spanned finance, data science, VR, cloud computing, and running a local business. She has a grad degree in statistics (focused on the ethics of AI) from the University of Michigan.

Carlos Araque, CEO of Quaise (deep geothermal, raised $70M). Carlos Araque is an engineer with a background in technology transfer, product development, and venture capital. He was the Technical Director for The Engine, MIT’s groundbreaking fund and platform to commercialize world-changing ideas. During his time at The Engine, Carlos got introduced to the work of Dr. Paul Woskov from the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center on disruptive millimeter wave drilling technology for deep geothermal heat access, and founded Quaise, Inc. to pursue commercialization of the technology at scale. He leads the company as its CEO, with teams in Houston, Boston and Cambridge UK. Carlos is from Medellin, Colombia and has BS and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.

Doug Bernauer is the CEO and Co-Founder of Radiant, a "test first" nuclear technology company. He brings over a decade of experience from SpaceX, where he led Avionics for Grasshopper, their first rocket with landing legs. While working on power systems for Mars, Doug realized that nuclear technology would be required for life to become multi-planetary. However, he quickly understood the need to provide clean energy for humans on earth needed urgent action. Thus, the team began to develop Kaleidos--a portable high temperature gas reactor, to replace diesel generators for microgrids, reliable backup power, and clean charging power for electric vehicles. When he is not challenging nuclear reactor design or forging a hands-on engineering culture, Doug enjoys spending time with his wife and 4 kids, engaging in debates about history, economics, or music, and is a self proclaimed rule-master at game nights.

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.

Dr. Etosha Cave is co-founder and CSO of Twelve, a new kind of chemical company built for the climate era that is making everyday products from air, not oil. Etosha earned a B.S. in engineering from Franklin W. Olin College as a member of the first class. She subsequently worked at the McMurdo Station in Antarctica, where she tested a spectroscopy system that was being designed for a NASA Rover mission. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. Etosha is an Accel Innovation Scholar, an Echoing Green Fellow, and a Smithsonian Institution Innovator to Watch. Twelve was supported in their seed stage by Activate with an entrepreneurial fellowship at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and by Elemental Excelerator.

Christina Chang is a Partner at Lowercarbon Capital, the venture capital firm backing kickass companies that make real money unf**king the planet. Dr. Chang was previously a Fellow at ARPA-E in the U.S. Department of Energy, where she developed new chemistry for sustainable manufacturing of commodities, including iron and steel. She completed her PhD in physical chemistry at Harvard. As a Marshall Scholar, she completed Master's degrees in chemistry at the University of Cambridge and sustainable energy/mechanical engineering at Imperial College London. She graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with a bachelor's in chemistry and a certificate in computer science. Dr. Chang is a United States Presidential Scholar, a Goldwater Scholar, and an alumna of the Research Science Institute. She speaks English (native), fluent Spanish and conversational French.

Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch and the founder of Future Proof, a publication covering climate and energy. He is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing and has written for Wired magazine, The Wire China, the Chicago Tribune, and NOVA Next, among others. De Chant was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, and he received his doctorate in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his bachelor’s degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.

Yet-Ming Chiang is the Kyocera Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, where his research focuses on clean energy technologies including non-aqueous and aqueous batteries for transportation and grid-scale storage, and electrochemical production of construction materials. He has brought several laboratory discoveries to commercial implementation, including the development of high-power lithium iron phosphate batteries, a semi-solid electrode approach to low-cost lithium-ion battery manufacturing, and batteries for long-duration grid storage. He has published about 300 scientific articles and holds about 100 issued U.S. patents, of which more than 70 have been licensed to or are held by practicing companies. Chiang is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and Fellow of the Materials Research Society, the American Ceramic Society, and the National Academy of Inventors. His work in energy has been recognized by the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneer Award (2016), the Economist’s Innovation Award (Energy and Environment Category, 2012), The Electrochemical Society Battery Division’s Battery Technology Award (2012), and an R&D 100 Editor’s Choice Award (2006). Chiang has co-founded several companies based on research from his MIT laboratory including American Superconductor Corporation (1987), A123 Systems (2001), 24M Technologies (2010), Desktop Metal (2015), Form Energy (2017), and Sublime Systems (2020). He was co-director of the MIT Future of Energy Storage study (2022) and leads the newly inaugurated Center for Electrification and Decarbonization of Industry at MIT.

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.

Casey Crownhart is a climate reporter for MIT Technology Review, where she covers renewable energy, transportation, and climate policy. Her work has also appeared in outlets including Popular Science and Atlas Obscura. Casey graduated from NYU’s science journalism program and received her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and literature from MIT.

John Diener is a driven entrepreneur with a passion for food sustainability. In 2020 he co-founded Vertical Oceans, a vertical aquaculture system revolutionizing seafood production using cutting-edge technologies. Vertical Oceans recently closed an over-subscribed $3.5m Seed Round led by Khosla Ventures. Before founding Vertical Oceans, John held senior positions in the AgriFood Tech industry, including COO of an insect protein startup and CEO of an aquaculture nutrition and genetics company. He is an AgFunder mentor, advising AgriFood Tech startups on technology development and scaling. John is on the Investment Committee of the Trendlines VC fund and a direct investor in several AgriFood Tech startups. John completed his BA in Economics with Honors from the University of Chicago in just three years. He later obtained an MSc in Sustainable Aquaculture from the University of St.Andrews while working full time as CEO of Gold Coin / SyAqua. With an insatiable curiosity,John constantly explores new technologies applied to food sustainability. He lives in Singapore with his wife and two young girls equally passionate about the ocean and its conservation.

Arturo Elizondo is Founder and CEO of food technology company, The EVERY Company, based in Silicon Valley. EVERY leveraged precision fermentation to brew real animal proteins without the use of a single animal – starting with the world’s first animal-free egg proteins made without chickens. Prior to founding EVERY under the name Clara Foods in 2014, Arturo served under Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the investment bank Credit Suisse. He has been named to Forbes 30 Under 30, America’s 50 Greatest Disruptors by Newsweek, the Person of the Year by the National Hispanic Institute, and one of 10 Latinos who inspire the United States by BBC World News. Arturo hails from Laredo, Texas and grew up living on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. He holds a degree in Government & Comparative Politics from Harvard University.

Ms Grace Fu began her career in 1985 with the Overseas Union Bank, and later joined the Haw Par Group. She joined the PSA Corporation in 1995, and held the position of Chief Executive Officer, PSA South East Asia and Japan. Ms Fu was appointed Singapore's Minister for Sustainability and the Environment in July 2020. Prior to this, she was Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, and Leader of the House. She enjoys an active lifestyle, which includes running, yoga and hiking. She is married with three sons.

Christoph Gebald is the co-founder and co-CEO of Climeworks, one of the leading companies in direct air capture, based in Switzerland. Climeworks focuses on capturing CO2 from the air which, when combined with storage enables permanent removal from the atmosphere. With more than 15 years of experience in CO2 capture from the air, he is considered by his peers as an expert in this growing and important industry. He is a mechanical engineer by training, holding a master’s degree with distinction and a Ph.D. from ETH Zurich. During his Ph.D., Christoph researched direct air capture technologies and founded Climeworks on this basis together with Jan Wurzbacher in 2009. As co-CEO, Christoph oversees the commercial, legal, marketing and staffing side of the business. Christoph believes that to fight climate change and take meaningful action, a portfolio of solutions is needed to reach global climate targets.

Kathy Hannun is the Co-Founder and President of Dandelion Energy, the largest home geothermal company in the United States. Before founding Dandelion, she was a Rapid Evaluator at X, Alphabet's innovation lab, where she focused on identifying business opportunities to harness technology for large-scale positive impact. She started Dandelion as an X project and then launched it into an independent startup company in May 2017. Hannun graduated from Stanford with a BS in Civil Engineering and an MS in Computer Science.

I love technology and entrepreneurs. I founded Unity many years ago. Now I spend my time worrying about global warming. My background is in programming, an assortment of university dabbling, creating companies, and helping entrepreneurs. I served as CEO of Unity Technologies since co-founding it in 2003 and until October 2014.

Sarah is the Director of Global Public Policy at X (formerly Google X) where she helps engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs invent and launch new technologies to solve big problems in the world today. Before joining Google, Sarah was Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Senior Policy Adviser on Culture, Media and Sport in Downing Street. She is a Trustee of NESTA and a part-time lecturer at Stanford University in California.

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.

Jesse D. Jenkins is an assistant professor and macro-scale energy systems engineer at Princeton University with a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment. He leads the Princeton ZERO Lab (Zero-carbon Energy systems Research and Optimization Laboratory), which focuses on improving and applying optimization-based energy systems models to evaluate and optimize low-carbon energy technologies, guide investment and research in innovative energy technologies, and generate insights to improve energy and climate policy and planning decisions. Dr. Jenkins earned a PhD and SM from MIT, worked previously as a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, and spent six years as an energy and climate policy analyst prior to embarking on his academic career. Dr. Jenkins recently served on the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine expert committee on Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System, was a principal investigator and lead author of Princeton's landmark Net-Zero America study, and leads the REPEAT Project (repeatproject.org), which provides regular, timely, and independent environmental and economic evaluation of federal energy and climate policies as they’re proposed and enacted. He regularly provides technical analysis and policy advice for non-profit organizations, policy makers, investors, and early-stage technology ventures working to accelerate the deployment of clean energy.

As Partner at SOSV, Benjamin works with startups on strategy, marketing, PR and fundraising. He is considered a global thought leader on deeptech innovation and ecosystems, and represents SOSV in many global events such as Techcrunch Disrupt, Hello Tomorrow and Slush. Benjamin also lectured at Berkeley Haas, CentraleSupelec, National University of Singapore and Zhejiang University where he gave a course on Deep Tech Ventures. He has been featured on Bloomberg TV, WSJ, The Economist, Nature, Wired and has contributed to TechCrunch, Forbes, VentureBeat and IEEE Spectrum. Moving from France to Asia in 2000, Benjamin is a reformed mechanical engineer who turned to strategy and worked in Japan, South Korea and China. His experience covers several tech industries: telecom, mobile, gaming, hardware and deeptech. Prior to SOSV, Benjamin was the founder of a strategy consultancy which researched Asia-based digital innovations, with clients such as Microsoft, Citi and Harvard Business School. He also founded Mobile Monday Beijing, a community of thousands of mobile industry professionals in China.

Dr. Raffael Jovine is the Founder & Chief Scientist of Brilliant Planet. He has worked at Yale, MIT, UCSB & Wood Hole Oceanographic where he studied natural algal blooms. He has been working on algal photosynthesis since the beginning of his academic studies. He joined Booz Allen and as a consultant where he discovered that in industry as in nature, scale matters. In 2008 he was granted a patent for a “Method of Carbon Sequestration” which replicates natural algal blooms year-round, on land, using free resources – and – this method is highly scalable. With a couple of detours, he started a company that is now Brilliant Planet and has been growing and testing the new low-cost algal cultivation method for CO2 capture and sequestration in South Africa, Oman and Morocco. He is also the author of ‘Light to Life’ that outlines how photosynthesis can save the planet again.

Shayle Kann is a Partner at Energy Impact Partners, a $2.5 billion+ venture capital firm backed by a coalition of the world’s largest energy and industrial companies. He leads the firm's efforts in deep decarbonization, investing at the frontier of climate tech. Shayle is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy, a member of the NYSERDA Investor Advisory Board and a member of the PRIME Impact Fund Investor Advisory Council. Previously, Shayle built and ran GTM Research, the market intelligence arm of Greentech Media, through and beyond GTM's successful 2016 acquisition by Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ: VRSK). Shayle is a renowned expert on the future of energy and climate. He has spoken at conferences around the world, testified in front of the U.S. Congress, and been frequently cited in outlets such as the New York Times, Wall St. Journal, Washington Post, Economist, and Bloomberg. He is co-host of the popular podcast Catalyst. Prior to GTM, Shayle was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar, researching renewable energy project finance in Australia. He also worked at Conservation Services Group (acquired by ClearResult) and the California Public Utilities Commission.

Dr. David Kirtley is founder and CEO at Helion, a privately funded fusion electricity company creating the world’s first fusion generator. He is passionate about inventing and leading teams to develop disruptive technologies to improve access to energy, reduce carbon emissions, and provide a better future for the following generations. Dr. Kirtley is a fellow of the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Department of Defense. He is a leading authority on advanced fuel fusion generators, plasma-based in-space propulsion systems, and space reentry architectures. Dr. Kirtley has graduate degrees in Nuclear, Plasma, and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan. He has over 100 publications, 60+ patents and has been pursuing advanced fusion systems since the late 1990s.

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.

Allison Kopf is the Chief Growth Officer at IUNU, the leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) company serving the Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) industry. Previously, Kopf founded CEA software company Artemis, which was acquired by IUNU. Artemis won the highly coveted Disrupt Cup at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco in 2015. Kopf was named one of Forbes 2019 30 Under 30 as well as the 2021 Global Women Fresh “Woman of Impact.” She is a sought-after speaker on the future of agriculture, giving keynotes at such conferences as TEDx, Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit, Forbes AgTech Summit and the Alltech Ideas Conference. Kopf sits on the Boards of Santa Clara University’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Ciocca Center for Entrepreneurship, and Cargill EDGE; is an entrepreneur-in-residence at Ireland’s national accelerator, NDRC; and is an Investment Partner at XFactor Ventures.

Allegra is an investment professional passionate by innovations that can address climate change, and driven by the process of partnering with entrepreneurs to accelerate their development and maximise their impact. She is currently partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a 2bn+ USD climate focused venture fund structured to last 20 years and dedicated to backing disruptive technologies to decarbonize the economy at large (electricity, manufacturing, agriculture, transportation and building).

Carl-Erik Lagercrantz is the CEO of Vargas, a Swedish Impact company builder on a mission to build impact companies by putting innovation, technology and capital to work. Vargas enables the transition to a green economy, one industry at a time. By pushing boundaries, they target hard-to-abate industries to accelerate decarbonisation. They have started with green batteries, energy storage, steel and hydrogen. Polarium, Northvolt and H2 Green Steel are proofs of concept for Vargas greenfield model for building companies from the ground up. Carl-Erik has over 20 years’ experience in the IT and telco segments with leading roles at, among others, Utfors, Telenor, and British Telecom Nordics. He also has a background as a successful entrepreneur. Carl-Erik is the chairman of Northvolt, Polarium, and vice-chairman of H2 Green Steel.

Dawn Lippert is Founder and CEO of Elemental Excelerator, a global climate technology investor and non-profit impact organization. Under Dawn's leadership, Elemental has invested in more than 130 startups in the energy, mobility, water, circular economy, and agriculture sectors, and those companies have gone on to raise over $7 billion in follow-on funding to date. In addition to leading Elemental Excelerator, Dawn is Founding Partner of Earthshot Ventures, a $80 million venture fund spun out of Elemental in 2021. Dawn is also Director of Innovation and Community at Emerson Collective, the investment and philanthropic platform led by Laurene Powell Jobs, where she advises on climate work and investing. Dawn currently serves on the Audit Committee of Climate Real Impact Solutions II and the Clean Energy 4 America board, and is a member of PRIME Coalition’s Investment Advisory Committee. Additionally, Dawn was a recipient of the 2020 UN Global Climate Action Award, was named a Grist 50 Fixer in 2019, received a 2015 C3E Award from the US Department of Energy, and served as a 2015 Omidyar Fellow. Dawn graduated cum laude from Yale University with a B.A. in environmental studies, and received her Master’s degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Management.

Amanda Little is a columnist for Bloomberg and a professor of journalism and science writing at Vanderbilt University. Little is also the author of the bestseller The Fate of Food: What We'll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World, a five-year adventure into the lands, minds and machines shaping the future of sustainable food. She also wrote Power Trip: The Story of America's Love Affair With Energy. Amanda has has written about energy, technology and the environment for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wired, Rolling Stone and NewYorker.com. She has interviewed politically diverse figures from Barack Obama to Lindsey Graham, and has been interviewed by journalists including Terry Gross and Fareed Zakaria. Her recent TED Talk, "Climate change is a problem you can taste," has more than 1M views. Amanda is ask the founder and executive director of Kidizenship, a media platform for students interested in civics and politics.

Connie 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.

Yin’s focus at MCJ is on community strategy, investments and post-investment support, all with a lens toward ensuring diversity, equity and inclusion are at the forefront of decision making. Yin previously worked on DEI efforts at Sheryl Sandberg & Dave Goldberg Family Foundation and was GM of Khan Academy’s international business, where she and her team scaled Khan Academy’s content into 30 languages and launched offices in Mexico, Brazil, Peru and India. Yin also built up the first community, international and marketing teams at Coursera. She began her tech career at Google and Microsoft. As the mother of 2 young children, Yin is deeply committed to helping ensure climate solutions scale responsibly in making multi-generational impact. Outside of family and work, Yin enjoys mountain biking, skiing and singing. She feels grateful to be able to split her time between the Bay Area and Vancouver, BC. Yin holds a B.A. in Economics and M. Ed. in counseling, both from UCLA.

Lingrove creates a high-performance carbon-negative product that can replace almost any interior wood application, a $71 billion market, at its most conservative – for Lingrove’s current product portfolio. Joe Luttwak is the Founder and CEO of Lingrove. Trained as a product designer, he is a serial entrepreneur, with three successful ventures under his belt as well as extensive experience in product design and development at top-tier global product and manufacturing companies like Ferrari. He has invented a composite technology, Ekoa®, that can replace wood in almost any application with a high-performance, carbon-negative carbon fiber that has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than steel. Ekoa® will soon replace wood in applications ranging from dashboards in automobiles, to floors, to walls, and everything in between. When not in investor meetings, he can be found in the workshop with his sleeves rolled up, and prototyping with the team.

Robin Millican is Director of U.S. Policy and Advocacy at Breakthrough Energy, a network of entities and initiatives founded by Bill Gates which include investment funds, nonprofit and philanthropic programs, and policy efforts linked by a common commitment to scale the technologies we need to achieve a path to net zero emissions by 2050.  Robin leads the organization’s federal policy and advocacy strategies to accelerate the development and diffusion of clean energy technologies as well as enabling infrastructure. She is based in Breakthrough Energy’s Washington, DC office. Prior to assuming this role with Breakthrough Energy, Robin led the clean energy innovation policy portfolio at Gates Ventures. Robin has over a decade of experience in energy, science, and technology policy, including as a senior strategy consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and as a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate. She holds a Master of Public Policy degree from Duke University, and B.A. in International Studies from Southern Methodist University.

Matías Muchnick is the CEO and founder of NotCo, the international plant-based food tech company founded in Chile that is now the fastest growing food tech brand in Latin America. At just 32 years old, Muchnick has led the company to success on a global scale, having achieved unicorn status at a valuation of $1.5 billion in 2021. Muchnick was also instrumental in forming a joint venture with the Kraft Heinz Company, called The Kraft Heinz Not Company, to reimagine global food production and advance it toward a more sustainable future.

Patrick O'Riordan is founder and Global Head of BioBrew, a corporate venture of AB InBev that aims to bring advanced precision fermentation to commercial scale. Previously, O’Riordan was co-founding partner and VP Exploration at ZX Ventures, the global investment and innovation group of AB InBev. He holds a PhD in Food Science & Technology from University College Cork, Ireland.

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.

Michael Peither is Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of VoltStorage. He studied electrical engineering as well as engineering management and worked in the areas of product development and project management in Germany and the US. In 2014, he started the development of the first Redox Flow Battery prototype that eventually lead to founding VoltStorage in 2016. Within the company, Michael is responsible for the advancement of the battery technology and is (co-) inventor of several patents in the battery space, for which he was also named “Innovator Under 35“ by the MIT Technology Review in 2018.

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.

Jason has spent the last 11 years working in climate-tech, from transacting on RECs and carbon to developing solar and storage, to designing regulations for innovative utility procurement and business models. He's a cofounder of Third Derivative, an ecosystem launched by RMI and designed to commercialize decarbonization technologies and support the scaling of promising climatetech startups.

Sophie Purdom invests in and supports early-stage climate technology founders and their companies. She also writes Climate Tech VC, a newsletter with 35,000+ subscribers on climate and innovation. Prior, Sophie practiced sustainable business; first launching an ESG fund at a major endowment, followed by a few years making decks at Bain & Co., published a book on Sustainable Investing along the way, and helped found an agricultural technology venture which has raised +$65m.

Viraj Puri co-founded Gotham Greens, a pioneer in indoor agriculture and a leading fresh food company. A Certified B Corporation™, Gotham Greens farms with the future in mind, delivering long-lasting and delicious leafy greens, herbs, salad dressings, dips and cooking sauces all year round to retail, restaurant and foodservice customers. Over the past decade under Viraj’s leadership, Gotham Greens has grown to be one of the largest and most commercially successful indoor farming companies in the world with 450 employees and 10 high-tech greenhouse facilities across seven U.S. states. Prior to Gotham Greens, Viraj led start-up enterprises in the United States, India and Malawi focused on sustainable agriculture, green building, renewable energy and environmental design. He has been awarded fellowships from TED, Wild Gift and the Environmental Leadership Program. In addition, Viraj was recognized as Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur Of The Year® New York in 2021, one of the “100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs of 2020” by Goldman Sachs and Crain’s NY Business “40 under 40.” His work has been published in several books and journals, including “Innovation on Tap,” “100% Renewable: Energy Autonomy in Action” and the UN Academic Journal. He serves on various boards and committees, including the Urban Agriculture and Innovation Production Federal Advisory Committee for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Viraj is a LEED® Accredited Professional and earned a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University.

Tulika Raj is Co-Founder and CEO of SunGreenH2, an award-winning venture backed startup revolutionising zero emissions by dramatically lowering the cost of green hydrogen with proprietary technology for high performance electrolysis. She has over $2B transaction experience in renewable and low carbon energy having successfully scaled renewable companies and led large project investments over a career spanning BP Alternative Energy, Nexif Energy and renewable funds of Denham Capital, Octopus Investments and Keppel Capital. Tulika received an MBA from the London Business School and Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.

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.

Chris Sacca is the co-founder of Lowercarbon Capital and an accomplished venture investor, company advisor, and entrepreneur, managing a portfolio of countless technology, communication, and consumer product startups through his firm Lowercase Capital. Alongside his wife Crystal, Chris grew Lowercase — primarily known for its investments in very early-stage technology companies like Twitter, Uber, Instagram, Twilio, Docker, Optimizely, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Stripe — into one of history’s most successful funds ever. The performance of the Lowercase funds made Chris one of the then youngest members of the Forbes Midas List in 2011 and vaulted him to the number two spot as well as earned him a spot on Vanity Fair’s New Establishment list before his retirement from broad-based venture capital in 2017 to focus on healing the climate, restoring American democracy, promoting diversity within technology and venture capital, and reforming the criminal justice system among other activist, political, and philanthropic pursuits. These days, Chris heads a science and investing team at Lowercarbon Capital pursuing the world’s most ambitious solutions to the climate crisis that is threatening all life on the planet. Across the realms of energy, building materials, transportation, food, industrial chemicals, reforestation, and all of the underlying logistics, Lowercarbon is showing the world that focusing on climate solutions is just good business. In parallel with this work, Chris and Crystal have become some of the nation’s most prolific supporters of non-profit climate research.

Recently awarded Best Female Investor by Bundesverband Deutsche Startups e.V (German Startup Awards), Daria builds on 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship and finance. Before initiating the World Fund, she built the first German-based proptech and energy tech VC. Daria is an expert advisor to the European Commission and maintains a close relationship with international tech thought leaders as co-founder of the think tank 1E9 Denkfabrik.

Susan Schofer is a Partner at SOSV global venture capital firm and serves as Chief Science Officer at HAX, the world’s premier venture program accelerating early stage hard tech startups. She works with new startups via early stage investment, defining key milestones and go-to-market strategies, and is responsible for scientific oversight and building capabilities to support portfolio companies.Prior to joining HAX, Susan served as SVP Business Development for Modern Meadow and a member of the executive leadership team for over 7 years, developing new sustainable materials inspired by leather without any animals, where she led product, partnership, and go-to-market strategy and execution from early ideation through to commercialization. Before that, Susan spent 10 years in Silicon Valley working in roles spanning R&D, product development, product management, and business development for Amyris, a pioneer in synthetic biology, and Symyx Technologies, utilizing proprietary high-throughput robotic workflows to accelerate polymer and material discovery and development. Susan also worked as an analyst for management consulting company Mitchell Madison Group. Her passion is working closely with scientific and technical innovation to craft product and business strategy and partnering with founders and the broader ecosystem to implement and commercialize solutions to make a positive impact on people and planet. Susan 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.

Sarah Sclarsic is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Voyager, a venture firm investing in early stage companies focused on decarbonization. She has been building and investing in transformative technology companies since 2009 and brings expertise in mobility, biotech, food and materials production and carbon removal. Prior to Voyager, she co-founded car-sharing firm Getaround and served as the founding business director of Modern Meadow, the world’s first company making biofabricated leather. Sarah serves as an advisor to Frontier, a $925M fund to purchase carbon removal. Sarah is a graduate of Harvard and of MIT, where she earned her M.S. while researching atmospheric carbon removal technologies. She lives in New York City.

Michael Selden, CEO of Finless Foods (cultured and plant-based fish, raised $37.5 million), working on building a future for seafood where the ocean thrives. A stalwart environmentalist since a young age, Michael is dedicating his career to impacting positive change within the seafood industry. Prior to co-founding Finless Foods, he studied high-throughput cancer screening at the Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine, and worked as a research intern at New Harvest, a non-profit dedicated to propelling forward the field of cellular agriculture. When I’m not working towards building a sustainable future for our oceans, Michael hangs out with my bulldog Roscoe, makes music, or reads the latest science fiction. Michael earned a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Jigar Shah was most recently co-founder and President at Generate Capital, where he focused on helping entrepreneurs accelerate decarbonization solutions through the use of low-cost infrastructure-as-a service financing. Prior to Generate Capital, Shah founded SunEdison, a company that pioneered “pay as you save” solar financing. After SunEdison, Shah served as the founding CEO of the Carbon War Room, a global non-profit founded by Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Unite to help entrepreneurs address climate change. Originally from Illinois, Shah holds a B.S. from the University of Illinois-UC and an MBA from the University of Maryland College Park.

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.

Catherine Shu has covered startups in Asia and breaking news for TechCrunch since 2012. Her reporting has also appeared in the New York Times, the Taipei Times, Barron’s, the Wall Street Journal and the Village Voice. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

Dr. Silverman has over 20 years of successful entrepreneur experience in new biotechnology research, development and commercialization and a world leader in methane conversion technologies. Dr. Silverman was recruited to Aromyx as CEO in 2018 to lead a successful recapitalization and relaunch of the company. Before joining Aromyx he was Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Calysta, Inc., where he led development of technology converting methane gas to protein using bacteria. Previously, he was Vice President of Drug Development at Amunix, Inc. Dr. Silverman co-founded Versartis, Inc. in 2008 and participated in the founding and financing of four startup biotechnology companies (Avidia, Diartis, Siluria and Calysta). He has held positions at two public biotechnology companies, Maxygen, Inc. and Amgen, Inc. Dr. Silverman has been involved in raising over $300M in equity financing over his various companies, resulting in over $1.7B of cumulative exit value to date. Dr. Silverman earned his B.Sc. in Molecular Biology from UC San Diego and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Stanford University.

Cody Simms resides in Los Angeles and is a Partner at MCJ Collective where he is co-host of the My Climate Journey podcast and climate tech startup investor. He is also co-founder of Climate Changemakers, a 501(c)(4) climate-focused political action non-profit. Cody was previously Senior Vice President of Climate & Sustainability at Techstars as well as an investing partner in Techstars’ institutional venture funds. He joined Techstars in 2013 while establishing the Disney Accelerator powered by Techstars. Earlier in his career, Cody held roles including Chief Product Officer at StumbleUpon, Vice President of Product Management at Yahoo, and Product Manager at The New York Times, Sprint, and NBC Internet. Cody holds an M.A. in Transnational Communication and Global Media from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and a B.A. in History and East Asian Languages and Cultures from the University of Kansas. He is co-author of the Amazon-bestselling book: Levers: The Framework for Building Repeatability into Your Business (leversbook.com).

Sam Smith-Eppsteiner is a partner at Innovation Endeavors. When it comes to investing, Sam gravitates toward ideas that leverage emerging technology, growing datasets and accelerating learning cycles to improve real-world infrastructure. She’s particularly interested in climate change mitigation; opportunities to bring automation, computation, flexibility, and sustainability to industrial sectors; and how the intersection of biology and technology will change the food we eat, materials we use, and more. Sam led the firm’s investments in and currently sits on the board of: Plotlogic, a company leveraging hyperspectral imaging and ML to optimize mine operations; Machina Labs, which is introducing unseen agility to the manufacturing industry by marrying industrial robotic arms with advanced modeling; Fero Labs, a data-driven tool for optimizing manufacturing processes; and FutureProof, a next-generation insurer focused on climate-related risk.

Neal Stephenson is an American writer known for his speculative fiction works, which have been variously categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, maximalism, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk. Stephenson explores areas such as mathematics, cryptography, philosophy, currency, and the history of science. These fictional works have earned him the Hugo, Locus, Arthur C. Clarke, and Prometheus awards. He also writes nonfiction articles about technology in publications such as Wired magazine. He has worked as a member of the technical staff for Blue Origin, a company developing a manned suborbital launch system; as an inventor at Intellectual Ventures Labs; and as Chief Futurist of Magic Leap. Raised in Iowa, Stephenson now lives in Seattle, Washington. He is the bestselling author of the novels "Fall; or," "Dodge in Hell," "The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O." (with Nicole Galland), "Seveneves," "Reamde," "Anathem," "The System of the World," "The Confusion," "Quicksilver," "Cryptonomicon," "The Diamond Age," "Snow Crash," "Zodiac," and the groundbreaking nonfiction work "In the Beginning... Was the Command Line". His latest novel, "Termination Shock," is a technothriller about climate change and geoengineering.

A Partner at Khosla Ventures, Rajesh has two decades of experience assisting and investing in deep tech startups. He manages many of the firm’s investments across renewables generation, storage, hydrogen, industrial decarbonization, plastics, foodtech, healthcare and advanced manufacturing. Previously, Rajesh was the head of Applied Ventures LLC, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials, where he managed a portfolio of 85 deep-tech startups globally, as well as two deep-tech funds in Korea and Taiwan. He led investments and helped build companies, many of which had strong exits, including Enphase Energy, Solid Energy, Rockley, Infinite Power Solutions, Adaptive3D, Tango, Inpria and Norsk Ti. Rajesh was recognized amongst the top 100 global CVCs, on the Global Corporate Venture (GCV) Powerlist. Earlier, he worked at Third Point Ventures and at Lucent’s Bell Labs, where he drove technical assessments and partnerships for several optical, MEMS, and RF device startups, and also led DFR programs for the successful deployment of Lucent’s 10Gb/s and 40Gb/s systems. While pursuing his MBA at Harvard Business School, he worked on Deutsche Bank’s cleantech banking team, and also worked with KV on companies in solar and water. Previously, Rajesh earned a master of science degree from the University of Maryland and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, where he was awarded the Shankar Dayal Sharma (President of India) Medal for overall excellence.

Frederick is Chief Executive of GenZero. In this role, he oversees the direction of the company and leads the execution of strategies to achieve both climate impact and sustainable long-term financial returns. Prior to his appointment at GenZero, Fred held various leadership positions in Sustainability, Portfolio Management and Business Continuity Management in his 12 years at Temasek International. As Managing Director of Sustainable Solutions, he established the team and conceived capability programmes in clean energy, urban, and climate and nature solutions. He led key initiatives such as the establishment of Climate Impact X, a global marketplace and exchange for carbon credits, as well as Singapore’s first brownfield distributed district cooling retrofit project in partnership with SP Group. Fred worked on value creation projects with some of Temasek’s large portfolio companies like Singtel and MediaCorp and led corporate governance and stewardship initiatives within the Portfolio Management team. Fred also led several community programmes. In 2014, he partnered Temasek Foundation to execute a nationwide delivery of mask kits during a severe haze episode and worked with ST Engineering on the development of the world’s first N95 masks specifically designed for young children. Fred holds a MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and a BA and MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Lincoln College, Oxford University.

Duncan is General Partner at SOSV and Managing Director of HAX Shenzhen, where he oversee’s HAX, the world’s first and largest VC backed program for Hard Tech. He is responsible for strategic direction of the program, operations and investments. Prior to joining HAX, he led design and consumer engagement strategy projects for Fortune 500 companies at global design and innovation firm IDEO. Duncan has a strong entrepreneurial background and deep experience of growing businesses in China, having taken numerous hardware products to market from first concepts through research, funding, design, development, manufacturing and assembly to final sales. He obtained his Master’s from Royal College of Art & Imperial College. His design work has won multiple awards and is included in the permanent collection at The Museum of Modern Art.

Vijay is the US Business Editor of The Economist. He is also an award-winning book author and an accomplished public speaker. The Financial Times has declared him to be “a writer to whom it is worth paying attention.” He opened his magazine’s first Shanghai bureau in 2012, and served as its China Business Editor until mid-2017. His editorial responsibilities ranged from business and finance to technology and innovation. He led the editorial team that launched Economist Global Business Review, a successful app that is the first bilingual product offered by The Economist in its 175-year history. His latest book is “Need, Speed and Greed: How the New Rules of Innovation Can Transform Businesses, Propel Nations to Greatness, and Tame the World's Most Wicked Problems". Kirkus Reviews declares it to be “a perfect primer for the post-industrial age” and Amazon named it a Selection of the Month.

Matias is an award-winning innovator and entrepreneur working to build a food system more in harmony with nature. He is the founder and CEO of Beeflow, a biotech company that helps farmers improve the impact of pollination and improve the health of bees through proprietary technologies and advanced scientific knowledge so that farmers can produce a bigger crop without needing additional inputs. He was awarded the 2018 MIT Innovators under 35 award.

Lily Wachter is the CFO of Biomason. She has focused her career on carbon reduction and sustainable development and has spent the past decade leading finance teams at organizations that share these goals. Her experience prior to Biomason included CFO roles at Edeniq, a venture-backed biofuel technology company, and the Fresno Chaffee Zoo. Prior to that, she followed clean energy stocks as an equity analyst at Goldman Sachs. She holds a B.A. in earth and environmental science, with a concentration in mathematics, and a Ph.D. in sustainable development, both of which she received from Columbia University. After college, she taught outdoor education and environmental science at the American Community School in Beirut, Lebanon. As a graduate student, she collaborated with the International Energy Agency, the World Bank, and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

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.

Co-Founder & Head of Technology Development, Traitomic (Carlsberg A/S) Toni is a passionate trait developer with a PhD in crop genetics and over 10 years’ experience in genetic crop improvement. During his time at the renowned Carlsberg Research Laboratory, Toni co-invented Carlsberg’s non-GM trait development technology ‘FIND-IT’ and co-founded the Carlsberg venture Traitomic. Today Toni is supporting Traitomic’s journey to utilise advanced genetic screens to provide more diverse, nutritious, and sustainable food for the future.

Alex Wilhelm is a journalist at TechCrunch where he works on the TechCrunch+ project, and co-hosts the Equity podcast. He's a bit of a financial dweeb, and enjoys writing with the music turned up a bit too far.

Mark has been part of the founding team of World Fund. He focuses on investments in the energy and the building sector. Prior to the World Fund, he worked at an energy company where he managed the early stage venture capital investment arm. Mark started his career as a researcher in decentralized energy technology at Technical University of Munich (TUM). He holds a PhD and a Diploma in Energy Technologies from TUM.

Yishan Wong is bringing Silicon Valley’s expertise in scaling to the climate movement. Dedicated to restoring the planet’s forests to solve climate change, Yishan leads the company to build and deploy tools to tackle the largest bottlenecks to mass-scale reforestation. Terraformation’s technology includes off-grid seed banks that process and store millions of seeds, tracking and monitoring platforms to enable project transparency, solar-powered desalination, and more. Terraformation’s goal in 2022 is to establish the world’s largest decentralized native seed banking network. Prior to founding Terraformation in 2020, Yishan studied Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He also served as the CEO of Reddit, Director of Engineering at Facebook and was part of the engineering team that led to the exponential growth of Paypal. Now, he lives on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi with his family and dogs.

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. She is especially passionate about bridging engineered materials and systems to biology. 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.

Kim is the co-founder of CTVC, the leading resource covering the intersection of climate and innovation read by 32K+ investors and operators. CTVC generates data-driven insights on the climate tech market, which have been featured in channels including Bloomberg, Reuters, Financial Times, and TechCrunch, and highlights leading companies and voices working to bend the climate curve. She was previously a climate tech investor at Energy Impact Partners, a $2.5B AUM venture capital firm investing in a sustainable future backed by a coalition of 40+ energy & industrial companies. Prior to joining EIP, Kim was part of JPMorgan's Tech M&A investment banking team and graduated from Johns Hopkins University.\