COVID-19 has radically altered the world, and it’s deeply underscored the impact human behavior has on our planet. It’s forced us to consider, now more than ever, groundbreaking approaches to climate change, human health solutions, and our broader systems.
The world needs Tough Tech to build the platforms that can create long-term, significant change. At Tough Tech Summit 2020, we explored the opportunities we face today, how we can better respond to the critical challenges at hand, and the role of Tough Tech in instigating such change.
To the thousands of you who joined us for this year’s virtual Tough Tech Summit: thank you! They were truly two outstanding afternoons of discussion and collaboration.
Every keynote conversation, fireside chat, and founder pitch is available in the playlists below. You can also access the videos on our YouTube channel.
Opening remarks by Katie Rae, followed by a fireside chat with Tom Kalil and Mariana Mazzucato about the role of government and policy in fostering entrepreneurship and innovation for public benefit.
Katie Rae, CEO and Managing Partner, The Engine
Tom Kalil, CIO, Schmidt Futures & Entrepreneur-in-Residence, UC Berkeley
Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value, University College London
Each conversation will be held in a virtual breakout room and is designed to be engaging and interactive.
Alán Aspuru-Guzik is a professor of Chemistry and Computer Science at the University of Toronto and is also the Canada 150 Research Chair in Theoretical Chemistry and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute. He is a CIFAR Lebovic Fellow in the Biologically Inspired Solar Energy program. Alán also holds an Google Industrial Research Chair in Quantum Computing.
Alán began his independent career at Harvard University in 2006 and was a Full Professor at Harvard University from 2013-2018. He received his B.Sc. from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1999 and obtained a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004, where he was also a postdoctoral fellow from 2005-2006.
Patrick O. Brown is CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, a company at the forefront of making nutritious, delicious meat and dairy products from plants to satisfy meat lovers and address the environmental impact of animal farming.
After receiving his BA, MD and PhD (in Biochemistry) at the University of Chicago, Pat completed a residency in pediatrics at Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital.
At Stanford, Pat and colleagues developed DNA microarrays, along with the first methods for analyzing, visualizing and interpreting global gene expression programs.
He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine and recipient of the American Cancer Society Medal of Honor. He is also the co-founder of Lyrical Foods, Inc., maker of Kite Hill artisanal nut-milk-based cheeses and yogurts.
Ann DeWitt is a General Partner at The Engine. She serves as a board member for The Engine portfolio companies BioBot, Cellino, E25Bio, Kytopen, Lucy Therapeutics, Mori, Quaise, Syzygy, and Vaxess.
Ann was most recently at Sanofi where she held senior roles in business development and strategic venture investment. Prior to Sanofi, she was at Flagship Pioneering. Ann started her career in R&D at 3M Company, working across fields of materials, biology and engineering. Ann holds an MBA from Harvard and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT. She served on the Board of Women in the Enterprise of Science and Technology and is on the Life Science Council of Springboard Enterprises.
Ilan Gur is the CEO of Activate, whose fellowship enables entrepreneurial scientists and engineers to transform their research into world-changing products and businesses. Activate's entrepreneurial fellowship model originated at Cyclotron Road, a Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab that Gur founded in 2014.
As an entrepreneur, Gur founded two science based startups including Seeo, an advanced battery startup acquired by Bosch. He then served as Program Director at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA-E.
Gur holds Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He is an advisor to the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in support of the Moore Inventor Fellowship and serves as a judge for MIT Technology Review's TR35 award.
Dr. Jennifer Holmgren is CEO of revolutionary carbon recycling company, LanzaTech. Prior to LanzaTech, Jennifer was VP and General Manager of the Renewable Energy and Chemicals business unit at UOP LLC, a Honeywell Company. 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 Jennifer’s guidance, LanzaTech is working towards deploying carbon capture and reuse facilities globally to make fuels and chemicals from waste carbon.
Jennifer holds a B.Sc. degree from Harvey Mudd College, a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Jennifer is also the Director and Chair of the LanzaJet Board of Directors.
Tom Kalil is Chief Innovation Officer at Schmidt Futures and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at UC Berkeley. In this role, Tom leads initiatives to harness technology for societal challenges, improve science policy, and identify and pursue 21st century moonshots.
Prior to Schmidt Futures, Tom served in the White House for two Presidents (Obama and Clinton), helping to design and launch national science and technology initiatives in areas such as nanotechnology, the BRAIN initiative, data science, materials by design, robotics, commercial space, high-speed networks, access to capital for startups, high-skill immigration, STEM education, learning technology, startup ecosystems, and the federal use of incentive prizes.
Tom received a B.A. in political science and international economics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and completed graduate work at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Before joining Motional, Laura was CTO at Aria Insights leading a team focused on the development of autonomous tethered drones. In addition, Laura led an engineering unit at Draper Laboratory where she developed the first division to combine machine learning and user experience to solve a range of problems of national security. At Draper, Laura led the research program under which ATAK, an Android app used on the battlefield, was developed.
Laura has been honored with the Draper Laboratory Innovation Award and Mentoring Award, the national award for Emerging Leaders by the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), and was named one of Mass High Tech’s "2014 Women to Watch”. Laura has an MS in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT and a BS from Georgia Tech. She has over 20 technical publications and is the co-author of What To Expect When You’re Expecting Robots - The Future of Human Robot Collaboration.
Professor, University College London and author of 'The Entrepreneurial State' and ‘'The Value of Everything’
Mariana Mazzucato is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL), where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (IIPP). She advises policy makers around the world on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth.
Her highly-acclaimed book The Entrepreneurial State (2013) investigates the critical role the state plays in driving growth—and her book The Value of Everything (2018) looks at how value creation needs to be rewarded over value extraction.
She was named as one of the '3 most important thinkers about innovation' by the New Republic and one of the 25 leaders shaping the future of capitalism by Wired.
She is winner of international prizes including the 2020 John Von Neumann Award, the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, and 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.
Katie Rae 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.
Matt Rogers is the founder of Incite.org, a values-based investor that provides catalytic capital and guidance for world positive start-ups, non-profits, and activists. Heeding the call to address the climate crisis, Matt leads Incite.org’s investments in climate solutions as well as nonprofits and advocacy groups advancing climate policy; he is an active board member of Carbon180, Activate.org and Advanced Energy Economy.
Matt was the co-founder of Nest, where he built the team that created the first machine learning thermostat.
Prior to Nest, Matt started his career at Apple, building the software team for 10 generations of the iPod and was one of the first engineers on the iPhone and its first five generations. Matt earned a bachelor's and master's degrees from Carnegie Mellon University.
David Rotman is Editor at Large of MIT Technology Review. A science and business journalist, he has written extensively on chemistry, biotechnology, materials science, and environmental issues.
These days, David is most interested in how technologies, especially artificial intelligence and advanced computing, are changing the economy and in how we can direct these breakthroughs to best benefit society.
Julian is a staff writer at Greentech Media, where he reports on the transition to a clean energy system. He pays particular attention to the energy storage industry, and writes the weekly Storage Plus column for GTM Squared.
Julian also writes a weekly personal newsletter about the rise of clean energy called Bright Ideas.
Previously, Julian reported for CityLab at The Atlantic and conducted grant-funded climate change reporting in Bangladesh. He graduated from Duke University.
Reed Sturtevant is a General Partner on the investment team at The Engine. Reed was a founder and Managing Director at Project 11 Ventures and Techstars Boston.
Reed attended MIT and has a background in software. He ran Microsoft Startup Labs in Cambridge and was VP of Technology at Idealab, Boston.
Early in his career he created Freelance Graphics which was acquired by Lotus Development Corp. Reed has been a lecturer at MIT Sloan and is a frequent speaker at MIT entrepreneurship courses and programs.
Andrew Beebe helps build companies with category-creating entrepreneurs that are decarbonizing the global economy, electrifying all modes of transportation, and upgrading urban environments.
He leads Obvious’ investments that scale renewable energy adoption with Mosaic, Sighten, Inspire, and Enbala; positively transform and electrify transportation with Proterra, Lilium, and Amply; and elevate cities with Plant Prefab, RenoRun, and robotics companies currently operating in stealth.
Before joining Obvious, Andrew led Distributed Generation for Nextera Energy, the largest clean energy developer in the United States. Previously he was at Suntech, which became the largest solar company in the world under his tenure as Chief Commercial Officer. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College. Andrew also supports purpose-driven founders via organizations like The Elemental Excelerator, NREL, and Women Who Tech.
Meeta Kapadia is a managing director in SVB’s Venture Capital Relationship Management Group, where she provides tech-focused VCs in Boston and their portfolio companies with meaningful connections and banking solutions.
Meeta draws on nearly 20 years in financial services to support VCs and startups with experiences ranging from working with non-profits doing micro lending in villages in India to being a vice president of client strategy at JPMorgan through the global financial crisis. Meeta also worked at startups during both the dot com era as well as more recently, as director of operations at an e-commerce company in NYC.
Meeta has a BA in history from UVA and an MPA from NYU. She lives in Needham, MA with her family and loves playing tennis and reading memoirs in her spare time.
Jim joined the HBS Faculty in 2019 and currently teaches the EC Entrepreneurial Finance and Tough Tech Ventures Courses, and is an active investor, Board Director & Advisor for several companies and VC/PE investment groups including The Engine.
From 2000-2018, Jim was a General Partner at Flagship Pioneering where he founded, invested in and helped grow a wide variety of businesses and spearheaded the firm’s sustainable technology practice and was involved in myriad global initiatives to foster entrepreneurship and sustainability.
From 2013-2018, Jim also served as President & CEO of Oasys Water, having been the company’s founding Chairman and Lead Investor since 2008. As CEO, he led the global expansion of Oasys’ water treatment platform leading to an acquisition by their Asian partner.
Previously, Jim was a US Navy Commander and F-14/18 pilot with significant combat experience and served as a TOPGUN Instructor and Officer-in-Charge of the Nevada based Adversary Unit. He earned his BS (with honors) from the US Naval Academy and an MBA from HBS.
Ryan Popple is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Proterra, the leading innovator of zero-emission, battery-electric buses. Prior to Proterra, Ryan was a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. An early employee of Tesla Motors, he was senior director of finance, with a focus on strategic planning, technology cost reduction and corporate finance.
Ryan serves as a board member of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and is focused on increasing access to affordable, sustainable transportation solutions throughout Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, through strategic partnerships and policy initiatives. He is also a member of the California League of Conservation Voters Green Advisory Council.
Ryan has served in the U.S. Army, received a bachelor’s in business administration from the College of William & Mary and an MBA from Harvard University.
Lila Preston joined Generation in 2004 and is Co-Head of Growth Equity Strategy. Prior to joining Generation, Lila was a Director in Development & Finance at VolunteerMatch. Before that she was a Fulbright Fellow in Southern Chile where she worked on community-based forestry and conservation projects.
Lila currently serves as a Board Director at Nature’s Fynd, and a Board Observer at Toast and CiBO Technologies. She is a member of the Social Mission Board at Seventh Generation, is on the Board of Advisors at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, and is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.
Lila received a BA in English Language and Literature from Stanford University and an MBA from London Business School.
Founder and Managing Partner, Material Impact
Senior Member, Investment Committee, Breakthrough Energy
Carmichael is a founding partner of Material Impact, a fund that builds resilient technology companies that develop products to solve real-world problems using innovative materials. Material Impact companies collectively have a mission to keep the world healthy, safe, fed, warm, powered, and secure. Carmichael is also a senior member of Breakthrough Energy, a mission-oriented group chaired by Bill Gates committed to creating and building companies that address climate change and the long-term sustainability of the planet. Prior to venture, as an entrepreneur Carmichael built several successful companies that create innovative products by applying material science.
Carmichael serves on the boards for the Consumer Technology Association, Massachusetts General Hospital Physician Organization, and WGBH. He is a trustee of Duke University.
Carmichael received his B.S. and Ph.D. from Duke University and was a National Science Foundation Fellow at Harvard University's Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. He earned his M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Dr. Will Roper is the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. As the Air Force’s Service Acquisition Executive, Dr. Roper is responsible for and oversees Air Force research, development and acquisition activities totaling an annual budget in excess of $60 billion for more than 550 acquisition programs. In this position, Dr. Roper serves as the principal adviser to the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force for research and development, test, production and modernization efforts within the Air Force.
Dipender is Managing Partner of the Technology Impact Fund, and Managing Director of Capricorn Investment Group, an investment firm founded to invest profitably while driving sustainable positive change.
Some of Capricorn’s past and current investments include Tesla, Planet, Joby, SpaceX, Redwood Materials, Twitter, FORM, and Helion.
Prior to Capricorn, Dipender was Chief of Staff at Cadence, a global market leader in electronic design, where he built and managed businesses that worked closely with electronics companies around the world.
Prior to that he was at Data General (EMC), Honeywell, ROLM (IBM), and GF Energy Research Center.
He’s an electrical engineer by training, and attended UND, Univ of Minnesota and Stanford. Dipender is a Commissioner of the Global Commission to End Energy Poverty, and serves on the boards of AST, Automatiks, Encell, Innovium, Insyte, Joby Aviation, Kinestral, Navitas, NuVia, QuantumScape, Raxium, Saildrone, and SummerBio, on the Leadership Council of Cyclotron Road, and on the investment committee of PRIME.
Lucinda Shen is a New York City-based writer at Fortune, and editor of the publication's daily venture capital- and private equity-focused newsletter, Term Sheet.
Prior to her role at Fortune, Lucinda worked for Business Insider, and has also reported from Hong Kong. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Jonathan Solomon is the CEO of BiomX, a microbiome company developing customized phage therapies to eradicate harmful bacteria in chronic diseases.
Prior to his role in BiomX, Mr. Solomon was a co-founder, president, and CEO of ProClara (formerly NeuroPhage), which is pioneering an approach to treating neurodegenerative diseases. Under his leadership, the company raised more than $100 million and launched an ongoing clinical trial related to Alzheimer’s disease.
Prior to that, he was selected to participate in the elite Israeli Defense Forces ‘Talpiot’ program, graduated as class valedictorian, and served for 10 years in a classified military unit.
Mr. Solomon holds a B.Sc. magna cum laude in Physics and Mathematics from the Hebrew University, an M.Sc. summa cum laude in Electrical Engineering from Tel Aviv University, and an M.B.A. with honors from the Harvard Business School.
The Engine, built by MIT, is a venture firm that invests in early-stage companies solving the world’s biggest problems through the convergence of breakthrough science, engineering, and leadership.
Our mission is to accelerate the path to market for Tough Tech companies through access to a unique combination of investment, infrastructure, and a vibrant ecosystem.