Turns out we are better together. Day 2 we shared our concerns, listened better, and talked about the basic infrastructure of trust.

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Welcome: Blueprints

Why we're better together

The climate crisis is fundamentally a crisis of connection. Let’s see how we can embrace our unique influences, contribute to the group, and organize in a way that moves us forward. We’ll explore why it’s so impactful to meet IRL, talk about our differences and shared dreams, and plot a future together.

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Embrace your influence

There is already a powerful role you can play today as a citizen, friend, and neighbor. And that’s just the start. This workshop will dig into the power of relational organizing (read: how to get other people involved), and help you start to develop your personal journey. We’ll explore not just what we can do, but how and why we should do it.

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Finding opportunities across generations

It’s easy to think generational differences are too big to bridge. But there are huge opportunities to collaborate with elders, youngers, and all ages in between. We don’t necessarily have to talk about TikTok or rehash stories about “walking 5 miles to school each day”—but we can still ignite change together. Let’s dig into how exactly we can initiate and participate in these kinds of relationships.

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What we can do today to build a better future

Let’s shift our focus to the actions we can take today and hear about solutions already in motion. We'll also touch on projects we can bring to our neighborhoods right now to get things moving. We’ll dive deep into clean energy, community, solar, jobs, and powerful reasons why now is the time to electrify our lives.

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Every job is a climate job

We can all leverage our current roles as employees or small business owners to contribute to solutions. This session will explore what that looks like in action, where to even start, and how others have embraced their influence as employees or small business owners.

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Innovating in unexpected places

Fresh takes on old problems are at the core of finding paths toward a cleaner, healthier future. Meet entrepreneurs stepping up to bring forward innovative technology in stagnant and even unexpected spaces.

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Put your money to work

Money still talks. Let’s explore how we can put our money where our hearts are, and make every dollar count.

  • Panelists: Michael Thomas (Founder @Campfire Labs and @Carbon Switch), Premal Shah (Co-Founder @Renewables.org and @Kiva, and Beth Meyer (Senior Risk & Compliance Attorney and ESG Strategy Lead @Techstars)

  • Moderator: Zach Stein (CEO @Carbon Collective)

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Building healthier communities

Local things are the best things. The same strategy applies to climate action. Let's see what it looks like to build resilient and healthy places to live.

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Community conversations

Let’s chat about all the amazing things we covered today. Virtual drinks welcome.

DAY 2 SPEAKERS

 

Saul Griffith

Saul Griffith is an engineer and inventor. As Founder and Chief Scientist at Otherlab, an independent R&D lab, he helps government agencies and Fortune 500 companies understand energy infrastructure and deep decarbonization. He’s been a principal investigator and project lead on federally-funded research projects for agencies including NASA, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-e), National Science Foundation, and United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM). He was awarded the MacArthur “Genius Grant” in 2007.

Replay: What we can do today to build a better future

Kiran Bhatraju

An entrepreneur and environmentalist from eastern Kentucky coal country, Kiran is the founder of Arcadia, a climate crisis-fighting technology company focused on unlocking unprecedented access to clean energy options for consumers and businesses across the U.S. Previously Kiran founded another venture-backed climate tech company, American Efficient, that aggregated energy efficiency in wholesale power markets.

Replay: What we can do today to build a better future

Paul Gross

Paul Gross is the Co-Founder & CEO at Remora, which he started during his senior year at Yale. While researching mobile carbon capture, he read his co-founder Christina Reynolds’ dissertation online, wrote her a business plan, and convinced her to quit her job at the EPA. Before that, he conducted large-scale randomized experiments to increase voter turnout and bipartisanship.

Kelly Hering

Kelly is the CTO and co-founder at Charm Industrial, where she leads the engineering team developing their pyrolysis and gasification systems. Prior to Charm, she led the early upper stage design at Astra, a small rocket company, and the mechanical design at Planet for their constellation of Dove satellites. She studied mechanical engineering at Brown University.

Replay: Innovating in unexpected places

Diana Tellefson Torres

Diana Tellefson Torres is the founding executive director of the UFW Foundation, an organization that mobilizes farmworkers across the U.S. to advocate for more equitable policies, from immigration reform to worker protections — like heat standards, overtime pay, and pesticide protections. The UFW Foundation is the nonprofit arm of the United Farm Workers of America, the nation’s largest labor union for farmworkers.

Replay: Why we're better together



Nate Mook

Nate Mook is the CEO of World Central Kitchen. Beginning his career as a tech entrepreneur, he later worked as a documentary producer leading film productions for the UN, USAID, and World Bank. He previously developed and spearheaded TEDx events in numerous countries, and was selected as a Gates Foundation “Change Hero” for his work with TEDx elevating voices in underserved communities. Nate began working with José Andrés and WCK in 2012, leading food relief efforts in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Since becoming WCK’s CEO in early 2018, Nate has led the organization’s dramatic growth and strategic shift to its current work using food as a solution to humanitarian crises around the world.

Replay: Why we're better together

Jon Shieber

Jon Shieber has spent the bulk of the past twenty years writing about venture capital and technology with a focus on climate innovation for outlets including Dow Jones Newswires, The Wall Street Journal, and TechCrunch. At FootPrint Coalition he's focused on using storytelling and investing to accelerate the adoption of technologies to address our climate emergency.

Replay: What we can do today to build a better future

Jamie Beck Alexander

Jamie is a climate activist, mom, writer, and founding director of Project Drawdown Labs—Project Drawdown’s private sector testing ground for accelerating the scaling of climate solutions quickly, safely, and equitably. Jamie previously served in the Obama Administration at USAID.

Replay: Every job is a climate job

Keith Kinch

Keith Kinch serves as General Manager and co-founder at BlocPower. Keith spent eight years as a community organizer, and two years as Deputy FieldDirector in New York State for the Democratic National Committee under President Obama’s grassroots arm Organizing for America. Keith led the Solarize Brownsville campaign where more than 200 homes were outfitted with solar panels. Solarize Brownsville brought together community partners, local residents, and the selected solar installer to successfully demonstrate that solar power can make an impact in low-to-moderate-income communities. It still stands as one of the largest solar projects in New York State history.

Replay: What we can do today to build a better future

Hannah Reynolds

Hannah is a senior at Princeton University studying anthropology and environmental studies, with a focus on law, policy, and economics, originally from the Finger Lakes, NY. She is a coordinator with Divest Princeton and writes for The Daily Princetonian.

Replay: Finding opportunities across generations

Hannah Davis

Hannah’s passion and professional work has been at the intersection of climate, conservation, and community. She is the co-founder of ClimateRaise, a volunteer-led organization that connects active investors with the leading women-led climate tech startups. Most recently she was the Program Director for Techstars Sustainability Accelerator in partnership with The Nature Conservancy based in Boulder Colorado.

Replay: Every job is a climate job

Jennifer Allyn

Jennifer designs strategic campaigns to urge companies to advocate for climate policy. Prior to joining ClimateVoice, she served as a Managing Director in Diversity and Inclusion at PwC. Jennifer graduated from Brown University and earned a Masters’ in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Replay: Every job is a climate job

Premal Shah

Premal co-founded & led Kiva.org — a crowdfunding non-profit that’s raised +$1 billion for microfinance in +70 countries. He’s now launching Renewables.org — a ‘Kiva for solar’ which aims to accelerate clean energy in India and Africa by making it easy for anyone to invest. Premal also serves on the boards of Change.org, Watsi.org, and the Center For Humane Technology and believes it all comes down to Love > Fear.

Replay: Put your money to work

Brent Bucknum

Brent has been a leader in the urban environmental engineering field for nearly two decades, developing iconic, innovative, and impactful green infrastructure projects throughout the country. As an urban ecologist, Brent's work aims to improve the health and diversity of all species in the urban environment, but with a particular focus on cities’ dominant megafauna; humans. Brent Bucknum is the founder of Hyphae Design Lab, an Oakland-based multi-disciplinary engineering and innovation firm started in 2008. Brent also co-founded Urban Biofilter, and environmental justice and health-focused research and policy joint venture developed with neighborhood environmental justice groups.

Replay: Building healthier communities

Elise Loehnen

Elise Loehnen Fissmer is a writer and editor living in Los Angeles with her husband, Rob, and their sons, Max and Sam. While she’s co-written 11 books, including five New York Times Best Sellers, she’s currently writing the first book under her own name for Dial Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Previously, she was the chief content officer of goop, the lifestyle, and e-commerce company established by Gwyneth Paltrow in 2008.

Replay: Why we're better together

Sarah Shanley Hope

Sarah Shanley Hope is the VP of Brand + Partnerships at The Solutions Project following seven years as the organization’s first Executive Director. Under Sarah’s leadership, the organization transformed its mission and culture to center racial and gender equity, launched the field’s first and only award-winning climate justice fund, and grew a celebratory, collaborative and inclusive movement for 100% clean energy. Sarah has held executive or leadership roles at the Alliance for Climate Education, Green For All, Cargill, and Best Buy over her 15+ years of experience in brand strategy and social change; she also serves on the Board of Native Renewables.

Replay: Building healthier communities

Cassie Divine

Cassie is a business leader known for building teams, obsessing over product experiences to make customers’ lives better, creativity and hustle, and a very loud laugh. Passionate about driving diversity and inclusion in tech, with an eye on fostering an amazing environment for women.

Replay: Every job is a climate job

Leah Ellis

Leah Ellis is the CEO and co-founder of Sublime Systems, a startup that dissolves pulverized limestone in water and then applies an electric current to trigger a series of chemical reactions. Leah has a Ph.D. in chemistry and researched lithium-ion batteries and collaborated with Tesla and 3M to improve their battery chemistries. Leah has always been climate motivated and wanted to be an inventor. Those motivators drew her to chemistry and entrepreneurialism, both powerful ways to make a dent in the climate change problem.

Replay: Innovating in unexpected places

Sophia Longsworth

Sophia is a proud native of Grenada, the spice island of the West Indies. She is an environmental justice and climate change activist living in New York City. She is currently an Environmental Science lecturer with the City University of New York and serves as the Director of Written Content with Our Climate Voices. She enjoys exercising, watching documentaries and spending time with her family.

Replay: Embrace your influence

Michael Thomas

Michael Thomas is the Founder of Carbon Switch and Campfire Labs. His research on electrification and home energy for Carbon Switch has been featured in media outlets like NPR, CNBC, WSJ, and dozens of other national publications. Prior to starting Carbon Switch he wrote for magazines like The Atlantic, FastCompany, and Quartz.

Replay: Put your money to work

Jason Carney

Jason Carney is the Founder and CEO of Energy Electives. Jason received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tennessee State University, and received his Master’s Degree in Civic Leadership from Lipscomb University. His pursuit of knowledge and experience with solar energy has led to certifications in LEED, BPI, NABCEP and PEM. Jason lives in Nashville, TN with his wife and twin children. He is also President of the Tennessee Solar Energy Association (TSEA), a non-profit organization that is interested in educating the community and celebrating individuals that love solar.

Replay: Building healthier communities

Catherine Mongella

An author, leader, and visionary in the NGO sector with over 10 years of experience in organizational development, capacity building, and solution-focused approaches. Catherine is the Executive Director of Earth Guardians—an organization that trains and empowers youth to be effective leaders at the intersections of the environment and climate justice movements using art, music, storytelling, civic engagement, legal and direct action. She is the first African woman under 40 to lead the organization and is dedicated to expanding the organization’s impact in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Catherine is passionate about changing the narratives around female leadership while also elevating the voices of youth in the pursuit of positive and sustainable change.

Replay: Finding opportunities across generations

Lex Kiefhaber

Lex is the founder and CEO of the sustainability scoring platform, United by Zero, and the co-founder and host of the Who's Saving the Planet Podcast. Lex has his MBA from Columbia University and is a graduate from Yale with a degree in Political Science. He lives in Washington DC with his wife, son, and their dog, Simon.

Replay: Building healthier communities

Susan Su

Susan Su is a growth strategy leader, portfolio manager, angel and advisor focused on developing systems for positioning and scaling high-potential startups, with a special interest in climate tech and sustainability. Susan is an investor at Toba Capital and previously held roles at Sound Ventures, Stripe, Google, and Reforge (first hire). She is also the creator and Program Director for Climate Change for VCs, a 6-week class and community for investors interested in climate tech.

Replay: Innovating in unexpected places

Bill McKibben

Bill is Founder and Senior Advisor at 350.org and Founder at Third Act, for people over the age of 60—“experienced Americans”--determined to change the world for the better. We muster political and economic power to move Washington and Wall Street in the name of a fairer, more sustainable society and planet. We back up the great work of younger people, and we make good trouble of our own.

Replay: Finding opportunities across generations

Madeline Dyke

Operations Director, Co-Founder at Climate Changemakers

Replay: Embrace your influence

Mick Smyer

"Dr. Michael “Mick” Smyer is the founder of Growing Greener: Climate Action for a Warming World. Growing Greener views people not as potential victims of climate change, but also as potential leaders of climate action. With psychology and design strategies, Mick helps people and groups replace climate avoidance with their climate journey’s next step.

Replay: Finding opportunities across generations

Candice Ammori

Candice Ammori's career has spanned finance, data science, VR, cloud computing, and running a local business. She started On Deck's Climate Tech program, which brings together the larger climate tech ecosystem and helps talented people start impactful organizations.

Replay: Finding opportunities across generations

Naima Penniman

Naima Penniman is a devotee of seeds, a soulful storyteller, a multidimensional artist, movement builder, medicine grower, healer, and educator. Life-long lover and defender of the Earth, Naima dedicates her creativity and community-building skills to regenerate practices towards planetary interdependence. She serves as the Program Director at SOUL FIRE FARM and is a visionary poet whose performances have inspired thousands of people.

Opening: Blueprints

Beth Meyer

Beth Meyer is a Senior Attorney at Techstars where she leads the company's compliance initiatives and helped pioneer their comprehensive approach to ESG. Beth previously served as a Managing Partner at Empower Equity Partners, an advisory firm focused on supporting female leaders on their path to growth. She began her legal career working in anti-corruption with the World Bank, has a passion for advancing human rights, and spent significant time living abroad working in education and community development.

Replay: Put your money to work

Benjamin Parker

Hailing from the isle of Nantucket, I am a battery engineer, car junkie, and evangelist for the electric vehicle movement. My professional career began with engineering design and automation development for the Tesla Model 3 battery. Now I act as CEO at a fledgling startup, Lightship, working to bring electrification to RVing. I focus on slowing climate change by making transportation cleaner and joy-inducing.

Replay: Innovating in unexpected places

Zach Stein

Zach Stein is the cofounder of Carbon Collective, an online investing platform that creates personalized investment portfolios aligned with solving climate change, which was recently featured in Project Drawdown's Climate Solutions at Work. He co-founded Carbon Collective with his childhood best friend and he oversees the creation of Climate Index, which invests in over 100 investments that are aligned to solve climate change.

Replay: Put your money to work