Science. Innovation. Impact.
Stories of science shaping our future.
The Idea Lab
Our Activate Blog and News Hub

These Tomatoes are Fighting Climate Change
Guest post by Cohort 2020 Fellows Jay Schwalbe and Joshua McEnaney When we committed ourselves to bringing our technological research to market, co-founding Nitricity based on our..

Raymond Weitekamp Can’t Stop Inventing
Raymond Weitekamp’s 3D printing startup, polySpectra, is doing really well. The startup is making durable, light-weight products and components for industries ranging from..

Meet Karin Lion, Chief Growth & Partnerships Officer
From the DoD, to NGOs, to an MBA, inflections define her path to impact. We are thrilled to introduce Karin Lion, who joined us in early October as chief growth and partnerships..

Lessons on Breaking Into the Microelectronics Ecosystem
This summer, we partnered with IEEE Entrepreneurship, the startup community within IEEE, the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology..

‘I’m Just Excited to Keep Going’—Cohort 2018 Fellows on Paths to Impact
These three Cohort 2018 fellows took very different paths to Activate, and are working to impact very different industries. But for all of them, the past two years have been..

Cohort 2018: A Brief Impact Report
This summer, we celebrated Cohort 2018 with a Zoom dance party and pick-your-own mortarboard scavenger hunt. Now, we are happy to share some of the accomplishments of these 13..

Introducing Cohort 2020
Twenty-eight fellows. It is the largest cohort we have supported to date—double last year’s. Twenty-eight biologists, chemists, physicists, and engineers, coming from top..

In Memoriam: Adrian Albert
Adrian Albert, 1984-2020 We at Activate are mourning the tragic death of a fellow in our community. Adrian Albert, 35, a visionary scientist and engineer, and emergent..
COVID-19 Response Projects and Proposals
We’re seeing an upwelling of ideas, from all corners of our community and beyond, for quick and agile responses to the COVID-19 crisis—from sourcing more protective gear, to..

Building Up Activate Boston: Meet the Team
Last year was huge for Activate. Having supported Cyclotron Road, a program of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, since 2015, we knew there was a great need and strong demand..
Introducing Activate: Expanding Cyclotron Road’s model
An Open Letter from Ilan Gur Friends and colleagues, Over the last five years, Cyclotron Road has paved a new path for our brightest scientists and engineers to transform their..
Changes at Cyclotron Road
Cyclotron Road, the successful entrepreneurial fellowship program founded by Berkeley Lab, will serve as a model for scaling up to reach more science entrepreneurs across the..