SF and DC Climate Weeks were reminders of something we hold onto: the problems don't wait, but neither do the people working to solve them.
From a factory floor in Fremont to a demo hall in San Francisco to a keynote stage in Washington, D.C., what connected every moment was the same thing: scientists and engineers who chose to build, and an ecosystem working to give them a real path to impact.
Here's a look at what happened coast to coast during Climate Week.
San Francisco Climate Week
Live From the Future April 22 | In partnership with Breakthrough Energy Discovery & Bakar Labs for Energy & Materials
On April 22, Activate welcomed the SF Climate Week community to Live From the Future—an interactive hard-tech showcase unlike anything else at this year's Climate Week. No panels. No pitch decks. Just founders, prototypes, and the kind of technologies that make you stop and think about what's actually possible.
"What I love about our showcase is seeing the full ecosystem in the room,” said Eva Greene Senior Investments Manager at Activate. “We had founders sharing their breakthroughs, investors asking thoughtful questions, and partners who support our fellows in countless ways. In a city where AI and SaaS often feel dominant, it was energizing to be surrounded by people who understand why hard tech matters. Rooms like this make Activate’s role feel very tangible, connecting the people and support that help these technologies move forward."
Eighteen Activate Fellow companies filled the room with working demos spanning advanced materials, industrial decarbonization, water technology, and more—including:
The event was made possible in partnership with Breakthrough Energy Discovery, the pre-venture innovation arm of Breakthrough Energy, and Bakar Labs for Energy & Materials, UC Berkeley's initiative to accelerate commercialization of breakthrough research. Together, we connected emerging hard-tech innovations with the people ready to fund them—which is exactly how early-stage startups begin their journeys to impact.
Activate Fellows Take the Stage—and the Top Prize—at the Women in Cleantech & Sustainability Pitch Competition April 20 | MBC BioLabs, San Francisco | Margaret Lumley (Roca Water, Cohort 2022), Gabriella Dweck (Oleo, Cohort 2024) & Pauliina Meskanen (Calectra, Cohort 2024)
SF Climate Week kicked off on April 20 with one of its most energizing events of the week: the eighth annual Women in Cleantech & Sustainability Pitch Competition. Ten women founders took the stage tackling climate challenges from water and agriculture to industrial decarbonization and the built environment.
Activate Fellow Margaret Lumley (Cohort 2022) walked away with the top prize.
Lumley’s company, Roca Water, is rebuilding resource supply chains from waste streams. Its electrochemical platform recovers ammonium from wastewater and returns it to the food system as fertilizer—closing a loop that most people don't realize is broken. Lumley’s pitch earned the top prize from a distinguished panel of judges, capping an evening of exceptional founders and bold climate thinking.
Lumley wasn't the only Activate Fellow on stage. Gabriella Dweck (Oleo, Cohort 2024) pitched her work transforming waste biomass into sustainable oil feedstocks for advanced fuel production. Pauliina Meskanen (Calectra, Cohort 2024) presented Calectra's high-temperature thermal batteries designed to decarbonize industrial heat in sectors like cement and steel.
Three Activate Fellows. One stage. A room full of people who got an early look at what's coming.
A Historic Milestone in American Solar Manufacturing Tandem PV Factory Ribbon Cutting | April 21 | Fremont, CA | Colin Bailie & Chris Eberspacher (Cohort 2016)
The week continued on April 21 with a milestone a decade in the making. Activate Fellows Colin Bailie and Chris Eberspacher (Cohort 2016) opened the doors to Tandem PV's new factory in Fremont, California—marking the official launch of commercial-scale manufacturing for tandem perovskite solar technology.
The ribbon cutting brought together solar developers, investors, and policymakers—including Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, California Energy Commission Chair David Hochschild, and Fremont Mayor Raj Salwan—to celebrate what happens when fundamental science gets the runway it needs.
In 2016, Bailie and Eberspacher joined Activate's second cohort, based at Berkeley Lab under partnership with Cyclotron Road. Nearly a decade later, their technology is being manufactured at scale in America. That's the arc this work is designed to create.
Calectra's Housewarming April 23 | Pauliina Meskanen & Nate Weger (Cohort 2024)
On April 23, Activate Fellows Pauliina Meskanen and Nate Weger (Cohort 2024) threw open the doors to Calectra's new headquarters—and invited the community in. The housewarming brought together founders, operators, and investors building the future of energy for an afternoon of demos, conversation, and a first look at what the Calectra team has been building.
Calectra is turning a breakthrough thermal storage technology into a company tackling one of heavy industry’s hardest problems—high-temperature process heat for cement, steel, glass, and aluminum, which today accounts for 20 percent of global CO2 emissions. Their patent-pending thermal battery unlocks process heat up to 1,600°C that is lower-cost, lower-emission, safer, and more resilient.
Washington DC Climate Week
Built to Last: The Capital and Companies Behind Climate Hard Tech April 23 | Amy Gilbert Fehir, Chief Development Officer, Activate
While the Bay Area was buzzing with demos and prototypes, Washington, D.C., was having a different—and equally necessary—conversation. On April 23, Activate's Chief Development Officer Amy Gilbert Fehir delivered a keynote at Built to Last, a DC Climate Week event examining what it takes to build hardware ventures that go the distance.
Fehir's remarks centered on a core tension: hard tech operates on timelines and capital requirements that don't fit the standard venture playbook. Moving from lab to market—for a materials company, an energy hardware startup, a climate biotech—demands patience, infrastructure, and a different kind of partnership across government, philanthropy, industry, and academia.
As Fehir put it from the stage, “The question is not whether the science works—it's whether the system shows up at the right moment. And the stakes are rising. The systems we once assumed were stable—energy supply chains, infrastructure—are under real strain. At the same time, new sources of demand, from AI to data centers, are accelerating the need for hard tech at scale. That's the problem we're here to solve, and that's what we focus on every day at Activate.”
It's a point Activate's track record bears out. Since 2015, our fellows have launched 230+ companies and secured over $5.5B in follow-on funding—advancing technologies across energy, manufacturing, AI, and life sciences. The model works. The question Fehir raised in D.C. is how to build more of the infrastructure that makes it possible everywhere.
Too much transformative technology never reaches the real world. A scientist with a decade of expertise often has no clear path to turning their breakthrough into something the world can actually use. Closing that gap—between discovery and deployment—is what Activate exists to do. And this week, we did it from both coasts.