Skip to content

Science. Innovation. Impact.

Stories of science shaping our future.

The Idea Lab

Our Activate Blog and News Hub

Why Decarbonizing Industry Can’t Wait

Photo: Jung Getty A year ago, global carbon emissions were in a steep decline as pandemic-related shutdowns gummed up the wheels of commerce. After ticking back up as lockdowns..

Read More

Cohort 2016 Fellow Richard Wang Sells Cuberg to Swedish Battery Manufacturer Northvolt

Richard Wang When Fellow Richard Wang joined the Activate Fellowship, he was on a mission to turn his graduate research into a new type of battery that would advance..

Read More

Sea Change: Activate Fellows and the Blue Economy

Photo: Nora Carol Photography Any discussion about climate change is a discussion about our oceans and vice-versa. Oceans are at once the victim of our consumption patterns and..

Read More

The Activate Fellowship Model Takes Root in the Netherlands with Faculty of Impact

As an organization, we believe that to address climate change and other urgent societal needs, we need more science and engineering innovators to turn more of their research into..

Read More

Finalists for Cohort 2021 of the Activate Fellowship

Our fellow selection committee has logged many (many!) hours since the close of our application window last fall, reading applications, analyzing proposals, and conferring with..

Read More

Activate Welcomes Rachel Slaybaugh, Director of LBL's Cyclotron Road Division

Last week, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announced that Rachel Slaybaugh had been named director of its Cyclotron Road Division. Launched in 2015, the division supports..

Read More

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..

Read More

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..

Read More

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..

Read More

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..

Read More

‘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..

Read More

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..

Read More