Activate Technical Reviewer Registration
Activate Fellowship FAQ
Activate technical reviewer registration
Technical Reviewer Criteria
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Technical or market knowledge in at least one of our sixteen Verticals
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8+ years of experience
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Profile of person can be academic, industry, investor, entrepreneur, or government
About the Review Process
The applications are about 5 pages and the review form is also succinct.
The review process will be held from Nov 26 - Dec 9, 2025. By submitting your name as a technical reviewer you are committing to spending about 2.5 - 5 hours within this two week time frame to review applications for our 2026 Activate Fellowship.
As a technical reviewer, you will also be invited to participate in our virtual Finalist Week event Mar 9 - 16. Each finalist delivers a virtual pitch, and you will have the opportunity to attend the pitch and provide feedback both to the finalist and our selection committees.
Timeline
- On Nov 26th, you will receive an email from Activate with instructions for completing your reviews, as well as guidance for how to log in to our review portal.
- We ask that you complete your reviews by 5:00PM PST on December 9th. If you are having difficulty completing your reviews on time, please contact Tyler Volpe (tyler.volpe@activate.org) for support.
- Optional attendance of finalist pitches throughout the week of Mar 9 - 16, 2026.
Application Selection Criteria
We ask reviewers to evaluate the project concepts based on the following criteria. Our team relies on your expertise to ensure that the proposed projects are feasible and offer the potential for impact. Please assume each application originated from a strong and adaptable leader when providing feedback to our team.
- Technical merit: Project is rooted in sound scientific principles and proof of concept has been established
- Differentiation: Project is a significant step forward in the field, additional to ecosystem, or offers unparalleled performance as compared to state of the art, and is reasonably differentiated from existing solutions and commercial efforts
- Commercial viability: Project has a credible path to creating value in the market at scale, including viable entry markets or the potential to pivot
- Impact: Project is aligned with Activate’s mission of science for good, has a hardware component, and has the potential to advance one or more industries without an established go-to market pathway (e.g. pharmaceuticals) beyond incremental improvements.
Your participation in our process is essential to selecting the fellows that can have the biggest impact in areas such as advanced manufacturing and carbon management. This form takes less than 2 minutes to complete.
By submitting this form, you are confirming your intent to participate as a reviewer and agreeing to abide by the confidentiality and COI requirements listed below:
Confidentiality and Conflict of Interest Requirements
We expect participants in the written review to follow the below requirements in the evaluation of fellowship application materials.
I will not disclose, during the course of the evaluation and thereafter, any information that has been disclosed to me in the course of the evaluation, including the content of any applications and Activate’s evaluation process (together, the “confidential information”), to anyone, except as authorized by Activate.
I will not use any confidential information except for the sole purpose of evaluating the applications on behalf of Activate as instructed by Activate.
I will not contact any fellowship applicant concerning their application or the fellowship, unless authorized by Activate.
I certify that I am not aware of any matter which might reduce my ability to participate in the application evaluation in an objective and unbiased manner, or which might place me in a position of conflict, real or apparent, between my responsibilities as an evaluator and other interests.
In making this certification I have considered all my financial interests and employment arrangements (past, present, or under consideration, including those of my spouse or domestic partner, my children, and other members of my immediate household. I will notify Activate immediately as soon as I become aware of any circumstance that may result in me no longer being able to make this certification or this certification no longer remaining true, and thereafter, until advised to the contrary by Activate, I will not participate further in any way in the evaluation process.
Neither I, my spouse or domestic partner, my children, nor members of my immediate household will accept anything of monetary value from any person, firm, or organization affiliated with an application, even seemingly trivial courtesies, which can present the appearance of impropriety or create a subtle sense of obligation and must be avoided.
