Events

🌱 Attend this session if you want to learn about how investing at the frontier of deep technology and sustainability can help accelerate the world to a better future.

 is the Co-Founder & Managing Partner of 

Derek is a futurist, entrepreneur and an aspiring civilian astronaut signed up to visit space with Virgin Galactic. He created the Aera Foundation in 2014 as a charitable studio catalysing social innovations to reframe the status quo for a sustainable future which subsequently launched Aera VC.

Prior to establishing Aera, Derek alongside Sir Richard Branson, was the Founding CEO of The B Team, a non-profit alliance of global business leaders acting as a catalyst for bold dialogue, courageous leadership and brave action toward a fairer, greener and more human economy.

Prior to The B Team, Derek spent 10 years founding and growing early mobile-tech company The Hyperfactory, which he built to be a global success and later exited to Meredith Corporation/Time Inc. He was named in the Silicon Alley 100 Most Influential Tech People in NYC, and awarded the New Zealand EY Entrepreneur of the Year for this. He helped found over a dozen start-ups while based in New York, including the venture-studio Human Ventures.

Returning to New Zealand with his wife and family, Derek founded Wiser Conversations, an online conversation and podcast series helping people ask better questions to develop self-knowledge and purpose in their lives. Wiser programs run at AUT University in Auckland where he is an Adjunct Professor; through workshops for family offices and elite athletes around the world.

Derek is currently studying towards a Masters in Religion at Harvard. Previously he studied at MIT, Singularity University and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He was appointed the Social Innovator in Residence at Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania from 2016-2017. He sits on the board of Sky Television and was a formative member of the Air New Zealand Sustainability Advisory Panel.

 advises climate tech startups and was most recently the Founding Director of On Deck Climate Tech where she built a startup ecosystem and invested in climate tech companies. In the last year, she brought together 750+ people from across the global climate tech ecosystem, from policy experts to investors and founders, and helped talented folks start dozens of impactful organizations. Before that, her career spanned finance, data science, VR, cloud computing, and running a local business. She has a grad degree in statistics (focused on the ethics of AI) from the University of Michigan.

🎙 Speaker Series: Investing at the Frontier with Derek Handley

🌱 Join us in a session led by Alex Mitchell for a deep dive on Sustainable Mobility.

, a 501c3 non-profit, LACI is focused on creating an inclusive green economy. He oversees all of LACI's founder-facing work, including startup recruitment, startup programs, and the LACI Impact (venture capital) Fund and LACI Debt Fund.  

Alex joined LACI from Groupe PSA in Paris where he was VP of Corporate Strategy, co-leading the company’s acquisition of Opel from General Motors and leading the company’s work on autonomous mobility. He previously headed an automotive industry vertical at the World Economic Forum, with a focus on autonomous mobility. Alex has also served as the VP of retail sales at an LA-based EV startup Coda Automotive and worked at Toyota Europe and McKinsey

Speaker Session: The Ins and Outs of Sustainable Mobility with Alex Mitchell

to learn more about how to successfully transition into the climate tech space! 

After spending 10+ years at companies like Google, Coursera and Khan Academy, 

 recently transitioned into climate investing and is a partner at MCJ Collective, which has invested in 70+ climate tech companies to date and is the creator of the "My Climate Journey" podcast. At MCJ, she focuses on investments, post-investment support, and community building all with a lens toward ensuring diversity, equity and inclusion are at the forefront of decision making.

left Google to work on climate. He is spending his career helping solve the climate crisis and currently runs 

. Work On Climate is a non-profit focused on making climate work mainstream and bringing 100M people into climate jobs. It is home to the world's largest climate community (featured in 

) and is expanding to embed climate work into every part of the mainstream talent ecosystem.

🔥 Fireside Chat: Getting into Climate Tech w/ Candice Ammori, Yin Lu, & Eugene Kirpichov

Join us for this open discussion on the future of ODCT, re-named "The Climate Tech Network" (or whatever better name you come up with). The goal is to brainstorm and understand how people envision this community moving forward :)

Future of ODCT: The Climate Tech Network

🌱 Interviewed by Candice Ammori, join this session led by Dimitry Gershenson for a deep dive on alternative finance in the climate tech sector. 

.  Dimitry started Enduring Planet building on his 10+ years of experience across climate tech, operations, and impact investing. Prior to Enduring Planet, Dimitry led M&A and served as COO for Rango Wireless, an Enduring Ventures portfolio company. Before that, Dimitry built Meta’s Energy Access program, a $15M+ investing initiative that enabled energy access for 3M people and unlocked nearly $500M in additional capital in underserved markets like Kenya and India. While at Meta, Dimitry also led the development of multiple predictive ML products in the cleantech space and built corporate accelerator programs for impact startups in India and Puerto Rico.

Outside of Enduring Planet, Dimitry sits on the board of Ecosafi, a Lowercarbon-backed climate startup enabling clean cooking in emerging markets. Dimitry holds an MS in Energy and Resources from UC Berkeley, a BS in Natural Resource Management from Rutgers University.

👥 Fireside Chat: Alternative Finance for Climate Tech with Dimitry Gershenson

🌱 Interviewed by Candice Ammori, attend this session to learn about Dawn's background in building Elemental Excelerator and Earthshot Ventures and her take on opportunities to make impacts in the climate tech space. 

is Founder and CEO of Elemental Excelerator, a global climate technology investor and non-profit impact organization. Under Dawn's leadership, Elemental has invested in more than 130 startups in the energy, mobility, water, circular economy, and agriculture sectors, and those companies have gone on to raise over $7 billion in follow-on funding to date. Dawn has shared insight on climate investing and the energy transition in the 

In addition to leading Elemental Excelerator, Dawn serves as Founding Partner of Earthshot Ventures, a $80 million venture fund spun out of Elemental in 2021. Dawn is also Director of Innovation and Community at Emerson Collective, the investment and philanthropic platform led by Laurene Powell Jobs, where she advises on climate work and investing.

Austin Blackmon brings a background spanning finance, climate tech, and public service. Prior to Earthshot, he ran operations for TerraVerde and Soligent. He was also Boston’s Chief Sustainability Officer, setting the strategy for how the City reduced emissions and prepared for climate change.

🔥 Fireside Chat: Building & Making an Impact in Climate Tech w/ Dawn Lippert and Austin Blackmon

🌱 Attend this session hosted by Candice Ammori if you want to learn how to establish and scale a climate tech company through clever marketing! This session will take you through the fundamentals for marketing in climate tech - from building a strong brand to creating a repeatable system for lead generation that drives growth.

 left her corporate career of 15 years to combine her expertise in global B2B tech marketing with her passion – saving the planet – and joined Alder & Co, a leading marketing agency focused exclusively on climate tech, as partner & president. Bettina advises Alder’s clients from “Brand to Scale”, deploying on marketing campaigns that generate leads and drive sales using content marketing & digital demand generation techniques. Bettina is also a guest lecturer for cleantech marketing at the Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco, and serves as Cleantech Open’s National Marketing Chair. When she’s not saving the planet with every lead generated, she’s making an impact as a zero waste blogger and activist, and avid yogi and baker of German sourdough bread.

🎙 Speaker Series: From Brand to Scale - Growth Marketing for Climate Tech w/ Bettina Grab

🌱 Interviewed by Candice Ammori, attend this session to learn more about corporate activism and transforming capital with the author of "Accountable" and advisor to Engine No 1.

 focused on impact investing. Previously, he was a managing director at the investment firm 

. Before that, he was on the founding team of Bain Capital’s 

 and invested in consumer, industrial, and technology companies through Bain Capital’s private equity fund. He and his writing have been featured in The Atlantic, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, the Harvard Business Review, and The New York Times, among others.

Michael has served as an economic policy advisor in the United States Senate and on two presidential campaigns. He studied philosophy at Harvard College and earned his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He currently lives in New York.

🔥 Fireside Chat: Corporate Activism and Transforming Capital with Michael O'Leary

🌱 Attend this session to learn more about navigating climate anxiety and turning that into empathy and action.

is a lecturer at the University of Bath in social work and climate psychology. A practicing psychotherapist & board member of the Climate Psychology Alliance (CPA). Currently for CPA she is supporting the development of a range of therapeutic outreach projects, working with teachers and outdoor eco-education projects offering workshops in schools (primary & secondary), and universities and supporting the development of a service providing climate crisis aware psychotherapy.

With CPA she is also creating a series of podcasts on Climate Psychology & Eco-Anxiety - ‘Climate Crisis Conversations - Catastrophe or Transformation’.

Caroline works with schools, parent groups, youth activist groups and as a pyschotherapist with children & young people & adults dealing with eco anxiety and distress about the climate & biodiversity crisis.

Through the University she has been researching children & young people’s feelings including eco-anxiety about the climate and biodiversity crisis for 5 years to uncover and explore different stories, narratives and images around our defenses against the ‘difficult truth’ we are facing. Her climate change research is with children & young people in the UK, The Brazil, USA, Maldives, Nigeria & Bangladesh.

🎙 Speaker Session: Climate Psychology with Caroline Hickman

🌱 Interviewed by Candice Ammori, attend this session to hear from the Voyager fund team on how they built their fund, think about investment, and explore new climate tech spaces to back.

 has been building and investing in transformative technology companies since 2009 and brings expertise in mobility, biotech, food and materials production and carbon removal. She co-founded car-sharing firm Getaround and served as the founding business director of Modern Meadow, the world’s first company making biofabricated leather and meat. Sclarsic enrolled in the PhD program at MIT in 2018 to research bioengineering strategies for carbon removal, completing her Master’s thesis before launching Voyager.

Sarah is a graduate of Harvard and of MIT, where she researched atmospheric carbon removal. She lives in New York City.

 has been structuring markets, financial products and investments for climate stabilization since 2005 and brings expertise in energy, policy and financing. A Kauffman Fellow, she has invested in more than 25 early-stage climate tech companies since 2015. Previously, Sierra led corporate development teams at financial technology companies responsible for $3B+ in solar and energy efficiency financing. Her experience in climate policy and market design includes the Obama White House Office of Energy and Climate Change and the International Energy Agency.

Sierra is a graduate of Stanford and Harvard, where she researched lifecycle emissions analysis and carbon market design. Sierra lives in San Francisco with her husband and young daughter.

🔥 Fireside Chat: Investing in Climate Tech w/ Sierra Peterson & Sarah Sclarsic 

Join this session to learn from Barney Schauble and discuss how to create real-world solutions to climate-related risks.

 is the Chair of Nephila Climate and Head of Nephila Labs.  Barney joined Nephila in 2004 as a Managing Partner in Bermuda and moved to the Bay Area in 2010.  His career began in 1993 with roles at Marsh and Guy Carpenter, then at Goldman, Sachs & Co. from 1996 to 2002, where he helped to execute the first catastrophe bond and spent six years working in New York and London on development and distribution of catastrophe and weather-linked products.  Barney attended Harvard College and received his BA in Economics in 1995, where his senior thesis explored investing in bonds linked to property catastrophe reinsurance risk.  

He is also Chair of the Board of Ceres (a non-profit devoted to sustainable capitalism) where he has been a Director since 2011.  He has also served as an advisor and/or board member of various insurance- and climate-related technology companies including Advisen, Boost, Cape Analytics, Cyence, Metromile, The Climate Corporation, The Production Board, and Tremor.  He is also an investor in two soccer teams, the Oakland Roots (USL) and Venezia FC (Serie B).

🎙 Speaker Session: Climate Risk - Reinsurance and Capital Markets w/ Barney Schauble

attend to learn more about the emerging fields in climate and how you can get involved there.

, a new non-profit focused on field-building in emerging climate areas. Spark focuses on under-addressed areas of science and technology that have the potential for large-scale mitigation of climate harm, addressing near-term warming, and contributing to climate repair. Spark works to accelerate these fields through building shared strategic roadmaps, providing research funding, seeding new organizations, coordinating a variety of stakeholders, engaging with experts, and communicating with the public. In its first 6 months, Spark raised $11M+ and seeded new international research programs in fundamental, neglected climate science.

Erika's background is in engineering leadership at high-growth software companies, with an impact bent. Previously, she started and co-led 

's work to provide local election offices across the country the products and technical expertise they needed to run a smooth election, led the Payments Experience engineering group at 

, served as the Director of Engineering at 

, and was the Director of Product Engineering at 

 after being an early engineer there. Erika studied computer science, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering at MIT.

David's background is as a climate-focused advisor, investor, and consultant. He was a senior fellow at RMI, and co-founder and advisor to 

. Previously, David led product teams at Dropbox, invested in climatetech at Khosla Ventures, and led climate-focused teams at McKinsey & Company. David studied Applied Physics at Stanford (PhD '06) and Physics at Harvey Mudd.