Opportunities to mingle with Berkeley founders in the month ahead

Join Arcadia Science for a mini-hackathon as part of Hacktoberfest. A quick refresher on GitHub will be offered, and snacks and refreshments will be provided!

RSVP on Eventbrite. 

Thursday October 19, 5:00 to 7:00 pm
SWAY Berkeley, 2043 San Pablo Ave. Berkeley

Join the Berkeley Chamber at SWAY Berkeley for a cool, fun & inspiring event to unwind after your long workday. Mingle with other members of the business community while enjoying refreshing beverages and delicious snacks.

RSVP on Eventbrite. 

Join the Berkeley Startup Cluster and Women Entrepreneurs of Berkeley to learn what grants are available to support business growth, how to find them, and what a business can do to make its application competitive. 

Tech Futures Group Business Advisor Chuck Eason will help startup founders, scientists and aspiring entrepreneurs learn everything they need to know about SBIR Research & Development (R&D) grants, followed by an hour of networking with local founders and business owners over food and drinks. 

Register here to secure your spot for learning and networking while checking out this new Berkeley R&D facility.

Learn fundamental social entrepreneurship skills and access critical resources to develop a strong and compelling Big Ideas application. Workshops include Identifying Problems by Systems Mapping (10/3), Crafting Your Big Ideas Application (10/17), Customer Discovery for Social Impact (10/25), and Storytelling for Social Impact (11/14).

RSVP using the links found here, or contact bigideas@berkeley.edu to learn more.

Applications due Oct. 13 

The CITRIS Seed Funding Program issues competitive awards that advance information technology research for societal benefit and catalyze proof-of-concept results that can lead to transformative solutions for industry and the public sector. 

Interdisciplinary proposals are invited from principal investigators at UC Berkeley, among other UC campuses. This program has accelerated more than 235 applied research projects led by over 400 UC innovators to date. Funded projects offer a glimpse at new frontiers of technology and have attracted more than $60 million in follow-on support.

Interested? Learn more or apply today.

Activate is looking for scientists, engineers, and early-stage startups to apply for their 2024 Activate Fellowship. The two-year Activate Fellowship provides early-stage science entrepreneurs and engineers with funding, technical resources, and unparalleled support. 

Apply today to become an Activate Fellow or share the opportunity with your network.

Program Runs November 6-7 

The Equity Fluent Leadership Academy is an equity and inclusion training designed for business leaders who aspire to further equity and inclusion in their organizations and drive impactful change. Led by the Center for Equity, Gender & Leadership (EGAL) at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, participants will learn what it means to be an Equity Fluent Leader™, why diversity and inclusion matter, and research-driven methods to expanding equity within your company.

Register Today.

Berkeley SkyDeck is looking to hire a program manager for its Innovation Partner Program (IPP). Launched in 2019, IPP has grown dramatically as an increasing number of international startups have begun to view SkyDeck as a launchpad to get their start in the North American and global markets. SkyDeck seeks someone who is truly committed to supporting entrepreneurship and who receives real joy from working with international founders.

Interested candidates can apply here. 

Berkeley-based startup Pivot Bio who has raised hundreds of millions from investors to develop microbial-based alternatives to synthetic nitrogen fertilizers has hired Chris Abbot to be its new CEO. Co-founder Karsten Temme has transitioned to Chief Innovation Officer.

Read more in Bay Area Inno.

Novel Farms, Inc., a Berkeley food technology startup, has been awarded the highly competitive Small Business Innovation Research Phase II grant by the National Science Foundation. The $999,967 two-year grant is a testament to Novel Farms' groundbreaking work in the field of cultivated meat production and will provide critical funding to support the scale-up of their proprietary scaffolding platform.

Read more in Business Wire. 

Berkeley SkyDeck's Batch 16 Demo Day saw 24 startups from around the globe take center stage at the Bay Area’s largest Demo Day. As with most SkyDeck Demo Days, the turn out between the in-person and virtual livestream exceeded 1,200 investors, with investors flying from Singapore, Dubai, and Azerbaijan. This year, SkyDeck witnessed a record number of interested VCs, with 1000+ one-on-one VC meetings already scheduled for the startups.

Learn more about SkyDeck's Batch 16 Demo Day. 

This is the first story in a Berkeley News series highlighting UC Berkeley innovators, researchers and entrepreneurs from throughout history who have improved the way we live. Innovators include UC Berkeley Biology Professor Kathleen Collins who launched Addition Therapeutics, hailed as the next advancement in gene therapy.

Read more in the Berkeley News.