External Sponsors

Commonwealth Fusion Systems

Commonwealth Fusion Systems is the world’s leading and largest private fusion company. The company’s marquee fusion project, SPARC, will generate net energy, paving the way for limitless carbon-free energy. The company has raised more than $2 billion in capital since it was founded in 2018. The company is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Unicorn Community.

SES AI

Founded in 2012, SES AI is powering the future of global electric transportation on land and in the air with the world’s most advanced Li-Metal batteries. SES AI is the first battery company in the world to accelerate its pace of innovation by utilizing superintelligent AI across the spectrum of its business. That includes future material development, battery engineering and process optimization, quality manufacturing, battery health monitoring, incident prediction driven by AI, as well as supply chain and sustainability management. SES AI headquartered in Boston and with operations in Singapore, Shanghai, and Seoul.

Palmetto

Palmetto is on a mission to lead the world towards a clean energy future. Palmetto’s technology platform is accelerating the mass adoption of clean energy by making it easier for homeowners to choose renewable energy sources, spur innovation by other businesses and clean tech entrepreneurs, and to drive environmental impact at scale. The company’s Clean Energy Operating Platform enables end-to-end sales, financing, fulfillment, permitting, energy intelligence insights and a superior customer experience. Palmetto believes that access to clean energy sources is for everyone, not just the wealthy few. The company’s Get Solar, Give Solar program funds philanthropic partnerships and expands clean energy to underserved communities across the globe. Palmetto is a triple bottom line company with teammates throughout the United States. For more information, please visit https://palmetto.com.

Planet FWD

Planet FWD is the leading decarbonization platform for the consumer industry. Planet FWD’s platform and team of climate scientists empower consumer companies to reach their climate goals by helping them measure and reduce their carbon footprint. Leveraging a robust database of ingredients and raw materials, Planet FWD models complex food systems, and textile and fabric systems to identify Scope 3 emissions reduction opportunities that unlock decarbonization. Planet FWD’s software platform is the only solution that can analyze how a company can reduce emissions by making specific changes to their ingredients, materials, textiles, packaging, suppliers and farm-level practices. 

Ironwood Forestry

Ironwood Forestry is an independent consulting firm dedicated to providing deep solutions for forestry through a mission centered on innovation, partnership, and workforce development. By leveraging advanced technologies like LiDAR and 3D modeling, Ironwood pioneers new approaches that improve forest resilience and operational precision. The company builds strategic partnerships with industry leaders and environmental organizations, fostering a collaborative network committed to sustainable practices. Additionally, Ironwood focuses on workforce development, equipping forestry professionals with the expertise needed to navigate a changing landscape and tackle today’s environmental challenges effectively.

GALY

Launched in 2019, GALY is a climate tech company dedicated to developing novel cellular agriculture products. Starting with cotton—which accounts for 2.5% of the world’s total arable land, consumes 25% of the world’s agrochemicals, requires an estimated 10,000 liters of water per kilogram produced, and faces traceability issues due to unsafe labor conditions—the company has successfully developed a minimum-viable product and is working on both enhancing the product’s quality parameters and scaling up production. Recognizing the potential of its platform through its work with cotton, GALY has expanded its foundational technology to other crops in industries such as food and beverages, among many other possibilities.

Avangrid

Avangrid is a leading sustainable energy company transitioning America toward a clean and connected future headquartered in Orange, CT, and has a footprint in 24 states with $41 billion in assets. Our primary businesses are Networks, which serves 3.3 million electric and natural gas customers in the Northeast, and Renewables, the third-largest renewable energy company in the U.S. with a diverse onshore and offshore renewable energy portfolio. With more than 7,600 employees, Avangrid has built a culture that blends diversity, equity and inclusion guided by the company’s ESG+F framework and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This has led to recognition by JUST Capital for three consecutive years as one of America’s best corporate citizens and second in utilities for our commitment to the environment and the communities we serve. Avangrid has been named one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies for five consecutive years by the Ethisphere Institute.

MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative

The MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative is a center working hard to be a leading voice in sustainable business and policy, with a mission to provide the best education, apply academic rigor to real world problems, and empower leaders everywhere to take action so humans and nature can thrive.

Housed at the MIT Sloan School of Management – birthplace of systems thinking, system dynamics, and modeling of complex human + environment interactions – we are deeply committed to advancing systems change for an equitable and sustainable world. We do this through the joint efforts of MIT students, faculty, alumni, researchers, and collaborators in business, government, NGOs, and hybrid organizations.

🌿 "Hope isn’t naïve optimism—the belief that some technological breakthrough will save us. It's the belief that what we do matters. That by working together, we can create a better world," - Professor John Sterman.

MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering

The Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) at MIT provides educational opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students interested in advancing the frontiers of nuclear science and engineering and in developing applications of nuclear technology across four areas: Fission; Fusion and Plasmas; Security and Policy; and Quantum Engineering. NSE prepares our students to make contributions to the scientific fundamentals of Advanced Computing, Modeling and Simulation; Extreme Materials and Environments; Nuclear Reactions and Radiation.

Our vision is a sustainable future where nuclear science and technology are leveraged for the benefit of humankind and the planet. Our mission is to develop the next generation of leaders of the global nuclear community, advance basic research, provide technical leadership on energy and non-energy applications of nuclear technology, and inform public discussion about nuclear science and technology, in order to address global grand challenges.

We are a dynamic and welcoming community with the motto Science, Systems, Society; pulling in talent from all over the world to address the grand challenges of our time.

MIT Morningside Academy for Design

The MIT Morningside Academy for Design (MAD) is an interdisciplinary hub dedicated to advancing design education, research, and entrepreneurship. MAD weaves in science, engineering, architecture, planning, humanities, and business to foster an environment where design acts a catalyst for positive change. MAD serves the entire Institute through its programs, fellowships, events, and resources, while being home to three makerspaces—Metropolis, The Deep, and N52 Fabrication Shop—and MITdesignX, the entrepreneurship program.

MIT Energy Initiative

The MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), MIT’s hub for energy research, education, and outreach, is advancing zero- and low-carbon solutions to combat climate change and expand energy access. MITEI is a crucial rallying point for MIT researchers and educators who share our vision and commitment to dramatically reduce emissions through the development of novel technologies and delivery of science-based analysis. Together we are dedicated to decarbonizing global energy systems and building upon MIT’s long tradition of working collaboratively and transparently with industry, government, and civil society.

MIT.nano

MIT.nano is the Institute’s central resource for nanoscale discovery and innovation, set in the heart of the campus in the Lisa T. Su Building. We are the largest, most advanced, and most accessible university research facility of our kind in the United States, with more than 200 tools and instruments in high-performance laboratory spaces, available to qualified researchers from across MIT, as well as external users from industry, academia, and government.

MIT Graduate Student Council

Since 1953, the Graduate Student Council’s core mission has been to represent and advocate for graduate students across all departments and backgrounds to MIT and beyond.

MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

The Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science is the largest department at MIT, annually preparing hundreds of graduate and undergraduate students for career leadership in fields such as academia, research, and the high-technology industry. Part of both the Schwarzman College of Computing and the School of Engineering, MIT EECS consistently tops the U.S. News & World Report and other college rankings and is widely recognized for its world-class faculty, who provide outstanding education and conduct innovative and award-winning research.

MIT Chemical Engineering

Formally established as a separate department in 1920, MIT’s Chemical Engineering department (ChemE) has not only set the standard for instruction and research in the field, it continues to redefine the discipline’s frontiers. With one of three undergraduate programs focusing on chemical-biological engineering for students interested in the emerging biotech and life sciences industries, and two of three graduate programs providing an experiential course of study in chemical engineering practice in collaboration with MIT’s Sloan School of Management, ChemE at MIT is quite unlike chemical engineering anywhere else.

MIT Biological Engineering

Founded in 1998, BE launched its undergraduate major in 2005 – the first new major course of study at MIT in 39 years. The department’s premise is that the science of biology is as important to the development of technology and society in the 21st century as physics and chemistry were in the 20th century, and that an increasing ability to measure, model, and manipulate properties of biological systems at the molecular, cellular, and multicellular levels will continue to shape this development. A new generation of engineers and scientists is learning to address problems through their ability to measure, model, and rationally manipulate the technological and environmental factors affecting biological systems. They are applying not only engineering principles to the analytical understanding of how biological systems operate, especially when impacted by genetic, chemical, physical, infectious, or other interventions; but also a synthetic design perspective to creating biology-based technologies for medical diagnostics, therapeutics, and prosthetics, as well as for applications in diverse industries beyond human health care.

 MIT Office of Sustainability

The mission of the MIT Office of Sustainability is to transform MIT into a replicable model that generates just, equitable, applicable, and scalable solutions for responding to the unprecedented challenges of a changing planet. To achieve our mission, we seek to advance a collaborative process that engages and elevates a diverse set of voices to foster operational excellence, education, research, and innovation on our campus.

MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics

The Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was the first of the Institute’s great modern interdepartmental academic research centers. Today, we are one of MIT’s largest such organizations, and the most diverse research laboratory at MIT in our scope of intellectual interests.

Research in RLE encompasses an extensive range of natural and man-made phenomena, and our projects are both basic and applied. Common among all RLE efforts is an expansive 21st century interpretation of the 20th century term “electronics,” starting at the most basic physical realm of particles and quantum physics and extending all the way to sophisticated engineering application technologies relevant to today and critical to tomorrow.

MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory pioneers research in computing that improves the way people work, play, and learn. We focus on developing fundamental new technologies, conducting basic research that furthers the field of computing, and inspiring and educating future generations of scientists and technologists. With more than 60 research groups working on hundreds of diverse projects, researchers focus on discovering novel ways to make systems and machines smarter, easier to use, more secure, and more efficient.