The new spring cohort of CITRIS Foundry teams was announced February 13 at a Foundry event featuring Rich Lyons, UC Berkeley’s first-ever Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer. The 32 teams cover deep-tech fields from AI and engineering systems to materials science and biotechnology, tackling issues including health care, energy and the environment, transportation, and sustainable infrastructure.
Lyons encouraged the student entrepreneurs to embrace their identity as changemakers, finding agency and purpose and reaching for broad impact while pursuing their passion.
The six-month CITRIS Foundry incubator program offers company teams co-working space, coaching, and a toolbox of resources including access to the CITRIS Invention Lab and the Berkeley Marvell Nanofabrication Laboratory at CITRIS.
A sampling of spring 2020 CITRIS Foundry company teams follows.
#SmartCohort
This team aims to resolve design, governance, and infrastructure problems at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to address social equity in disaster mitigation and resilience.
Aila Health
With clinical and patient-generated data, the Aila Health team is developing an expedient and accurate digital diagnostic tool to speed treatment for more than 80 autoimmune diseases and improve the odds for these patients, 40 percent of whom are now originally misdiagnosed.
AsTeR
The AsTeR team is working with firefighters to improve platforms for emergency response call center operation and decision-making.
Coreless Technologies
This team develops hollow nanospheres, which offer higher performance than their solid counterparts, with a broad range of applications and serviceable markets ranging from chemical catalysis to healthcare.
HyperSpin Technologies
This team is creating a new class of NMR spectrometer devices that operate using a laser, without superconducting magnets, on a compact desktop platform that could have an industry-altering impact in medical imaging.
Within its first 5 years, the CITRIS Foundry graduated 43 company teams, 79 percent of which were externally funded within 18 months of graduation. Those companies are now working at the forefront of neuroscience, gene editing, photonics, biomimicry, and more. For more information about the CITRIS Foundry, see citrisfoundry.org.
Photo: Rich Lyons, UC Berkeley CIEO (Adriel Olmos)
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The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute drive interdisciplinary innovation for social good with faculty researchers and students from four University of California campuses – Berkeley, Davis, Merced, and Santa Cruz – along with public and private partners.
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