Shaping the Next 50 Years of Science & Technology.

Noah Panavsky is a professor of earth & planetary sciences at Yale University. As an isotope geochemist, he works on environmental change in Earth’s past, present, and future. He has worked extensively on atmospheric evolution—particularly on changes in oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations -- and current projects focus on changes in ocean oxygen levels, tracking how primary productivity has changed through time, and on the potential for carbon capture through enhanced mineral weathering in marine and terrestrial environments.

Micah Springut is the founder and CEO of Monumental Labs, a company building robotic stone carving factories to unleash a renaissance. Combining advanced robotics with traditional hand carving, Monumental Labs produces custom stone sculpture at a fraction of the cost for artists, architects, and collectors. Their goal: to build future cities with the splendor of Florence, Paris, and Art Deco New York.

Gale Pooley, PhD is an economist, professor, and author. He has helped thousands of investors, business leaders, and students understand the innovation process. He is the co-author of the award-winning book, Superabundance: A Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet.

A 20-year Coast Guard officer, naval engineer, and former White House National Security Council maritime director, William is at the forefront of developing the future civil nuclear maritime ecosystem.

Albert Wenger is managing partner at Union Square Ventures (USV). Before joining USV, Albert was the president of del.icio.us through the company’s sale to Yahoo and an angel investor (Etsy, Tumblr). Albert is the author of the book The World After Capital. On his blog Continuations he writes about technology, science, philosophy and more. Albert graduated from Harvard College in economics and computer science and holds a Ph.D. in Information Technology from MIT. Albert is married to Gigi Danziger. They have three grown children and live in New York City.

Andrew McAfee is a Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-founder and co-director of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, and the inaugural Visiting Fellow at the Technology and Society organization at Google. He studies how technological progress changes the world. His book, The Geek Way, was published by Little, Brown in 2023. His previous books include More from Less and, with Erik Brynjolfsson, The Second Machine Age.

Manuela Veloso is Head of AI Research at JPMorganChase and Herbert A. Simon University Professor Emerita in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Veloso pursues research interests in core AI as AI robot and digital agents with perception, cognition, and action.

Veloso is a member of the National Academy of Engineering for “her contributions to artificial intelligence and its applications to robotics and to the financial domain.” She is a past president of AAAI, and a co-founder of RoboCup.

Pablos is a hacker, inventor & technology futurist with a unique ability to distill complex technology into practical tools. Always building the future, his projects include cryptocurrency in the 1990s; AI for stock market trading; building spaceships at Blue Origin for Jeff Bezos; and the world’s smallest PC.

A world-renowned expert in Advanced Energy, 3D Printing, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Automated Manufacturing & Cryptocurrency, Pablos has a unique ability to articulate practical solutions and visions for the future of technology.

Hod Lipson is a roboticist who works in the areas of artificial intelligence and digital manufacturing. As a professor at Columbia University, he teaches his students about the principles of designing and building robots that do what you’d least expect robots to do: Self replicate, self-reflect, ask questions, and even be creative. Lipson’s research asks questions such as: Can robots ultimately design and make other robots? Can machines be curious and creative?  Will robots ever be truly self-aware? Answers to these questions can help illuminate life’s big mysteries.

Brannon is a Principal on AlleyCorp’s Deep Tech investing team, specializing in early-stage robotics companies. Previously, he served as a Lead Manufacturing, Automation, and Integration Engineer at SpaceX, where he contributed to the development of propulsive systems for reusable launch vehicles and Starship’s Raptor concept engine. Brannon led a team in conceptualizing, acquiring,and commissioning a multi-million-dollar robotic factory with cutting-edge production capabilities.

Although born in California, Brannon grew up in Denver and calls Colorado home. He holds a degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University, where he designed and built an air-hockey-playing robot for his thesis work. During his time at Princeton, Brannon played Division-1 football, winning two Ivy League championships. He later received his MBAfrom Harvard Business School.

Abe is a General Partner leading Deep Tech investments at AlleyCorp, one of the most active early stage investors in NYC. Abe has more than 20 years of engineering experience, having spent time as a product and engineering leader in various roles at Alphabet, where he launched Play Books and Magazines at Android, built the Verily Life Science product teams and Boston office, and shipped several AI/ML and computer vision products across Google while building the Google Research product management team. Before that, he founded a Web 2.0 startup and worked on unmanned aerial vehicles in the defense industry.

Abe holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of Rhode Island.

Prior to all of this, he dropped out of high school to run fishing boats and factories in the family aquaculture business.

Joseph Krause is the co-founder and CEO of Radical AI, which combines AI and robotics to accelerate the design, development and discovery of novel materials. A US Army National Guard veteran and materials scientist, Joseph pioneered neuromorphic semiconductor research in the Army DEVCOM research lab and led deep tech investments as an investor at AlleyCorp before founding Radical. 

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Guillaume Verdon is a Canadian mathematical physicist, quantum computing researcher, entrepreneur, and writer who is a key contributor of Google's quantum machine learning software, Tensorflow Quantum. He is also a co-founder of the effective accelerationism movement and the start-up company Extropic AI which operates at the intersection between physics-based computing and artificial intelligence.

Danielle Strachman is a co-founder and general partner at 1517 Fund, where she leads investment strategy, portfolio development, and founder engagement. Previously, she was the founding director of the Thiel Fellowship, identifying transformative talent for companies like Ethereum, Figma, Longevity Fund and OYO. Before that, she founded Innovations Academy, a student-led learning charter school serving 400 students.

Kunal Sinha is the Co-Founder and CEO of Valor, a deep-tech startup redefining separation and refining of critical minerals. Valor is developing a breakthrough technology platform capable of processing complex and unconventional feedstocks, to isolate high-purity critical and strategic metals like copper, cobalt, nickel, precious metals, PGMs, gallium, germanium, REEs, etc. 100x cheaper, cleaner, faster, smarter.

Raquel Schreiber is the founder of Gearworks, an operations and strategy firm that builds and partners with bold climate-tech, defense/aero-tech, and women-led missions. Before launching Gearworks, Raquel spent her career bringing some of the world’s most challenging climate technologies to inception or to market, including at Tesla, Base Power, C16 Biosciences, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, and Aigen Robotics. At Tesla, she led Engineering Programs for both the Model 3 battery and Solar Roof—taking technologies from concept to high-volume production.

Micheál Ganley is the CEO of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, a modern steel and advanced-materials company. He is building highly automated U.S. steel mills while launching an R&D program focused on rapidly scaling next-generation materials.

Packy McCormick is an investor and author of the “Not Boring” newsletter, providing in-depth analyses of the tech and startup landscape to over 200k subscribers every week.

Jeff Thornburg is the CEO of Portal Space Systems. Thornburg started his career in the U.S. Air Force and has since held key roles in some of the most prominent commercial space companies, including VP of propulsion engineering at SpaceX, director of mechanical engineering and manufacturing for Amazon’s project Kuiper, VP of propulsion engineering at Stratolaunch, SVP of engineering at Agility Robotics, and chief of engineering at Commonwealth Fusion Systems. 

As SpaceX’s second-ever head of propulsion engineering, he architected and developed the Raptor Engine for the Starship and Starship Booster programs. He also oversaw the successful launches of six Falcon 9s and streamlined certification processes with government agencies like NASA and the U.S. Air Force.

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Isaiah Taylor is the founder and CEO of Valar Atomics, an advanced-nuclear company developing high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) using TRISO fuel, helium coolant, and graphite moderation to deliver reliable, inherently safe, low-cost heat for clean fuels and abundant power. Under his leadership, the team built its full-scale non-nuclear thermal prototype, Ward Zero, in ten months; signed a first-of-its-kind Coordinated Research Project with the Philippines Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI); and, with Utah’s San Rafael Energy Lab (USREL), broke ground on its first test reactor.

Josie Zayner is a biohacker, artist, and scientist best known for her self-experimentation and work making hands-on genetic engineering accessible to a lay audience, including CRISPR.