Earth Week 🌎 and Climate Action 🎬 Roundup

05.03.2022

🌎 Earth Week Roundup

Conversations with functional experts from across Engage corporate partners and leading Georgia Tech faculty has made it clear that there has been a seismic shift in public, corporate, and government attitudes over the last few years. A new approach is required to deliver globally-scalable solutions.

This new paradigm will necessitate partnerships between scientists, corporations, communities, and entrepreneurs to rapidly experiment and build sustainability solutions and supporting roadmaps. In honor of Earth week, we are proud to ⭐️ highlight some of these nascent efforts within our ecosystem.

Wellstar partnered with Bee Downtown, our Cohort 1 startup, and Open Hand Atlanta to showcase their beehives 🐝, address food security in the community, and raised awareness on the local news. Bee Downtown was also featured by Fox Business for installing sustainable bee colonies in business centers and downtown areas.

Startup partnerships we love include, Engage startups GreenPrint and PICKUP collaborating to calculate and neutralize vehicle emissions for all PICKUP deliveries. And FreightWaves hosted a Net-Zero Carbon Summit to demonstrate how industry leaders are maintaining efficiency while using flexible solutions to preserve resources.

Not to be outdone, several of our corporates joined in with their own Earth Day pledges. Coca-Cola teamed up with Bill Nye to demystify recycling, UPS joined the Low Carbon Patent Pledge, and Honeywell revealed a new set of commitments, including the Science-Based Targets initiative through the US Department of Energy’s Better Climate Challenge.

💎 Highlights from our Startups

Stressed at work? Tune into Shine‘s new podcast, “Friends with Mental Health Benefits,” addressing caring for mental health at work.

Our founders and CEOs double as thought leaders too. Here are our favorites from the canons:

Otto emerged from Stealth Mode, announcing a breakthrough in machine learning for malware detection.

Inclusively‘s co-founders Charlotte Dales and Sarah Bernard were named to the Care Guild List by The Holding Co., a lab funded by Pivotal Ventures, a Melinda French Gates company.

Intrinio‘s co-founder and CEO Rachel Carpenter joined the Wall Street Horizon’s panel of data industry experts on Data Minds: Capitalizing on Global Event-Driven Data.

Itential was named Gartner’s 2022 Cool Vendor in Network Automation.

Paladin partnered with Legal Development Network and LinGo in Ukraine to launch a European pro bono portal to support those affected by the war.

What we 💛 about our Corporate Partners

Award season is here and our corporates put up some serious points on the board.

Georgia Tech’s team carSEAL won the Atlanta Coast Conference InVenture Prize for its development of a carotid artery closure device that can help save the lives of stroke patients by cutting procedure time in half.

Intercontinental Exchange launched Environmental, Social, and Governance coverage on more than 1.5 million mortgage-backed securities, increasing its total fixed income coverage to over three million securities.

Wellstar is seeking innovative solutions for an automated parcel receiving project at the point of intake. Solutions must automatically read, scan and ingest package data upon delivery and integrate into existing supply chain systems. Suppliers interested in a funded Proof of Concept should contact catalyst@wellstar.org before May 13, 2022.

🏊 Dive into the ATL Ecosystem

Georgia Tech began construction of Science Square, a mixed-use innovation community that includes commercial lab space as well as residential real estate and retail opportunities.

Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens and Calendly CEO Tope Awotona exchanged stories and ideas on ways to optimize Atlanta’s technology ecosystem and the best ways to scale and fundraise.

Georgia startups raised nine hundred twenty-two million dollars across eighty deals in the first quarter of 2022, a slight decrease from $1.1 billion raised in the last three months of 2021, according to the Q1 2022 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.

Nike revealed plans to open a new technology center in the West Midtown area in Atlanta next year.