Are you a pioneer, an explorer, a rebel?
Ideaship fuels founder inventors to build great companies

Chase Kahmann

ESG Brands

ESG Brands, established in 2022, leads the way in sustainable innovation at the convergence of agriculture, chemistry, and fashion. Our visionary team specializes in the transformative process of “cottonizing” agricultural waste from banana plantations, resulting in high-quality textile-grade fiber while concurrently producing valuable potable water as a byproduct. We are deeply committed to advancing multi-purpose farming and fostering synergy between soil, nutrition, and material science. At ESG Brands, we are cultivating the materials of tomorrow and scaling the world’s next generation of natural fibers. Explore our mission further at www.theESGbrands.com.

Dr. Frank Lau

Keliomics

Dr. Lau is a surgeon scientist and serial entrepreneur. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biochemistry and Biophysics in three years from Yale University. He earned his MD with Research Honors from University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor (a top 10 US medical school). Dr. Lau did a plastic surgery residency and a stem cell research fellowship at Harvard, and simultaneously co-founded a startup that was later acquired by an international publishing house. He founded Keliomics with his co-founder, Jason Bourgeois, in 2022.

Dr. Grin Lord

mPathic

Grin Lord is a licensed clinical psychologist and founder & CEO of mpathic. She previously worked as Chief Clinical Officer at Lyssn.io, Clinical Product Psychologist at Youper.ai, and Research Scientist at the University of Washington in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Areas of expertise include conversational design, using AI and machine learning to augment human connection, evidence-based therapies, empathy, and health coaching. Grin founded and serves on the board of Therapists in Tech, a collaborative that offers support to over 3,000 clinicians working together to define the digital mental health revolution.

Grin enjoys reading and writing about the history of psychology and textual interpretation as a member of Division 24 in the American Psychological Association. In her off time you can find Grin singing karaoke, drinking boba tea, and traveling away from Seattle to sunny destinations. She has two incredible sons and two annoying hairless cats that keep her busy.

Amelia Eichel

Wonderfil

Amelia Eichel is co-founder and CEO of Wonderfil. As a Lewis & Clark graduate with a degree in Interdisciplinary Religious Studies, Amelia brings a unique perspective to how technology shapes social and environmental change. Her professional passions include exploring the ways in which cybernetics can be used to drive positive change and how we can create a world where everyone has the resources they need to thrive.

Mia Umanos

Clickvoyant

Mia Umanos, founder and CEO of Clickvoyant, is a 14-year veteran of marketing analytics who grew her career from junior to director inside digital marketing agencies. Her talent for balancing math and intuition turns her projects into gold. As a 2022 Tory Burch Foundation Fellow, and recipient of the FearlessFund Women of Color grant, Mia spends pro-bono time advising other female founders on how to leverage data to optimize their businesses.

Marcelino Alvarez

Photon Marine

Marcelino Alvarez is CEO of Photon Marine, a Portland-based startup developing high-powered, electric outboard motor systems for commercial boat fleets. Photon exists for the benefit of the world’s most fragile marine ecosystems and for those whose livelihoods and sustenance depend on them. Prior to Photon, Marcelino served as Chief Product Officer at Fresh Consulting, which acquired Uncorked Studios, a product design firm that he co-founded in 2010 and served as CEO.

David Ashton

Canopii

David Ashton is a founder and CEO of Canopii, producer of a fully autonomous green house. David holds a degree in Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering from Cal Poly SLO and focusses on CAD, materials sourcing, and mechanical integration for Canopii’s vertical farming technology. Together with his co-founder, Justin Gravett, David is building food security, climate resilience, and better livelihoods for small and midsized farmers.

Geoff Rhoads

Transformative Optics

Geoff is CEO and co-founder of Transformative Optics, a company founded to bring the vivid colors enabled by CMOS sensors to life for everyone with a smart phone. A proven entrepreneur, Geoff was founder of Digimarc (NASDAQ: DMRC) and pivotal to the turn-around of what became Immersive Media (TSX:IMC), the original developer of what the world now knows as Google Streetview. Within Digimarc Geoff led a 25 year+, billion dollar global counterfeit deterrence program. His eventful history includes 12 years of highest-level classified activities for US space-borne reconnaissance efforts, a DARPA investigation, experience as Principal Investigator on an Air Force advanced navigation program, prototyping of Wi-Fi-based indoor navigation, and development of in-shoe motion sensing at Nike. Geoff holds more than 500 patents, cherishes time with family, still plays ice hockey, and is obsessed with launching Transformative Optics into trans-lunar orbit where it truly belongs.

David Paolella

Tandem

David Paolella is co-founder and CEO of Tandem Biotherapeutics inc. Mr. Paolella founded Cambrooke Therapeutics, now part of the Ajinomoto group, to provide world-class clinical nutrition products for his two children Cameron and Brooke. Mr. Paolella has built two clinical nutrition manufacturing facilities near Boston to provide medical foods for IEMs, Severe Protein Allergies, and Intractable Epilepsy. In 2010 Cambrooke brought the first intact protein dietary treatment to market using glycomacropeptide a novel whey fraction as a first-in-class treatment for these patients. Over the past dozen years, it has become the leading medical food for patients with Phenylketonuria and Tyrosinemia in more than 20 countries around the world.

Determined to find better therapies for his family and this global community of rare diseases, Mr. Paolella co-founded Tandem Biotherapeutics with Dr. Sarkissian and Dr. Gramignoli in 2020 to develop safe and effective treatments for patients with congenital liver enzyme defects such as PKU. Initial indications suggest that Tandem’s cell therapy product can ameliorate disease in many conditions beyond the initial proof of concept.

Dr. Walid Amamou

Ubiai

Walid Amamou is the CEO and Founder of UBIAI, an AI platform that aims to transform unstructured data into intelligence. With a PhD in Material Science and Engineering and a research scientist stint at Intel for 3.5 years, Walid is a seasoned professional in the tech industry. In 2020, Walid founded UBIAI with a vision to provide an industry-specific, no-code AI platform to help companies process, analyze and organize their unstructured data efficiently. Through UBIAI, Walid is committed to providing businesses with the tools they need to succeed in the digital age. In his free time, Walid is an avid soccer player and loves traveling around the world to explore different cultures. He also enjoys reading and expanding his knowledge in various areas.

Daniel Selans

Streamdal

Daniel Selans is the CTO of Streamdal. He is a distributed systems engineer with 20+ years of professional experience in tech. Prior to building software and systems at companies like New Relic, InVisionApp, DigitalOcean and Community, Daniel spent a significant amount of time working in the data center sector, which provides him a unique perspective on how to best architect and build software that lives in perfect harmony with systems. Daniel is a basement musician, loves black metal, tattoos, dark sci-fi and is perpetually in the process of learning to enjoy whiskey.

Matt Beaudet

InVivo

Matt Beaudet is the CEO of InVivo Biosystems, a company that uses CRISPR technology to create precise genetic models of disease. Matt has dedicated the past 20 years of his career to exploring the potential of molecular biology in healthcare. He brings a wealth of experience in founding, managing, and leading biotech companies to the table. As CEO of InVivo Biosystems, Matt’s vision is to accelerate the search for therapies by closing the gap between cells and mice through the use of genetically-modified in vivo models. He believes that the future is bright for the company and the industry, and is committed to solving big problems and creating a culture of innovation and possibility at InVivo Biosystems. InVivo Biosystems has received numerous awards and recognition for its work, including the 2019 Eugene Oregon Innovation & Talent Job Creation Award, the 2018 Science Coalition American-Made Innovation Award, and the 2014 White House Most Innovative Platform Technology Award.

Chris Edwards

Sensory Robotics

Chris Edwards is CEO of Sensory Robotics. With nearly 10 years of experience in business and manufacturing automation, he has a Bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s in computer science. Together with his co-founder Tristan Fogt, who has a master’s in robotics, they are forging a new path for industrial robotics. Before founding Sensory Robotics, Chris conducted research in cloud computing, and he automated the arbitrage of cryptocurrencies.

Chris’s long-term goal is to help make our modern society sustainable, efficient, and supportive of human achievement. He is accordingly a lifelong member of the Planetary Society along with several other public science organizations, and has supported the next generation of robotics experts through FIRST. For leisure he enjoys skiing, automotive racing, and travel; and occasionally he steps away from technology to delve into his library of history books or to craft things by hand.

Sensory Robotics makes a paradigm-changing safety product for industrial automation. Their product removes the barrier between workers and heavy machines, so they can safely interact and work side-by-side. This allows factories to quickly and cheaply automate manufacturing, and allows existing automation to run faster. Their clients include major automakers and major robot makers, which see the benefit that this has for manufacturing and the possibilities it opens for robotics.

Mehdi Kargar

Maxterial

Mehdi Kargar, co-founder and CEO of Maxterial, is a deep tech entrepreneur with 15 years of business and product development experience. Mehdi has a PhD in engineering with additional trainings in chemistry and microbiology. He reads history and is a fan of Persian literature. Mehdi grows 25+ types of fruits and veggies in his home garden.

Anthony Frisone

CZAR Power

Tony is a former US Army Engineer officer who co-founded CZAR shortly after returning from Afghanistan to create solutions that help secure and democratize energy. He has over a decade of experience leading high-performing teams in the energy and security sector. CZAR-Power is an Army-veteran and MIT PhD-led cleantech company building the world’s smartest and most sustainable charging system.

Mark Hunsmann

Styleriser Inc.

Mark Hunsmann is an experienced entrepreneur with a passion for innovation and disrupting procedures that don’t work well, such as the status quo of apparel online shopping. As co-founder and CEO of Styleriser Inc., Mark and his team have developed AI-driven tools that significantly enhance the online shopping experience through a series of professional virtual advisors.

Mark has studied Communication Arts and Media. Previous to Styleriser, Mark was involved in co-founding four service companies, most of them out of Istanbul, Turkey, where Mark remains invested, training and coaching junior entrepreneurs.

Tatiana Alexa

Sangrove

Tatiana Alexa is Co-Founder and CEO of Sangrove. Tatiana is a seasoned cross-domain entrepreneur with deep industry knowledge in on-trend consumer products and vertical SaaS markets. Sangrove is a digital marketplace platform that allows brands to efficiently bring new consumer goods products to market. Prior to co-founding Sangrove, Tatiana founded Urbanika, a leading international distribution enterprise of worldwide sourcing of design-driven products built from the ground up. Tatiana was one of the first pioneers of offshore custom software development for internet-based solutions in various domains. Tatiana co-founded Octet Group, a company that developed several highly successful Forex and Options real-time trading platforms for various clients, one of which was later sold to Ameritrade. Tatiana is an MD with a Doctor of Medicine degree from First Moscow State Medical University and holds a Master’s Degree from Moscow Financial University.

Tatiana is passionate about environmental sustainability, using a practical and realistic approach to finding the way to make sustainability a profit center, not a cost.

Aaron Enten

Insight Optics, Inc.

Aaron Enten, Ph.D., MBA is the President, Chief Executive Officer, and a technical Co-founder of Insight Optics. As head of the management team, Aaron leads the creation of the company’s culture, corporate strategy, investor relationships, and drives strategic partnerships. Aaron is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design program, a degree focused on medical technology innovation, needs identification, and customer discovery, and received his Ph.D. and MBA at the Georgia Institute of Technology in BioEngineering Innovation Management and Technology Commercialization. He has worked as a project manager, CxO for Hire, and has started multiple companies.

Aaron is passionate about creating sustainable impacts in medical care. He volunteers and teaches a myriad of topics for organizations promoting STEAM and Entrepreneurial education. You can frequently find him rock climbing, barbecuing over his homemade pit, or entertaining on panels or the stage.

John Goscha

Native Voice Inc.

John Goscha is an American inventor, entrepreneur and Founder and CEO of Native Voice Inc. Native Voice is building infrastructure to connect brand’s voice services (e.q., ‘Hey Uber’, ‘Hey Alexa’, etc.) directly with consumers via an SDK and multi-wake word support that has never been done before. Prior to Native Voice, John founded Lucidity Lights, creating the widest spectrum of well-being benefits without sacrificing light quality or energy efficiency; where he is currently the Chairman of the Board.

John is a serial entrepreneur whom enjoys bringing award winning companies from concept, to execution, to expansion. John is passionate about his work and spends the majority of his time traveling and engaging with stakeholders. When he is not meeting with Board Members, investors, customers and end users, John enjoys hiking and Skiing back home in Colorado. John has been a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient multiple times and is a Babson Alumni.

Jeremy Malecha

Biocanic

Jeremy Malecha is the CEO and Co-Founder of Biocanic with over 20 years of medical and software related experience. Prior to Biocanic, he was the Vice President of M&A Strategy in ResMedʼs SaaS Business. Jeremy holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University.

Jeremy has always been passionate about health and wellness – originally starting out in exercise science, then exploring pre-med, and ultimately landing in biomedical technologies. He continues that passion in his personal life and is always tinkering with various health and exercise approaches. In addition to his work, Jeremy is a surfer, furniture builder, and even a home coffee roaster. Despite living in San Diego for over 20 years, youʼll always find him in front of the TV for University of Oregon sporting activities. Go Ducks!

Biocanic is the first of its kind health program intelligence system specifically designed to streamline personalized health programs for functional and integrative health practitioners.

Austin Burch

Above Robotics

Austin Burch is an autonomous vehicle researcher with experience developing state-of-the-art unmanned systems. Austin continues to revolutionize connected vehicle architectures from Infrastructure Enabled Autonomy to cloud connected disparate systems. As a leader, Burch has led teams in designing computer vision processing software, formula-style race cars, and robotic systems. He has worked with Intelligent Transportation Systems, distributed autonomous vehicle architectures, and machine learning perception and control applications on both ground and aerial vehicles.

Austin believes in a pursuit of learning and pushing the edge of autonomy. Exploring technologies from Infrastructure Enabled Autonomy to sensor fusion to open source robotics, he is recognized by IEEE for Intelligent Transportation Systems and his mission to further enable humans through the collective coordination of systems. Austin enjoys tinkering with friends on projects from DIY engineering to art and games. He is passionate about an active lifestyle and the challenges of outdoor and team sports.

Above Robotics mission is to connect people, robots, vehicles and devices with intelligent automation to achieve greater efficiencies, safety and profitability across the value chain. By coordinating disparate systems and devices into an enterprise-wide platform, Above simplifies orchestration and fleet management, streamlining business operations to reduce costs and help complex facilities simply and safely adopt autonomy.

Aravind Upadhyaya

8chili

Aravind Upadhyaya is founder and CEO of 8chili. Aravind is a technologist with more than a decade of experience bringing concepts to market in the mixed reality and computer vision space. He holds an engineering degree in electronics and an MBA from Purdue and Leibniz University.

Outside of work, Aravind is a yoga master. He also enjoys helping fellow entrepreneurs, playing with his golden retriever, Lucky, and going on long drives.

8chili is a deeptech startup based in San Francisco, California that is transforming training and collaboration space with their proprietary non-invasive device AIR. The company’s initial focus is in healthcare with a mission to increase patient satisfaction and workplace efficiency by enabling access to cutting-edge mixed reality applications like patient engagement, pre-op planning, training, and remote collaboration. 8chili’s unique 3D data lake creates a hyper-personalized learning experience that will help train medical robots to perform safe surgeries in the future.

James Dirksen

DeepSurface Security

DeepSurface Security was founded by Tim Morgan and James Dirksen in 2017. James is the cofounder and CEO of DeepSurface Security. He has 26 years of experience, and started his career as a security and networking engineer in the Pentagon working for Northrupp Grumman.

He and his family moved to Portland in 1997 and he has since worked for PWC reengineering security solutions for Fortune 1000 companies, as a VP of Business Development for Procera (now Sandvine), VP of Product and Sales for RuleSpace (now Symantec), and as VP of Product at Galois in Portland leading effort to commercialize DARPA funded cybersecurity prototypes.

Created by a veteran cybersecurity team, DeepSurface Security is the first automated Predictive Vulnerability Management suite of tools that helps cybersecurity teams automate the process of analyzing and prioritizing vulnerabilities on enterprise networks. Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, DeepSurface is a privately held company funded by Cascade Seed Fund, SeaChange Fund, and Voyager Capital.

Volker Dahm

Safedeploy, Inc.

Volker Dahm is the Founder & CEO of Safedeploy. Volker is an entrepreneur by heart, having fallen in love with technology in the early days of PC’s, he founded his first company in 2006. Volker is a mechanical engineer with an MBA and is well versed in business and process solutions in the technology sector. Volker founded Safedeploy in 2020 to help close the gap in CI/CD solutions.

Outside of business, Volker embraces time outdoors with his wife and three kids. He also enjoys the challenge of bidding on eBay for great vintage HiFi electronic components – although this keeps him up at night. He enjoys listening to music and breathing new life into his vintage tech component “babies.”

Safedeploy, Inc. is a B2B based in Fremont, California. Safedeploy makes DevOps life predictable by eliminating the business impact of software issues during production.

Martha Montoya

Agtools, Inc.

Martha Montoya is the CEO and founder of Agtools Inc. Martha has over 25 years of worldwide agricultural and supply chain experience and was appointed by the Governor of California to serve on the board of the California Department of Agriculture and Food.

Martha is passionate about putting technology to work to help farmers on a practical basis and was the genesis of Agtools Inc. She is a natural-born leader and has volunteered on a national level serving on the boards of the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the CA Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and many more. Outside of her entrepreneurial pursuits, Martha enjoys playing tennis in her spare time.

Agtools is a B2B based in Irvine, California. Agtools SaaS platform provides farmers, shippers, freight companies, and retailers the data they need to increase profitability and reduce food waste. Agtools proprietary technology streamlines complex agriculture and market data into an all-in-one dashboard.

Codi Gharagouzloo

Imaginostics, Inc.

Dr. Codi Gharagouzloo, PhD, MSc is technical founder and CEO of Imaginostics. Dr. Gharagouzloo is an expert MRI Physicist and inventor of the QUTE-CE MRI technology. He completed a two-year T-32 postdoctoral fellowship at the Gordon Center for Medical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School. He completed his Ph.D. in Bioengineering at Northeastern University. He obtained a Master of Science in Biophotonics from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris-Saclay in France, where he specialized in nonlinear optical microscopy. Prior to that, he graduated with two Bachelors of Science degrees in Physics and Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering from Kansas State University and was a National Science Foundation research fellow at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zürich, Switzerland.

Codi is married to his wonderful wife Julie, a passionate immigration attorney, dedicated spouse, and amazing mother, and has two children– a 9-year-old boy named Noah and a 1-year-old cuddly baby named Esther. Codi enjoys riding mountain bikes through the forest, exploring nature, reading books, and playing board games with friends and family.

Imaginostics is revolutionizing the future of precision medicine by offering preventative diagnostic solutions. The company has developed a proprietary software suite for renal safe vascular imaging (gadolinium-free) and a novel panel of quantitative imaging biomarkers that are compatible with existing MRI scanners and hardware.

Jared Silvia

BlueDot Photonics, Inc.

Jared Silvia, CEO of BlueDot Photonics, has 9 years of experience in business execution in the energy sector. Jared joined BlueDot from Doosan GridTech, where he oversaw business and product strategy and worked to commercialize solutions for integrating distributed energy

resources into the electric grid. Prior to Doosan, Jared worked at McKinsey and Co. where he served companies in the energy and materials sectors on strategy and operation topics.

Jared has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from MIT, and an MPhil in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge as a Churchill Scholar. A long-time resident of Washington, Jared is a graduate of the University of Washington where he earned a BS in Chemistry and a BS in Biochemistry. He supports undergraduate education and the Department of Chemistry through volunteer efforts. When he’s not trying to get more solar energy on the grid, Jared loves running across the hills of the Seattle area, cooking the latest food trend, and getting outside with his daughter, Marley, and wife, Brandi.

BlueDot Photonics is a Seattle-based company working to commercialize next-generation solar technologies based on perovskite semiconductor materials.

Nathan Ruben

SmartBeat

Nate graduated from Utah State University with his M.S. in Electrical Engineering. His thesis “Using Consumer-grade Cameras to Estimate Heart Rate” was the basis for what now has become the Smart Beat patent portfolio. Since founding the company, Nate’s team has been the recipient of multiple awards including the CES 2020 Innovation Award.

Before undergoing his graduate studies, Nate was heavily involved in music, art, and religious service. Before serving a voluntary two-year church mission, he was the lead singer in a local ska band and did production work at the city amphitheater. For the last 10 years, Nate’s biggest hobby has been his family. He regards his wife and five kids as his greatest adventure. In fact, it was the premature birth of his first child that first gave inspiration to his research in SIDS-prevention technology.

SmartBeat is a B2C infant monitoring system solutions company based in Salt Lake City, Utah. SmartBeat engineers and manufactures state of the art, computer vision powered infant monitoring systems.

Dan Biggs

Steamchain Corp

Dan Biggs is Founder and CEO of Steamchain Corp. Dan spent 40 years as founder of DBP, Inc. which specialized in business development, project management, strategic planning, marketing and consulting on International media and trade issues. He was interim CEO of NTV-7 in Malaysia, where he helped with the roll out to the local and international business community. Dan also co-founded the Iris Financial Group, Roger Hong Foods and has served on the Board of several companies and non-profit organizations. He has a B.S. from the University of Oregon.

Dan is a great supporter of the arts and was previously Chairman of The Board of Directors for Portland Art Museum. He was also a trustee for the Portland Opera, co-founder of the Portland Creative Conference and is currently Chairman of the Board of the George D. Green Art Institute.

Steamchain Corp is a B2B startup based in Portland, Oregon. Steamchain Corp simplifies global B2B payments by reducing currency conversion costs, currency fluctuation risk, and reducing antiquated document processes with their software platform. By eliminating financial institutions from the international business equation, Steamchain Corp only charges a 1.5% fee and is able to save their clients 4.5-9% on conversion costs. They utilize Smart Contracts (WTL) which replace cash conversion throughout the supply chain and are able to reduce contract settlement time by days.

Katie Pettinger

Gadusol

Gadusol Laboratories is a UV protectant engineering and manufacturing company based in Corvallis, Oregon. Their gadusol-based sunscreen additive is entirely natural, safe for humans, and has no negative impact on oceanic ecosystems.

Robert Alexander

AuraLab

Robert Alexander holds a Ph.D. in Design Science from the University of Michigan. As a NASA Fellow he pioneered research in the field of data sonification. Before launching AuraLab he was a Chief Innovation Officer at the University of Michigan and he lectured on Sound Design and Psychology at the renowned HK Polytechnic University School of Design. For his work he was featured in Origin Magazine’s list of the top 100 creative leaders.

Robert has traveled the world learning various forms of meditation and breathwork, his creative passion is fueled by his daily practice. He fell in love with music composition at an early age and began using technology to enhance musical expression. He has now constructed software interfaces to collaboratively explore data across a wide range of fields including space-physics, genetics, neuroscience, meteorology, and geopolitics. Breathscape is at the intersection of his passion for science, technology, creativity, and self-discovery.

AuraLab is a B2C and B2B HealthTech startup based in Ypsilanti, Michigan. AuraLab’s Breathscape application is one of the first mobile apps that is capable of accurately measuring and analyzing the breath. Their patent-pending biofeedback algorithms generate music in real-time based on the breath of the user. The application teaches deep slow breathing which has been clinically proven to promote better health and wellbeing.

Aaron Bylund

Soon

Aaron has 12 years of experience in marketing, strategy, and software development. He has led teams in global organizations including SMBs, large enterprises, nonprofits, and open source communities.

Aaron is experienced in graphic design, front-end design, branding & messaging, SEO, corporate social media, online reputation, and drove corporate strategy for a publicly-traded company. Aaron has a passion for social good and any technology that advances personal liberty and self-reliance.

Soon is a B2C startup based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Soon application utilizes an automated investing algorithm which makes it simple for users to grow their financial wealth and save towards their goals.

Maxwell Lewin

Hygge Power

Max is the Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Hygge Power Inc. Max is an experienced product designer and Mechanical Engineer with 9 years of manufacturing and product design experience. Max graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology with a B.S in Mechanical Engineering. He started his career as a Product Design Engineer with Smith & Wesson, forming a strong knowledge base around metal and plastic part design and fabrication. Later, he expanded his manufacturing skill set to include metal injection molding while working for ARC Colorado, a plastics and metal injection molding company in Longmont, CO. Max later made the transition to connected hardware where he co-founded Hygge Power and led the product development team to deliver products to pilot customers. He is currently the Chief Product Officer, of Hygge Power Inc. bringing new software and hardware products to market in 2020.

Fueled by a childhood spent outdoors, Max has always had a great appreciation for the natural world. When the opportunity arose to change career paths towards clean energy initiatives, Max didn’t hesitate. As the “first” Hygge employee (now co-founder), Max brought the vision of the Orchestrated Power Outlet (“OPO”) to life through imaginative CAD models, renders, and 3D printed prototypes. As his learning about the energy sector has increased, it’s become clearer than ever that innovation and invention are sorely needed in a world of aging electrical infrastructure and a warming planet.

Hygge Power is a Boulder, Colorado-based startup founded in 2017. Hygge Power aims to optimize energy efficiency with their OPO (Orchestrated Power Outlet) to transform how people use, save, and manage their electricity. Hygge Power’s OPO is simple to integrate, stores energy from renewable sources and keeps users’ electricity protected even during power outages.

Joni Aoki

Layla Wellness

Joni Aoki is a CPA with over 10 years of experience in accounting and finance. Previously, she worked for Ernst & Young in Tax and later as the Assistant Director of Financial Planning & Analysis at Sundance Institute. She graduated from the University of Southern California with dual degrees in Accounting and Business Administration: Finance. In Fall 2020, Joni will begin medical school at the University of Utah. Her prior work experience and passion for improving women’s health led her to co-found Layla Wellness.

Joni loves spending time with her husband, two young boys, and bulldog. Her favorite moments are those spent hiking and cooking new recipes with her family. For the past 6 years, she has served on the Board of Directors for the Rape Recovery Center, formerly as the Treasurer and currently as Secretary. Her time on the Board has impressed upon her the power of healing and the importance of advocating for others. Joni is a frequent volunteer at the VA Nursing Home and cherishes the friendships she has made there.

Layla Wellness is a B2C startup based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Layla Wellness offers women who are trying to conceive a simple way to track their fertility. By utilizing their intervaginal monitoring ring and mobile app, women are able to identify when cervical fluid is most favorable for conception and have the advance notice of ovulation without having to track months of the menstrual cycle. The intervaginal ring is automated, disposable, and doesn’t require a prescription or a visit to a healthcare provider to obtain.

Ryan Wright

ThatDot, Inc.

Ryan is CEO and founder of ThatDot, Inc. and has led cutting edge computer science R&D for almost 20 years. Ryan has degrees in Epistemology/Formal Logic, Linguistics, and Rhetoric which has helped him blaze new trails through DARPA funded research. Through his research, he has created the products behind ThatDot, the fourth company he has founded.

Often buried in classical and modern philosophical texts, Ryan is a deep thinker with a practical bent. He’s a musician of more than 25 years and is slowly working toward creating a computer game to teach his two young children about how knowledge works.

ThatDot, Inc. is a B2B based in Portland, Oregon. ThatDot software architecture enables real-time event tracking for analytics and workflow. This enables users to troubleshoot and improve high-volume data streaming issues as well as optimize security, reporting and alerting.

Robert Strongin

Captis Biotechnology

Robert M. Strongin is a Professor of Organic Chemistry at Portland State University and CSO of Elex Biotech, Inc. He obtained his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and began his independent career at Louisiana State University where he was the Philip and Foymae West Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. Upon moving to Portland State University in 2007, he received affiliate appointments at the Oregon Health and Sciences University. He runs a productive research program, has founded two biotech startup companies and is active in STEM education.

Dr. Strongin has worked throughout his career with programs to promote diversity in science. He has also been involved in political advocacy efforts to garner support for science and to inform citizens with evidence-based data about public health. He loves spending time with his family, including his dogs Mickey and Lilly.

Captis Biotechnology, Inc. is based in Portland, Oregon. Captis is a diagnostic company whose goal is to address major challenges in early disease detection. The research conducted by Captis will assist in the treatment of chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular and alzheimer’s.

Michael Wallace

PERFECT COMPANY

Mike has been creating and inventing for over 35 years. His inventions include the Power Glove for Mattel, the Power Plug for Tyco, and the Passenger Occupancy Detection System for General Motors. In addition he has authored two video games, Robot Odyssey for The Learning Company and Return to Atlantis for Electronic Arts. Prior to launching Perfect, Mike cofounded Pure Imagination and Ensequence.

Gabe Paez

THE WILD

Duncan MacDonald-Korth

FINSUM

Duncan MacDonald-Korth is the founder and CEO of FINSUM. Through its patent-pending warm lead generation and management tool, AdvisorTarget, FINSUM uses proprietary analytics to help asset managers increase their fund sales in the wealth management space. Originally from Miami, Duncan has been working in the financial and media industries for close to a decade. Prior to FINSUM, Duncan completed his PhD at the University Oxford and worked in equity research at Morgan Stanley and bond trading at Merrill Lynch.

Robert Toppel

e1ectr0n

Robert Toppel co-founded Breeze Test Instruments in 1983 as VP Operations. He then moved with the company when it was acquired by Tektronix in 1986 as Division Engineering Manager, Logic Analyzer Division. Robert joined Axiom Electronics in 1981 as President, an EMS company specializing in defense and aerospace, which he guided through an acquisition, and later led through a management buyout with private equity. Axiom products orbit Mars, fly into space, and operate in the air, underwater, and on the ground worldwide. Robert’s programming and hardware interests birthed e1ectr0n, a robotics company debuting the pr0t0n robot arm for industrial workbench use. He holds a B.A. in Physics from the University of Colorado in Denver.

Dan Baird

WRENCH.AI

Dan Baird, the founder of Wrench.AI, has co-founded numerous startups, advised over 50 crowdfunding platforms, and led innovation for both startups and some of the U.S.’s most well-known household brands. Dan received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Utah, and an MBA from Thunderbird in Global Branding and Global Entrepreneurship.

Dan lives in Salt Lake City, with his wife, Alissa, his son, Sully, and their two dogs, Panda and Fosse. Dan is an advisor for the Child Rescue Association and High Hopes for Pets. In addition to his advisory roles, Dan is a foster care father and a volunteer ESL kindergarten teacher. Dan is passionate about product design, personalization, and product management. Dan has visited 40+ countries and wrestled an anaconda.

Wrench.AI is B2B SaaS company that uses AI Gen 2.0 artificial intelligence tools to personalize marketing campaigns.

Sean Luangrath

INERGY

Sean Luangrath, the CEO of Inergy, is a seasoned international executive of Fortune 100 companies including HP, Oracle and Apple. Sean has also held management positions at startups like Aerohive Networks and Mellmo. Sean joined Inergy to fulfill the company’s mission of providing the world with affordable, renewable power. Sean received a Bachelor of Science degree in International Finance from Brigham Young University, and an MBA from University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University.

Married with three sons and a dog, Sean spends most of his free time with his family, enjoying the outdoors or exploring the world. Sean is passionate about cleantech, social business, entrepreneurship, Boy Scouts, Southeast Asian business, and the Warriors.

Inergy is an energy integration and storage company that engineers solar powered generators, portable solar panels, and solar accessories for off-grid living.

David Cutler

WAVE Drowning Detection Systems

Dave Cutler is an award-winning Connecticut-based serial inventor, entrepreneur, designer, and illustrator. His invention, iSwimband®, won best new product at the 2014 Int’l Pool Spa Patio Expo, the year it was first launched. Dave has overseen all areas of company building including product design & development, manufacturing, marketing, design and branding. He has been interviewed on ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS’ This Morning Show, NPR, Philadelphia’s TODAY Show, and others regarding his products.

Dave has been involved in the use of technology to improve aquatic safety. In 2014 Dave received a Community Lifesaver Award from the National Drowning Prevention Alliance. Dave’s life passions include his family, good friends, product design and inventing, movies, sailing, and the beach.

WAVE is an aquatic safety startup founded in 2016, and is based in Westport, Connecticut. The WAVE system can be deployed at all indoor and outdoor aquatic facilities including pools, lakes, rivers and beaches, and represents the most advanced solution in aquatic recreational safety.

Brittany Molkenthin

Lactation Innovations Co-Founder and CEO

Brittany is the Co-Founder and CEO of Lactation Innovations. Brittany received her BS Nursing degree from the University of Connecticut. She is a 2020 master’s candidate in the Pediatric Primary Care Nurse Practitioner program at Regis College.Brittany supports nursing innovation and recently spoke on behalf of Johnson & Johnson at the 2019 National Student Nurses’ Association Convention. Brittany has extensive nursing clinical background, primarily in Pediatric Intensive Care.

Brittany supports nursing innovation and entrepreneurship. She is a fellow of a globally recognized society, SONSIEL, whose mission is to elevate nurses to transform and reform healthcare through innovation. Recognized by Johnson & Johnson, her mission is to inspire young nurses like herself to innovate at the bedside. Brittany has a strong passion for pediatric and maternal-fetal medicine. Brittany resides in southeast CT where she enjoys spending time with her family and vacationing on Cape Cod every summer.

Lactation Innovations develops technologies to encourage optimal breastfeeding experiences for infants and mothers.

Dash Lavine

Concord

Dash Lavine is the co-founder and CEO of Concord, a data privacy and data ownership company that gives brands and people the right tools to provide regulation-ready privacy protection and an equitable exchange of data where privacy is respected. Dash is an accomplished technology executive with almost two decades of experience in the digital marketing, agency, and start-up worlds. Prior to Concord, he started and ran two successful consulting agencies and also had a long and accomplished career at Webtrends, where he was most recently the North American Director of Sales & Customer Success. He holds an MBA from Portland State University, with a specialization in the Management of Innovation and Technology, and a BS in Computer Science from the University of Oregon.

David Sheridan

ProMedix

David Sheridan MD MCR is co-founder and CEO of ProMedix Inc. Dr. Sheridan is on faculty in the Department of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics at Oregon Health & Science University where he cares from patients ranging from common medical conditions such as viral illness and infections to critical care of pediatric trauma and cardiac arrest. His direct patient care in the pediatric emergency department has resulted in identification of the need for technology to rapidly assist in sepsis (overwhelming infection) and dehydration assessment in both the ER and home environment. Dr. Sheridan graduated from medical school, completed his residency in pediatrics and a fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine in addition to obtaining his master’s degree in Clinical Research. This background and expertise has allowed ProMedix to rapidly iterate through prototype design and clinical testing to develop medical technology with measurable impact on patient care and outcomes.

Dr. Sheridan was born and raised in the Pacific NW. His first priority is his family including wife Stacey and 3 daughters (Brooke, Katelyn and Kendall). He dedicates time outside of work to many of their sports teams coaching soccer and basketball each year. Personally he enjoys fly fishing, running and home/landscaping projects. He is an avid Seattle Seahawks fans and hoping for a 2020 Superbowl run!

Elise Strobach

AeroShield

From renewable energy to building efficiency, Elise has always been motivated by the economic and environmental impact of removing the real-world adoption barriers of pivotal technologies. This passion led her to found AeroShield Materials Inc. based on her doctoral work in Mechanical Engineering at MIT. Her mission as CEO of AeroShield is to provide the next generation of energy-efficient and cost-effective materials for building windows, bringing us one step closer to a low-carbon future.

Outside of AeroShield, Elise enjoys many creative and rewarding outlets. One of her biggest passions is writing and performing music with the band, Veisty. A maker at heart, Elise loves to create artwork and jewelry in wire-working and pyrography. She also enjoys sharing the skills she’s learned throughout her life by mentoring others, with a special focus in technical communication and graphic design.

AeroShield is a glass insulation, advanced materials, B2B startup based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. AeroShield is creating high-clarity silica aerogel with state-of-the-art materials developed at MIT. The material is twice as insulating as air and lighter than a marshmallow.

Burke Powers

Reveal Why

Burke Powers, is the Founder and Managing Director of Reveal Why. He has 20 years of experience helping companies achieve both short-term sales and long-term branding and reputation. Burke focuses on operationalizing a holistic customer experience and branding program while driving digital transformation. This way everyone is able to understand and adapt to an ever changing market. Burke has led change and impacted many companies, including, JetBlue Airways, IBM, PayPal, Nationwide Insurance, Macy’s, JP Morgan-Chase, DirectTV, Microsoft, Nike, and Walmart.

Burke loves to spend time with his family and is an advocate for spreading awareness and understanding autism. His beliefs include: being generous with talents and skills to help others, money is easy and impact is hard, and that people are more important than things.

Reveal Why is a B2B tech startup company based in Orem, Utah. Reveal Why provides solutions by utilizing AI technology to convert unstructured customer data into actionable steps for businesses. This helps companies improve their brand, reputation, and overall customer experience.

Eric Graham

CrowdComfort

As CEO of CrowdComfort, Eric is revolutionizing employee and customer happiness by leveraging the human sensor network. His platform offers building owners and managers access to aggregated data to improve employee productivity, safety & comfort while optimizing building performance and efficiency.

Eric is a creative spirit having founded a seafood import export company and developed enabling food transport technology. He holds three patents covering ultra-low temperature refrigeration and transportation methods, using recycled CO2 gas as a refrigerant. Eric was the Principal Investigator for the Department of Energy’s Innovation Ecosystem award program which served as the catalyst for CrowdComfort. He is a named inventor on 12 patents related to building, energy, crowd-sourced mobile operations, and geo-location related technologies..

Eric’s primary passion is his family. Together with his wife, Jenny, they have two children, Ella and Luke. Rugby has been a 35-year passion as a player, walk-on professional, and member of Northeastern University’s Maddog Rugby Hall of Fame. Eric is driven towards ocean excursions and the preservation of all of our planet’s animals, not just the human variety. Eric serves as board chair at the Safina Center (http://safinacenter.org/about/board/).

Jason Moore

Spren

Jason Moore, founder, and CEO of Spren, is an expert in applying health and fitness data to the real world. Jason and his team have managed $100M+ engineering projects from start-up to IPO. Jason received his Bachelor of Science degree in Information and Operations Management from Texas A&M University.

Jason believes in work-life balance and enjoys spending time with his family as well as a good read. Passionate about food, sports, decision theory, psychology, and the interactions between humans and technology, Jason brings an intensity to everything he does as he seeks to embrace the present moment.

Spren is a B2C tech startup based in Asheville, North Carolina. Spren specializes in helping individuals monitor health by utilizing their comprehensive heart rate variability application.

Spenser Madsen

AccuBreath

Spencer Madsen is the co-founder and CEO of AccuBreath. Spencer earned his Masters in Biomedical Engineering with an emphasis in commercialization, and his Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering. Spencer has over 11 years experience in engineering and product development and is the primary inventor on one US Utility patent with multiple patent applications pending.

Spencer puts a special priority on his favorite pastime, spending time with his wife and three young boys. He enjoys being active with them, whether it be hiking, exercising, or teaching his boys a new sport.

AccuBreath provides unprecedented airway support and ICU grade monitoring to eliminate delays and complications caused by apnea due to sedation in surgical procedures.

Ted Hobbs

QuantiPort

Ted has been a veterinarian at the Oregon National Primate Research Center for over 20 years. In 2008, he was promoted to Head of Surgery where he supports the surgical components of various research projects. He founded QuantiPort in 2017 to develop a novel method for measuring blood volume. Ted has a strong interest in biomedical ethics in the research and his interest in measuring blood volume was inspired by his concern for animal welfare.

Ted spends most of his free time with his two sons. He is an avid trail runner and enjoys hiking, paddleboarding, beaches, cooking, single malt scotch, and Buddhist philosophy.

QuantiPort is a medical technology that provided delivery of rapid objective blood volume measurement for critical point of care applications.

Yousof Naderi

DeepCharge

Yousof Naderi is the CEO and Co-founder of DeepCharge.ai. Yousof considers himself an entrepreneur of technology and an innovation leader who is tirelessly driven towards his passions. He applies his experience and expertise to next-generation wireless charging solutions, embedded systems, machine learning, and software-defined networks.

On a daily basis, Yousof loves to explore and test new hardware/software innovations and is a technology geek. He also finds great joy in experiencing nature and the discovery of new insights.

DeepCharge.ai is a wireless charging company based in Boston, Massachusetts. They have devised technology powered by artificial intelligence that consumes little energy and can sense a large variety of different kinds of electronic devices and intelligently drive enough power to charge them no matter where they are placed on the surface, or contactless in the air.

Mark Lehmkuhle

Epitel

Mark Lehmkuhle is the CEO/CTO of Epitel. He originally joined Epitel to develop the Epoch system – a much needed EEG solution for pre-clinical epilepsy research. It was then he realized there was a huge need for people living with epilepsy as well and brought Epilog to life as Epitel CEO. Mark has 23+ years of experience in biomedical engineering with a focus on the nervous system.

During his free time, Mark is a part-time ultramarathoner and defender of the west against the west. He built his own whitewater dory, the Wasatch, and rowed it down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. The dory sits next to Epilog, atop his list of finding or building a solution to pretty much every problem he stumbles across.

Epitel is a digital health startup based in Salt Lake City, Utah. They specialize in medical-grade seizure monitoring with their non-invasive wearable EEG technology.