<h2>Giving carbon the boot</h2>
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Carbon180

Philanthropy

Arena

Advocacy

nytimes

An Incubator for Innovation

NY Times

mittechreview

The Innovator Gap

MIT Technology Review

mcj podcast

Ilan Gur, CEO of Activate, Founder of Cyclotron Road

MCJ Collective

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Ilan Gur

Founder of Activate

Activate

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Activate is a visionary nonprofit that empowers scientists to take on the world’s greatest challenges by bringing their groundbreaking research out of the lab and into the world. Bridging the gap between the government and private sector, Activate helps scientists become agents of change by scaling their ideas and accelerating their paths to entrepreneurs.

<h4>A fellowship of change</h4>
Through a two-year fellowship program, budding scientists with world-changing ideas are guided on their journey to entrepreneurship and given the necessary tools to drive real impact. Fellows are provided with support to develop their ideas, research facilities, essential funding, mentorship, and an education in building a startup to address the greatest challenges humanity faces. Phew.
Activate cultivates an entire ecosystem for science, driving innovation by partnering with leading US public and private institutions. By working with folks like DARPA, USF, and DOE (Google it), fellows are given access to resources and funding to ultimately catalyze their world-positive products and services. 
Snowballs
Activate has scaled to become one of the leading science accelerators in the country. With a presence in Berkeley, Boston, New York, and just about anywhere — and launching Houston for Cohort 2024 — the nonprofit’s program is enabling innovative scientists everywhere to bring their ideas to life. Since 2015, Activate has supported 142 fellows who have founded 106 game-changing companies, driving science innovation to tackle climate change and other pressing issues of our time.
In just 7 years, companies that have come out of Activate have already created jobs for more than 1,200 people, and have raised an astounding $1.1B in follow-on capital to build transformative products across multiple industries like energy, manufacturing, and electronics.

We met Ilan in late 2017 as Activate was newly forming, and were immediately intrigued by his vision (formerly Cyclotron Road) — to create the most intriguing accelerator around for taking cutting-edge technology from the lab to drive real-world impact. Activate’s philosophy is much like our own at Incite: help values-driven leaders take great ideas and implement them to do good for our world. We knew we had to get involved, so in 2018 we provided Ilan and his team with a $500K grant and became one of their top early donors, solidifying our dedication to nurturing the next-gen of pioneers in climate innovation, and carbon removal.
Since then, Activate has grown to be an org with multiple dedicated lab sites as well as a fully-remote offering known as “Activate Anywhere”. And now, Ilan has moved on to do it all again within a new, paradigm-shifting organization: ARIA, based in the UK.  We apologize for the acronyms.

ilan

Can Carbon Dioxide Removal Save the World?

The New Yorker

How Giana Amador Built an Entire Industry Around Carbon Removal

Entrepreneur

Start-Ups Hoping to Fight Climate Change Struggle as Other Tech Firms Cash In

Giana Amador

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Co-Founder of Carbon 180

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Carbon180 is like the superhero of carbon removal. They’re turning back the clock on carbon emissions by teaming up with politicians, business leaders, and other folks across the US to help suck carbon out the air. Their goal: remove 5 million metric tons of legacy carbon every year by 2030. Cool, right? Well, with some luck (and 180 degree change in our carbon problem), their work will mean a cooler planet.

In the last few years, Carbon180 has helped put carbon removal on the map. And thanks to their hard work, billions of dollars are now being invested in new carbon removal projects. They&#8217;re also the team responsible for some of the first major US federal incentives to remove carbon, including a tax credit for carbon capture and funding increases for carbon removal research, which is a pretty big deal. In short, they&#8217;re making the world a better place, one molecule at a time.

<h4>A big vision</h4>
When we started Incite back in 2015, we were a small group of rebels with a big vision for change. We didn&#8217;t have the resources of a big team, but we had something more powerful: the courage to take bold risks and back novel solutions. We were looking for humble, hard working entrepreneurs with big ideas that needed more attention and action. Noah and Giana, the founders of Carbon180, very much fit into that category.
<h4>The power of carbon removal</h4>
In 2016, Noah and Giana came to us, pitching a new kind of NGO. One that would fundamentally rethink what was possible with carbon to help our planet. The more we learned about the science, the stronger we believed that carbon removal was critical to reversing climate change and its effects on our planet. So, we wrote Noah and Giana’s first $500K check from Incite’s foundation arm. And The Center for Carbon Removal was born.

<h4>Making a difference</h4>
Starting as a research and communications hub, the early Carbon180 team began to elevate carbon removal into mainstream climate conversations. They transformed themselves into a policy and advocacy powerhouse in 2018, launching an EIR fellowship to support folks working on cutting-edge carbon removal solutions. When we meet with founders in the climate space, Carbon180’s resources are what we send them, and we’ve even had founders go on to do the fellowship. 
And they&#8217;ve scored some major victories, like helping to pass a carbon tax during a gridlocked congress and presidential term in 2018. Carbon180 is nothing short of a revolutionary force, a jack of all trades and an expert at many — unlocking huge new areas of potential innovation in the fight against climate change. We’re happy to have helped them on their journey.

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Noah Deich

Co-Founder of Carbon180

Running on Hope

The New Republic

An Ambitious New Program Wants To Support the Democrats' Surge

WIRED

Tech Alone Won't Be Enough to Reboot Progressive Politics

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Lauren Baer

Executive Director of Arena

Arena, co-founded by the team at Incite, convenes, trains, and supports the next generation of political candidates and campaign staff. Through a range of support channels, Arena empowers a new field of political leaders leading the work to change our democracy, for the better.

<h4>A force to be reckoned with</h4>
Arena started to create a pipeline of young, talented, and progressive leaders to shake up the status quo in politics. Since then, Arena has become a powerhouse: propelling 60+ new candidates to victory in races across the country, including key wins in the House of Representatives, the New York State Senate, and the Virginia House of Delegates. They’ve also trained over 6,500 people, at all levels of experience, through a staff training academy and other events, placing them in over 2,035 jobs on campaigns nationwide. Not bad.
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<h4>Championing diversity</h4>
With a majority of graduates identifying as women and people of color, Arena is leading the charge in diversifying politics. With 67% of graduates receiving scholarships and Academies offered to both brand-new and experienced campaign staff,  Arena is becoming one of the most disruptive forces in the political arena. And let’s face it: for too long, US politics has lacked leaders who reflect the diversity of our country. With a focus on infrastructural change, the team at Arena is reversing that worn-out rubbish.

We incubated Arena from the earliest stages — when it was just an idea in an email in 2016.
With co-founders Ravi Gupta and Kate Catherall, Incite helped pull together a dream team to build this innovative new organization in American civic life. In addition to helping hire and build its first programs, Incite fueled Arena to take off with critical early funding. We funded early and often in the organization’s first five years with general operating support. We also tapped into our extensive networks to bring in extra resources and expertise.  
Since 2019, Arena has trained over 6,500 campaign staff and volunteers, and helped dozens of new generation public servants enter the civic arena, many of whom are now nationally recognized rising stars. Now under the leadership of Lauren Baer, Arena has become a go-to resource for new candidates and campaigns at local, state and national levels.  Arena started as a breakthrough idea. And now it’s a fully-fledged organization building a new generation of trailblazers.

Altro features on Forbes 30 under 30

Investments

Interview With Shashank Samala, Founder Of Heirloom Carbon Technologies

CleanTechnica

Mineralization Fact Sheet

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Shashank Samala

Co-Founder of Heirloom

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Heirloom is a tech company seeking to remove 1 billion tons of CO2 from the air by 2035. By engineering the most cost-effective, scalable Direct Air Capture system, founders Shashank and Noah are driving innovation and creating an entirely new industry to restore balance to our atmosphere. Impressive, we know.

<h4>A transformative approach</h4>
Heirloom’s technology enhances the natural process of ‘carbon mineralization’, where minerals absorb CO2 from ambient air. Leveraging naturally occurring minerals, Heirloom is helping accelerate this process, absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere in days rather than years. This revolutionary approach goes beyond windfarms and solar panels to actively suck carbon out of the air. Building their technology around the principles of affordability, sustainability, and permanence, Heirloom’s team has created something that’s transformative, socially-conscious, and downright effective.
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<h4>Working with tech leaders</h4>
Heirloom’s founders Shashank and Noah work with tech leaders like Microsoft, Stripe, Shopify, and Klarna to deploy their technology, in turn helping these giants permanently remove their organization’s emissions. Backed by some of the world’s leading investors in climate tech, Heirloom leverages the power of technology to protect our planet and reverse the effects of climate change — forever.

Supporting talented leaders over the long term is something we take special pride in at Incite. We first crossed paths with Shashank when he was leading the charge at Tempo Automation in 2015, a company Incite had invested in years prior. We knew from the get-go that, as a successful second time founder, he was a force to be reckoned with. He approached us with a new idea outside of his at-the-time wheelhouse but with a conviction to help solve one of our world’s most pressing problems: carbon removal. We helped Shashank find his way to a one-year Carbon180 fellowship to develop the concept. 
When Shashank partnered with Noah McQueen, a leading researcher in Jennifer Wilcox’s preeminent lab at the University of Pennsylvania, who had proposed in his PhD thesis the science behind Heirloom,  we knew the talent combination at the helm of Heirloom was going to be unstoppable. And so, we invested — early, often, and with big smiles on our faces.
It doesn’t hurt that their idea, and the science behind it, makes for the world’s most cost-effective Direct Air Capture solution.

Co-Founder & CEO

Heirloom

Mejuri’s CEO on Growing a Godzilla Company as a First-time Founder

Medium

I Raised $23 Million While Seven Months Pregnant—Here’s What I Learned

Glamour

Noura Sakkijha, Founder and CEO of Mejuri

Incite

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Noura Sakkijha

Co-Founder of Mejuri

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Founded by third generation jeweler Noura Sakkijha, Mejuri is a retailer reimagining fine jewelry and conscious consumption. Their products are made to live in, designed in-house, priced affordably, and sourced ethically. Noura started the brand with one goal in mind: to redefine fine jewelry as an everyday expression of self, and to encourage women to buy it “for their damn selves”. Damn right.

<h4>The ethical jeweler</h4>
Mejuri crafts beautiful, accessible fine jewelry that is produced sustainably and ethically. Since day one, they&#8217;ve been dedicated to creating only the highest quality pieces, while maintaining strict standards for the conditions in which they&#8217;re made. Mejuri takes the extra step of tracing each piece from mine to market, giving them complete control and transparency over the social and environmental impact of their supply chain.
The jewelry is made using sustainable materials, including responsibly sourced diamonds, AAA-grade gemstones, and 80% recycled gold. For Mejuri, it&#8217;s not just about the end product, it&#8217;s ensuring their entire production ecosystem — sourcing, manufacturing, and branding — mitigates our impact on the planet, supports and empowers our partners, and gives back to our communities. For us, that’s pretty inspiring.
<h4>Democratizing luxury</h4>
Whereas most fine jewelry is created for special occasions, Mejuri pieces are meant to be worn and loved everyday. The brand’s hallmark are stackable, layerable, and designed jewelry to elevate any outfit. These aren’t pieces that hide behind vaults or elite storefronts and brokers. They’re available online to everyone, and at prices far more accessible than typical fine jewelry. By cutting out any intermediaries to reduce the overall cost, Mejuri jewelry empowers customers to invest in and express themselves — no matter their taste, mood, or budget.

We believe the best founders bring different lived experiences to their work. We know just how little funding goes to female entrepreneurs and were excited to support a founding team of mostly women. We signed on as a pre-seed investor at a time when many other investors struggled to see Noura’s vision and didn’t believe that a tech-enabled fine jewelry company would succeed (how wrong they were).
In 2019, three years after we started working together, Mejuri raised $23 million in Series B funding, while Noura was seven months pregnant with twin girls (seriously). It’s been a sound investment. But we were equally — if not more — delighted to see this values-first leader and remarkable brand succeed. Noura’s outlook is part of why this pioneering tech company has a team of over 70% women, and a big part of why we do what we do.

Founder & CEO

Mejuri

Five questions with Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo

Axios

Lina Hidalgo’s Political Rise

Lauren Underwood Is the Future

ELLE

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Lauren Underwood & Lina Hidalgo

U.S. Public servants

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Lina is Harris County Judge and chief executive of the nation’s third-largest county — in her own words, she’s a “progressive, Texan, and a proud immigrant”. Lauren is the Congresswoman representing Ilinois’s 14th Federal district — a strong, bold, and visionary leader. Both Lina and Lauren represent a talented new generation of public servants across America that Incite has been lucky to support from the beginning.

We love supporting new generation public servants. They represent the future of leadership in America, and they bring innovative new perspectives and talents to civic life in America. New leaders like Judge Lina Hidalgo and Congresswoman Lauren Underwood.
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<h4>Lina</h4>
Lina was recently re-elected to Harris County Judge, the Chief Executive of the county home to Houston and over five million people. Judge Hidalgo oversees a budget of over $5 billion which funds critical government services and infrastructure. She also serves as Harris County’s Director of Emergency Management (and has overseen the response to floods, fires, winter storms, and the COVID 19 pandemic to boot).
When Lina was first elected in 2018, she became the first Democrat to run Harris County in thirty years. She replaced an incumbent who’d held the office with little competition for over a decade. During her tenure, Lina has championed a successful cash-bail reform in Harris County, increased access to the ballot box, worked to expand economic opportunity and so much more. 
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<h4>Lauren</h4>
Lauren was recently re-elected to a third term in Congress for Illinois’ 14th District — a suburban, exurban, and rural district in northern Illinois. She flipped this seat from red to blue in historic fashion in 2018, defeating a four-term Republican incumbent. And in 2020 she became the first Democrat ever to be re-elected in the district. In 2018, Congresswoman Underwood made history as the first person of color, first woman, and first millennial elected to represent her district.
When she was sworn into office in 2019, she became the youngest black woman to ever serve in Congress. And her voice in Congress has been an important one. Lauren has been a champion for health care rights and reproductive freedoms in the House, helping pass the American Rescue Plan that included her proposal to lower health-care premiums, passing legislation to support access to mental health services, being a leading advocate for reproductive rights, and many more accomplishments that cannot fit in this small blurb.

<h4>Entering the Arena </h4>
Both Lauren and Lina were participants in early Arena Summits in 2016 and 2017, where they expressed their early interest in running for office. Noticing their natural leadership abilities and talent for action, team Incite quickly became big fans of both, becoming early donors, supporters, and champions of their nascent campaigns. Throughout 2017 and 2018, we hosted fundraising events, helped find talent and hires for key campaign roles, organized voters, and much more. We simply did whatever we could to help them win.
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<h4>Breaking new ground</h4>
Both Lauren and Lina were first elected to office in 2018 in historic fashion. Since then, we’ve supported each of their campaigns for office, and they continue to serve today. We believe Lauren and Lina, and other new generation leaders like them, represent a bright future for principled, get-things-done leadership in our democracy, and we’re immensely proud to support them as they continue their journeys in American public service.

Lauren Underwood

Congresswoman

Lina & Lauren

<h2>Who are Despatch Goods?</h2>
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How compassion and inclusivity are helping Kindbody change the fertility industry

Techcrunch

How Kindbody Founder, Gina Bartasi, Turned a Personal Purpose Into Her Company's  Mission

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Gina Bartasi

Founder and CEO of Kindbody

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Kindbody was started with one very important mission &#8211; to help women navigate our broken health system. Founder Gina Bartasi started by creating a new generation of fertility care and wellness powered by convenient, welcoming and holistic clinics designed to deliver compassionate care. By offering IVF, egg freezing, wellness, and LGBTQ+ care with better outcomes in modern, tech-enabled clinics, the company is making modern care pathways accessible to all, whether out-of-pocket, through insurance, or as a direct employer plan.

<h4>Healthcare with a difference</h4>
Kindbody provides fertility and wellness services in modern, tech-enabled clinics across the country. With deep conviction that everyone should have access to convenient, affordable care, Gina and her team are leading the charge in changing the industry — for the better. With locations in states like Arkansas, Georgia, Michigan and Missouri, as well as the coasts, Kindbody is bringing their differentiated care model across the country to serve populations who need it most. 
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<h4>Providing the best fertility benefit solution</h4>
Kindbody offers incredible solutions for companies looking to provide employees with best-in-class employee health and fertility benefits. Their integrated approach means better outcomes for patients. Offering world-class physicians, transparent pricing, and tech-enabled care management, Kindbody is the clear choice for employers. That&#8217;s why Kindbody is the trusted fertility benefits provider for more than 100 employers, covering over 2.2 million lives and growing.

Gina came to us with a proven track record. Her previous company, Progyny, went public in 2019 and now has a market cap of over $5B. Impressive, right? Gina told us she saw a unique opportunity to build a new type of health, fertility and family care system centered on a modern, accessible experience. We paid attention.
Not only did Gina have deep experience and category expertise, she was also deeply passionate about the problem from her first-hand experience as a fertility patient. We were thrilled to be among the first to make a significant early investment in Gina’s vision for Kindbody, and joined an impressive early cap table made up of an all women cast.

Kindbody

My Week With the Future of Garbage Bins

Nest co-founder Matt Rogers’ new startup is trash

Nest smart thermostat co-founder is back with a new device for the home, focused on food

CNBC

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Matt Rogers & Harry Tannebaum

Co-Founders of Mill

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Mill is a delightful new system to prevent food waste at home. Food waste is terrible for the environment. It takes up more space in landfills than anything else, with household kitchens being a massive contributor to climate change — the food we throw away emits methane, an especially harmful greenhouse gas.
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Built by a team that’s brought us Nest, Uber, and other amazing companies, Mill is reinventing our trash. Mill’s end-to-end service empowers consumers to take on climate action at home by giving members a kitchen bin that dries, shrinks, and de-stinks your kitchen scraps overnight. These food grounds become food for chickens — that you can easily ship back to Mill — because food waste isn’t trash!

<h3>Wasted food is wasted money</h3>
No one likes throwing away food. At home, it’s gross, smelly, and creates the chore of constantly taking out trash bags. Wasted food also wastes money — $1,900 a year for the average US household. Keeping the food we can’t or don’t eat out of landfills is one of the most practical and effective ways we can all positively impact the environment. With Mill’s app, not only are you converting your food waste to Food Grounds, but you’ll also be able to track, and eventually, reduce your waste. Here is something we all do every day that can make a huge impact on the fight against climate change.
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<h3>Food stays food</h3>
Mill turns your Food Grounds into food for chickens. It takes a lot of land, water, fertilizer, and effort to get food from the farm to our tables, so it’s important for our food’s nutrients to stay in the food system. That’s another thing this clever team is reinventing. With Mill, food stays food and becomes delicious all over again.

At Incite, we’re first and foremost builders. You could say we were born that way. Our co-founder Matt is a serial entrepreneur. He stepped away from his last company, Nest, and spent more time advising and helping our Incite founders with their endeavors. But before long, Matt had become obsessed with food waste and how much we throw away. That’s the thing with big problems. They demand our attention, and climate change is the biggest challenge facing humankind today. So he did what we often encourage others to do at Incite — with his friend and co-founder, Harry, they rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

Matt Rogers

CEO and Co-Founder of Mill 

Mill

More women need to start companies

A Lesbian Couple Relied on Reciprocal IVF to Start Their Family

Popsugar

Future Family Launches the First Family Care Financial Benefit for Employers

BusinessWire

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Claire Tomkins

Founder & CEO of Future Family

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Future Family is the ultimate financial tool for those seeking accessible, personal and affordable fertility care. With a mission to help everyone build a family, founder Claire Tomkins is leading the charge in revolutionizing the fertility industry (while helping kickstart thousands of babies).

Future Family masterfully blends fintech and digital health to offer affordable monthly financing plans for IVF and egg freezing. Built on the idea that everyone’s fertility journey is unique and no one size fits all, Future Family offers plans jam-packed with tailored benefits. And they make it personal. Every user gains a customized plan and dedicated nurse concierge to help during each step of their fertility journey.

Incite’s commitment and support to Claire has been much more than a financial investment. We&#8217;ve acted as a trusted advisor, providing guidance on building her business and board of directors. We&#8217;ve also played matchmaker, connecting Future Family with top-notch leaders for their team and Board of Directors.
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But perhaps most importantly, we’ve taken the time to truly understand Claire’s growth as a leader — helping her and her team navigate the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to make fertility care and family building services accessible.

Founder and CEO

Future Family

15 Cities and Counties Send Letter Urging Federal Law Enforcement Agencies to Issue Guidance Restricting Federal Cooperation With State-Level Abortion Bans

PublicRightsProject

​​Nine Civil Rights Organizations Join Amicus Brief Challenging Ballot Initiatives that Would Strip Massachusetts Gig Workers of Important Rights and Benefits

Gainesville City Commission Votes to File Complaint Against HB1 Cleaners Demand Harassment Safeguards From the Booking Service Handy

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Jill Habig

Founder of Public Rights

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Public Rights Project (PRP) was created to empower state, local, and tribal governments to fight for civil rights, economic prosperity, and environmental justice. Jill Habig saw the gap between the laws on the books and what was happening in vulnerable communities and decided to do something about it. She started a fellowship for young lawyers, ready to fight for community rights.
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PRP&#8217;s growing an army of legal talent, building the next generation of public leaders and expanding government&#8217;s ability to take action. They&#8217;re tackling the biggest threats to health, wealth, and safety, and making real change for communities in need.

PRP has worked with over 100 state, local and tribal governments and community partners from across the country. Tackling such issues as gig economy, workers’ rights, and racial injustice, PRP continues to create a national network of public servants equipped to use their power to reimagine justice and help create a more equitable and effective government.
<h3>The fight for rights</h3>
PRP’s legal advocacy work extends their efforts to create a functioning democracy and equitable society. They&#8217;re making moves in state and federal courts, filing amicus briefs and putting pressure on the government to do right by marginalized communities. For example, they just won a big case against Handy, holding them accountable for misclassifying workers and securing some serious COVID hazard pay for essential workers — to the tune of $14 million.

Incite was all-in on PRP from the jump. We hooked Jill up with some serious funding to get the ball rolling and had Swati help out as an OG board member. We were also lowkey boosting PRP behind the scenes, making sure other partners and funders were clued in on all the good work they were doing. Thanks to Incite&#8217;s support, PRP was able to drop their first programs, scale up their Fellowships, and do major work in the fight for civil rights. No big deal.

Putting scientists back on the map

Who They Are

So, who is Activate?

Their Impact

How they’re changing the world

A fellowship of change

Why/How We Helped

Our partnership

An Incubator for Innovation

The Innovator Gap

Ilan Gur, CEO of Activate, Founder of Cyclotron Road