Innovation Ecosystem

Activate empowers scientists to reinvent our world and address climate change by bringing their research to market. The Activate Fellowship provides the funding, technical support, networking, community, and time that these scientists need at the outset of their entrepreneurial journey.

Activate Fellows are entrepreneurial scientists and engineers who spend two years embedded in a world-class research laboratory, where we provide them funding and a program of intensive mentorship, professional development, and networking. Activate does not take any equity in fellow-founded companies.

Our goal is simple: Empower our fellows to mature their ideas from concept to first product, positioning them to align with the most suitable commercial path to bring their technology to scale. Each fall, we recruit a new cohort of fellows.

Activate operates two fellowship locations: Activate Boston, in partnership with MIT Lincoln Laboratory and other Boston-area research partners, and Activate Berkeley, in partnership with the Cyclotron Road Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Through strategic partnerships and donations of time, money, equipment, or services, our partners and sponsors allow us to advance our mission while furthering our aligned strategic priorities.