CITRIS and Academic Innovation Catalyst Launch Faculty Fellowship to Advance Deep Tech Innovation for Good
The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute (CITRIS) at the University of California (UC) are pleased to announce a partnership with the Academic Innovation Catalyst (AIC) to launch the CITRIS Innovation Fellowship program and AIC Awards, aimed at transforming faculty research into viable solutions to address society’s most pressing challenges.
The partnership with AIC, a new deep tech funding platform founded by Matt and Lisa Sonsini, is open to principal investigators across the four CITRIS campuses – UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Merced and UC Santa Cruz – and will provide up to $200,000 in funding to each of three annual recipients.
Expanding upon the portfolio of projects selected through the yearly CITRIS Seed Funding opportunity, the AIC Awards will further CITRIS’s commitment to fostering entrepreneurship for societal benefit and bring more innovative ideas closer to commercialization. Awardees will also be given admission to the CITRIS Innovation Hub for legal and business support, a centralized resource to help UC students and academic, corporate and governmental visitors advance to the next stage of their entrepreneurial journeys.
In addition, AIC may also provide access to mentorship and coaching, legal support, business plan and pitch development, market research, financial advice and matchmaking with leading industry partners.
“It’s an honor to partner with the AIC team as they give back to the next generation of entrepreneurs. Funding proof-of-concept projects is essential to maintaining our reputation as the leading university for startups,” said Rich Lyons, chancellor of UC Berkeley. “All of us within the UC ecosystem are excited to see how the AIC platform helps innovation to thrive.”
“This partnership aims to foster innovation on a broader scale within the academic community,” said Matt Sonsini, founder of AIC. “CITRIS has been successful over the last 20 years in identifying ideas and people with high potential to benefit society across its four campuses. AIC envisions expanding this pilot initiative beyond the awards, enabling more faculty to transform cutting-edge research into market-ready solutions with huge potential to benefit the world.”
“We are excited to launch this new opportunity for UC faculty working in domains such as climate resilience, AI for good, aerospace and other deep tech applications to create new products and platforms to benefit society,” said CITRIS Director Alexandre Bayen, Liao-Cho professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley, and associate provost for the Berkeley Space Center. “CITRIS’s capabilities and multicampus infrastructure will increase the reach of AIC’s support, enhancing its potential for transforming research into startups that drive positive change.”
Applications for the inaugural AIC Awards will open in August 2024. For more information, please contact Ravnit Plaha, CITRIS development manager, at ravnit@berkeley.edu.