Heliogen and Idealab Founder Bill Gross to Keynote Prime Movers Lab's Breakthrough Science Summit

JACKSON, Wyo., Oct. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Prime Movers Lab, an investor in breakthrough scientific startups working to revolutionize the world's most important industries and transform billions of lives, announced that serial entrepreneur Bill Gross will be the keynote speaker at its 3rd Annual Breakthrough Science Summit on Thursday, October 27th. The event will bring together some of the leading investors, public policy experts and researchers from across the breakthrough science ecosystem to share their vision for a better future. To learn more about the summit and register, click here.

Gross started Idealab, one of the first and longest-running technology incubators, in 1996. At Idealab, he has created more than 175 companies, with more than 50 successful IPOs and acquisitions, and created more than 10,000 jobs. Today, Gross is pioneering breakthrough science companies to mitigate climate change, including Prime Movers Lab portfolio companies Heliogen (NYSE: HLGN), Energy Vault (NYSE: NRGV), and CarbonCapture Inc. Gross is CEO of Heliogen, a renewable energy technology company utilizing concentrated sunlight and thermal storage to decarbonize industry.

"Prime Movers Lab's Breakthrough Science Summit has become a premier gathering for leading minds in science and technology every fall to come together and solve humanity's most pressing problems," said Prime Movers Lab Founder and General Partner Dakin Sloss. "Bill is one of the most successful serial entrepreneurs of the last forty years and extremely knowledgeable about the relationship of scientific research, government policy, startups, and venture capital and how to make all of these sectors work better together to advance humanity."

Additional speakers at the summit will include:

• Eli Dourado – Eli Dourado is a senior research fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University. He focuses on the hard technology and innovation needed to drive large increases in economic growth—speeding up infrastructure deployment, eliminating barriers to entrepreneurs, and getting the most out of federal technology research programs. His popular writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Foreign Policy, among other outlets.
• Ramez Naam – Ramez is the Managing Partner of PlanetaryVC, a climate tech venture fund. He is a computer scientist, author, and clean energy expert. Ramez served as the Co-Chair for Energy and Environment at Singularity University; authored 5 books about the future, including the award-winning Nexus science-fiction trilogy; drove investments in a number of clean energy companies including ESS Inc, EnergyX, and other deeptech energy and climate startups; and spent 13 years at Microsoft where he played leadership roles on products and services that have touched the lives of billions.
• Alec Stapp – Alec is the co-founder and co-CEO of the Institute for Progress. Previously, Alec was the director of technology policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, a research fellow at the International Center for Law and Economics, a technology policy fellow at the Niskanen Center, and a graduate research fellow at the Mercatus Center. Alec's work has been published in the MIT Technology Review, Politico, National Review, and Salon.
• Jason Crawford – Jason is the founder of The Roots of Progress, a nonprofit dedicated to establishing a new philosophy of progress for the 21st century. He writes and speaks about the history and philosophy of progress, especially in technology and industry. Previously, he was the co-founder & CEO of Fieldbook, a hybrid spreadsheet database. He has also been an engineering manager at Flexport, Amazon and Groupon.
• Ben Reinhardt – Ben is working to enable scientific breakthroughs by creating a private advanced research projects agency. He also hosts the Idea Machines Podcast where he has long-form conversations with experts in different innovation systems. Previously, he was an entrepreneur in residence (EIR) at Entrepreneur First in Singapore where he helped ambitious people build teams and companies. Before that, he was an EIR at Susa Ventures.
• Amy Kruse – Amy is a General Partner at Prime Movers Lab where she leads the firm's life sciences investments. She serves on the boards of portfolio companies Paradromics, Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals, Cognixion and Attune Neurosciences. Previously, Amy was the Chief Scientific Officer at Optios and a government civilian program manager at DARPA where she created and oversaw the agency's first performance-oriented neuroscience programs, with a combined budget of over $300M.  
• Gaetano Crupi – Gaetano is a Partner for Prime Movers Lab where he invests in early-stage and growth-stage companies. His areas of interest include energy transition, agriculture, transportation and infrastructure. Gaetano currently serves on the boards of portfolio companies Mycoworks, Atom Computing, Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals, Oceanix and Bandit. Gaetano is a three-time entrepreneur and brings his experience building companies to evaluate opportunities and supports portfolio CEOs in scaling world-changing companies.
• Liza Reed – Liza is the research manager for electricity transmission at the Niskanen Center and a Prime Movers Lab Research Fellow. She is an expert in High Voltage Direct Current, electricity transmission, and technology innovation. Before joining the Niskanen Center, she worked on energy funding at the Great Lakes Energy Institute at Case Western Reserve University, wireless communication technology development at inmobly, and business analysis at Capital One Finance.

The summit will take a deep dive into Prime Movers Lab's Breakthrough Science Roadmap, which features predictions for the future of energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, agriculture, and human augmentation. Panelists will outline how breakthroughs in energy storage, fusion energy, space travel, biotechnology, and neurotechnology will transform these industries between now and 2050.

Register for the event here.

About Prime Movers Lab
Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, agriculture and human augmentation. Portfolio investments span in-space transportation, industrial solar heat, ag tech, brain upgrades, nano-structured materials, wafer slicing, prosthetics, 3D printing, mobility, longevity and AI. For more information, please visit https://www.primemoverslab.com.

Contact: Gavin Mathis, 406-539-7277, [email protected]

SOURCE Prime Movers Lab