The inaugural cohort of Schmidt Science Fellows recently convened for a week of unique meetings, training sessions, and laboratory visits in the Bay Area of Northern California.

The Northern California Global Meeting was the third such convening for the 2018 Fellows and presented the group with opportunities to immerse themselves in the special environment of Silicon Valley.

The meeting was hosted by Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, with a program designed to give the Fellows insights into the intersection between science and the private sector. Fellows met scientists with experience of spinning out and leading innovative companies and spent a day meeting iconic Silicon Valley venture capitalists, including John Doerr at Kleiner Perkins, Vinod Khosla at Khosla Ventures, and Dror Berman and Scott Brady at Innovation Endeavors.

The Fellows had focused sessions with world-renowned scientists and leaders, including Nobel prize-winner, Dr Stephen Chu, Dr John Hennessy, Chairman of Alphabet Inc., MacArthur Fellow, Dr Emmanuel Candès, and pharmaceuticals pioneer, Dr Lucy Shapiro. They received bespoke training in how to lead and manage interdisciplinary teams, led by Stanford’s Dr John Boothroyd. They also visited the US national laboratories, SLAC and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Chan Zuckerberg BioHub in San Francisco, to learn more about those institutions’ large-scale interdisciplinary research programs.

2018 Fellow, Dr Karl Barber, commented: “Many of the Fellows in our cohort are finding ourselves at pivotal points in our careers. We are thinking about the potential to spin out technologies and how to do this to have the greatest impact on societal challenges. We are grappling with questions about how and when to commercialize our science. The Global Meeting in the Bay Area provided us with valuable insights, networks, and much to think about as we enter the next stage of our careers.”

View the video above, read our Fellows’ blogs and explore the photo gallery below for more insights into the Global Meeting and the experiences of the Schmidt Science Fellows.

Our Global Meeting Series is a unique and central aspect of Schmidt Science Fellows. Our Fellows join us for four convenings around the world during their Fellowship year, where they engage with new concepts, visit leading scientific facilities, and have the opportunity to build unrivaled networks within their cohort and with renowned thought-leaders from science, business, policy, and society.

Dr Mattia Serra: Silicon Valley – Different Perspectives for a Common Vision

A mixture of talented people with different viewpoints, but a shared vision, makes Silicon Valley a unique place…  Read more

Dr Karl Barber: Questions on bringing academic projects to life

The meeting succeeded in demystifying the west coast startup ethos for me but also led me to consider more soul-searching questions about whether the academic or industrial route would best serve the technology that I’m currently building in order to achieve maximal societal impact…  Read more

Dr Steven Chu, Nobel Laureate and former US Secretary of Energy, shares his thoughts with 2018 Fellows Wes Fuhrman, Xiwen Gong, and Jielai Zhang.
Dr Rita Wechsler and Dr Emmanuel Candes from Stanford University discussed their personal career inflection points with Fellows.
Fellows had the unique opportunity to hear from some of Silicon Valley's most renowned venture capitalists and to discuss their visions of the future. John Doerr is Chairman of Kleiner Perkins and was an investor in Google, Spotify, and Amazon, among many others.
Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and found of Khosla Ventures, speaking to the Schmidt Science Fellows
The opportunity for personal and focused time with Silicon Valley experts, such as Innovation Endeavors partner Dror Berman, gives our Fellows the build connections that they otherwise would not be able to.
Fellows visited Denning House on the Stanford campus, home of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars.
Fellow Jielai Zhang networking with regional postdocs at the Chan Zuckerberg BioHub in San Francisco.
Fellows visited the Invention Lab at CITRIS at UC Berkeley.
Fellow Wes Fuhrman underground at SLAC. Visits to US national laboratories in Northern California gave Fellows insights into their roles and how the labs rely on large, interdisciplinary teams.
Fellows Peyton Greenside, Hal Holmes, and Fred Richards during a program session at Stanford University.
One highlight of the meeting was a session on negotiation skills.
Fellow Abbie Groff raises a question during a program session.
Cohort bonding is a valuable feature of our Global Meetings. While n California our Fellows, Schmidt Science Fellows team members, and colleagues from Stanford University enjoyed an afternoon hiking in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Fellows Xiwen Gong, Fred Richards, Peyton Greenside, Wes Fuhrman, Ryan Truby, and Adi Steif, are pictured half away up the ascent.
Fellows visited the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - owners of possibly the finest view from a science facility in the world!
The 2019 Northern California Global Meeting culminated with a closing dinner for Fellows, staff, and our hosts at the Berkeley City Club.