The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute (CITRIS) at the University of California (UC) are honored to announce the inaugural recipients of the 2024 CITRIS Innovation Fellowship and AIC Awards. 

Launched in partnership with the Academic Innovation Catalyst (AIC), a deep tech funding platform founded by Matt and Lisa Sonsini, the program turns faculty-developed research into viable commercial solutions for society’s biggest challenges. Recipients receive up to $200,000 over two years to commercialize their innovations, along with support from AIC and the CITRIS Foundry incubator. While all projects relevant to CITRIS’s mission were considered, special attention was given to those within the areas of advanced aviation, aerospace, artificial intelligence (AI) for good, climate resilience and deep tech. 

The program received more than 65 entries from across CITRIS’s four campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Merced and Santa Cruz, with over half of the submissions addressing climate solutions or AI for the public good. The three winning proposals tackle issues of critical concern across the globe: developing climate-resilient agricultural systems, advancing crop engineering to enhance food security, and safeguarding essential infrastructure and sensitive data through breakthroughs in cybersecurity. 

“We are thrilled to support these three groundbreaking ideas and bring them closer to the marketplace,” said Matt Sonsini, founder of AIC. “Selecting only a few innovators from such a competitive pool was no easy task, and it speaks to the exceptional promise and transformative potential of the chosen projects. The awardees stood out for their bold approaches to addressing some of the world’s most pressing issues.”

“Since CITRIS’s inception, a cornerstone of its mission has been to accelerate the journey for trailblazing lab research to commercialization, particularly for the benefit of society,” said CITRIS Director Alexandre Bayen, Liao-Cho Innovation Endowed Chair and professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley, and associate provost for the Berkeley Space Center. “I am delighted to see the AIC program advancing this mission by fostering a new wave of faculty-led projects.” 

Continue reading: https://citris-uc.org/citris-announces-recipients-of-inaugural-innovation-fellowship-and-aic-awards/