Work on Climate (Jan 2021) and looking back on 2020
Work on Climate (Jan 2021) and looking back on 2020
Welcome to the January 2021 newsletter of Work On Climate! [Subscribe and read archives]
Work on Climate started in the middle of this year, and our first newsletter went out in September 2020. We are incredibly grateful for the support and contributions from all of our community members—THANK YOU! It has been amazing to grow from a tiny group to a Slack community with 750+ members!
Drop in to the Slack community with offers or asks, and advance yours or someone else's climate journey! Add yourself or invite climate friends to keep making our community stronger!
Retrospective on 2020
Within our first few months, we have launched multiple programs with the help of the community. All of these programs are still accepting newcomers on a rolling basis, so join in! We have rehashed them to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Numbers are an unrepresentative lower bound!
On the first month of WoC, my true love sent to me... a Slack Community.
On the second month of WoC, my true love sent to me... two Starter Packs and a Slack Community
On the third month of WoC, my true love sent to me... three Learning Groups, two Starter packs, and a Slack Community.
On the fourth month of WoC, my true love sent to me... four Climate Fellows, three Learning Groups, two Starter Packs, and a Slack Community.
On the fifth month of WoC, my true love sent to me... five Office Hours, four Climate Fellows, three Learning Groups, two Starter Packs, and a Slack Community.
On the sixth month of WoC, my true love sent to me... six Events a-ttending, five Office Hours, four Climate Fellows, three Learning Groups, two Starter Packs, and a Slack Community.
On the seventh month of WoC, my true love sent to me... seven Jobs a-hiring, six Events a-ttending, five Office Hours, four Climate Fellows, three Learning Groups, two Starter Packs, and a Slack Community.
And that's the end of our song! The WoC community has existed for less than four months, but we have produced seven months of song!
What's New?
We have an office!
Come hangout anytime in the WoC virtual office set up by Ray Fong (rfong). Thanks rfong! In their words, "you can idly park yourself in it and take breaks to chat/meet with people without the hassle and overhead of setting up individual Zoom meetings for every interaction. It’s also a great way to host drop-in office hours or meet ’n greets."
Get creative and experiment with running events here and announce your events to our Slack! Heads up that you will need your computer, as it is currently Desktop-only, and there is a 25 person at a time cap for our free account.
🥳 January Events
We've hosted a number of interesting talks from Climate leaders over the past year! Watch recordings & read notes at Past Events; find upcoming events on the calendar and on #events.
Thu Jan 7 @5:00pm PT - Startup Fundraising Knowledge Share RSVP here.
Are you fundraising for a startup? Have you already had a successful raise? Lucky you! Let's get together and talk about what is/was challenging. Share your tips and tricks for a successful raise with us. Depending on the info provided on the RSVPs, we may bring in an expert to help answer questions.
Mon Jan 11 (All day) - Let's WoC 😉 together in our virtual office
Come join an all day co-working session in our WoC virtual office set up by Ray Fong (rfong). Meet people in our community without setting up individual Zoom meetings. I don't expect us to hit the 25 person cap for our room, but if we do, try joining at a later time. Add to your Google calendar.
Wed Jan 13 @1:00pm PT - Farm the Ocean! RSVP here.
You know about regenerative ways of farming land, but how about farming the ocean? Come learn from Sam Garwin of GreenWave how seaweed cultivation reverses climate change and improves marine ecosystems.
Thu Jan 14 @2:00pm PT - Guided Brainstorm - Food Waste. RSVP here.
A guided brainstorm about applications for reducing food waste, using a design thinking process. We encourage participation by community members of all knowledge levels!
Thu Jan 21 @10:30am PT - Exaquest Carbon. RSVP here.
Exaquest Carbon is a new 501(c)(3) scientific research nonprofit that is developing technologies that will allow carbon to be stored for long periods of time in the form of biomass. John Lin, founder and President of Exaquest, will give a talk on their approach to carbon storage & why they chose to incorporate as a non-profit instead of a for-profit.
Sat Jan 23 @2:00pm PT - John Oliver NRA Tedsday & Brainstorm. RSVP here.
Every Tedsday, we watch a short video together and discuss. In this 10-minute clip, John Oliver exposes how the NRA is so incredibly effective at manipulating policy. This as a jumping-off point for a brainstorm about how we can adapt the NRA's tactics to influence climate policy.
Wed Jan 27 @11am PT - Pitch Deck Practice. RSVP here.
Are you working on an exciting new early stage venture startup? Whether you're a pitching pro looking for a second perspective, or just still trying to figure out how to organize your slides, we can help! Come practice your pitch with us and receive candid and constructive feedback on content, performance and slide design.
🏢 Fresh Job Postings
Looking for a job in climate? Check out interesting job postings from our community members on our #jobs channel. Some highlights below!
Sonia Kastner of Pano is hiring several roles to help firefighters combat wildfires during the upcoming fire season. They are looking for: a Senior Frontend Engineer (React), a Lead Systems Engineer (embedded linux), and a Product Manager.
GreenWave helps farmers get into regenerative seaweed farming, and Sam Garwin is looking to hire a Product Manager to head development of a new digital platform.
SINAI is a YC-backed carbon accounting company and CTO Alain Rodriguez is looking for a senior product manager/head of product. If you (or someone you know) are passionate about taking on climate change and developing complex software, contact alain@sinaitechnologies.com.
QuantumScape is a next-generation battery company that just went public pursuing a breakthrough in batteries to close the gap in price, charge time, range, safety, and lifetime between EVs and dinosaur-burning cars. CTO Tim Holme is hiring for 70 positions across the business including sales, business, legal, software engineering, chemists, and materials.
MethaneSAT is hiring both frontend and backend engineers. A molecule of methane is 20X more warming than one of CO2. Satellites! Methane! Environmental Defense Fund!
Subscribe to our #jobs-alerts channel to get the newest postings from Climatebase like Head of Product at Nori.
🧙🏼 New climate experts are hosting Office Hours
Connect with climate leaders at our Office Hours - meet with physicists, experts in modeling, entrepreneurs, and more.
Christopher Round, an expert on climate policy and politics, has joined the program as an expert this month! Chris sits on the DNC Council on the Environment & Climate Crisis. Sign up here.
Zoe Samuel organizes Google's very active 1500+ employee climate change group. Talk to Zoe about community organizing or content writing and curation. Sign up here.
🙃 Coming soon: "Reverse Office Hours" for climate orgs wanting expert help
Does your climate organization need expert advice on everyday, non-climate things—like software, business development, marketing, content strategy, or similar? Are you an expert in one of these areas who would love to help out a climate organization?
We're piloting a "Reverse Office Hours" program, where climate orgs can get free initial consultations with expert professionals. We're looking for an initial set of orgs and experts to help us test-drive the program. If you're interested:
Climate orgs (including solo founders)—contact @Richard Kim on Slack or fill out this Slack poll
Experts—contact @Eugene Kirpichov on Slack or respond to this Slack thread.
🤖 Browse a bounty of buddies with Braintrust Bot Beta!
Fun secret embedded stealthy Slack functionality! Type /braintrust [search term] in any Slack window, and you'll get search results from the archive of our #introductions thread. E.g. try /braintrust carbon capture or /braintrust canada. We're calling this the Braintrust Bot, and though it's still in beta and somewhat buggy, we have already been finding it useful. More features to come!
A crew of folks have been involved: Dahl Winters, Eugene Kirpichov, Rohan Nutall, Brooke Christiansen, Jonny Linton, and Richard Kim. Send feedback or requests to get involved to @Richard Kim.
👋🏽 Ready to meet your co-founder?
Join #cofounder-matching to connect with people in the community looking for a cofounder. Say who you are and who you are looking for!
If you are in search of a strong technical co-founder, consider applying to our Climate CTO program, where we match early stage climate startups with potential CTOs.
🚀 What are your climate career goals for 2021?
For those of us in the US, 2021 means we will be welcoming a new administration with a strong climate plan. What are your personal climate goals for the new year? Are you making resolutions? Please share them with us on #share-your-path — inspire others and let us support you on your journey.
In a monthly tradition, please help us understand successful career paths into climate by taking this 2-question survey!
We look forward to a 2021 filled with positive climate action, and from the whole Work on Climate team, we wish you a wonderful new year!