Solutions for changing climates are in demand for agriculture, carbon dioxide removal, methane abatement, health impacts, and many more areas. There is funding available. What’s holding biotech back? Talented scientists often don’t know where to find funding and how to communicate their projects to investors in a compelling way.
The Homeworld Collective, is a non-profit organization working to empower the international biotech community to deliver climate technology. Dan Goodwin, Ph.D., Co-founder and Executive Director, presents their approach with a lively talk in the video below. His energy and insights reflect his background as a neuroscientist, synthetic biology enthusiast, and successful Silicon Valley software entrepreneur. Essentially, the Homeworld Collective is lifting early, seed-stage projects with private funding and a knowledge platform focused on climate biotech. His talk includes examples from the organization’s first round of grants and a rundown of how their team trains biologists to pitch their solutions.
The Garden Grants program fills a gap in the funding landscape for climate biotech. If you’re unfamiliar, the climate tech sector targets decarbonization and adaptation to climate change with energy, transportation, buildings, manufacturing or industrial processes, and agriculture. Countries and the United Nations promote climate technology development with both public and private financing. One hundred billion dollars is promised for climate mitigation and adaptation every year in an agreement from the United Nations Climate Talks. Once solutions are discovered and scaled, the UN Climate Technology Centre & Network is mandated to facilitate getting solutions to developing countries that request them. High-tech solutions like solar energy, electric vehicles, and drought forecasting, are examples of mature climate technologies implemented in developing countries. Meanwhile, innovation in climate biotechnology is limited by adverse, siloed, funding systems outside of the established biomedical tracks. Venture capital investment is great for scaling up solutions. Government funding sources typically require some evidence to fund projects. Where do you get the funding to produce data showing a novel idea has promise? This is the gap the Garden Grant program is designed for.
“There is no doubt that we have problems. People doubt the solutions. I think it’s much better to be focusing on quality, actionable ideas. Our solution is to empower the community to self-organize. To be better at pitching. To better understand how to connect to funding sources, We want to get funding for your first effort, then get you to the next paycheck."
The Homeworld Collective has the goal to empower the community, but also focuses on the individual, Goodwin noted during the question and answer session following his presentation. “We learn the craftsmenship in science, but we don’t learn the gamesmanship. It’s amazing what a little training in gamesmanship can do to help people’s careers” He explained that the computer science design world teaches self-advocacy skills. When their team work with scientists, they focus on teaching self-empowerment skills for presentations and writing. Goodwin pointedly remarked, “Writing is the new manifesting. We meet so many talented researchers. Our theory of change is to make better practitioners. To teach self-advocacy. There is no doubt that we have problems. People doubt the solutions. I think it’s much better to be focusing on quality, actionable ideas. Our solution is to empower the biotech community to self-organize. To be better at pitching. To be better at understanding how to connect to funding sources. We want to get funding for your first effort, then get you to the next paycheck.” Homeworld Collective is filling a gap to empower biotechnologies to help mitigate and adapt to climate change.
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