The resources sector is undergoing massive shifts associated with the global transition to a zero-carbon economy. In addition to the clear imperative to decarbonize their own operations, the products that these companies produce, or will produce, are themselves essential to that green transition. Innovation is more important in this sector today than ever before.
MIT is one of the most innovative institutions on the planet. Its outsized impact through a vibrant innovation ecosystem facilitates the critical interplay between academia, entrepreneurs, risk capital, corporates, and government. Through the MIT Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (REAP), we have worked with regions worldwide to replicate this model that has worked so well at MIT.
The 2023 ILP Perth Symposium is a meeting of the ecosystems co-hosted with Woodside Energy and Rio Tinto. The single-day event will examine Western Australia’s progress in developing a vibrant innovation ecosystem, partly through ongoing participation in REAP, led by Rio Tinto and Woodside. We will also share some of the successes from MIT’s ecosystem, focusing on key innovations that will help Western Australia’s resources sector cement its critical position in the coming green economy.
Neil Freeman is Manager of Innovation at Rio Tinto.
Ron Spangler serves as the Director of Corporate Relations, managing a diverse portfolio of companies in the mining, energy, aerospace, and defense sectors. Before joining MIT Corporate Relations, Ron dedicated two decades to an industry career, primarily focusing on various MIT-connected startup companies. In 1994, he earned his doctorate in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT, and his extensive contributions include numerous publications and patents. Notably, Ron is also an FAA-licensed pilot with a glider rating.
Scott Stern is the David Sarnoff Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Stern explores how innovation and entrepreneurship differ from more traditional economic activities, and the consequences of these differences for strategy and policy. His research in the economics of innovation and entrepreneurship focuses on entrepreneurial strategy, innovation-driven entrepreneurial ecosystems, and innovation policy and management. Recent studies include the impact of clusters on entrepreneurship, the role of institutions in shaping the accumulation of scientific and technical knowledge, and the drivers and consequences of entrepreneurial strategy.
Stern has worked widely with practitioners in bridging the gap between academic research and the practice of innovation and entrepreneurship. This includes advising start-ups and other growth firms in the area of entrepreneurial strategy, as well as working with governments and other stakeholders on policy issues related to competitiveness and regional performance. In recent years, Stern has developed a popular new MIT Sloan elective, Entrepreneurial Strategy, co-founded the MIT Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program, advised the development of the Social Progress Index, and served as the lead MIT investigator on the US Cluster Mapping Project.
Stern started his career at MIT, where he taught from 1995 to 2001. Before returning to MIT in 2009, he held positions as a Professor at the Kellogg School of Management and as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Stern is the director and co-founder of the Innovation Policy Working Group at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 2005, he was awarded the Kauffman Prize Medal for Distinguished Research in Entrepreneurship.
Stern holds a BA in economics from New York University and a PhD in economics from Stanford University.
Dr Phil Budden is a Senior Lecturer at MIT's Management School, in Sloan's TIES (Tech Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Strategy) Group, where he focuses on 'corporate innovation’ and multi-stakeholder innovation ecosystems, especially how corporates can get value from the latter (including start-up enterprises). He works closely with corporate executives and leaders of other large organisations on such strategies, through MIT Corporate Relations/ILP, the Corporate Innovation Program (https://corporateinnovation.mit.edu), Executive Education (https://executive.mit.edu/ci) and MIT’s global REAP program (https://reap.mit.edu), as well as custom and consulting work.
Stephen was born in Dublin and first came to Australia in 1986 on a family holiday.
In 1989 he and his family migrated to Australia to escape the struggling economy in Ireland.
Stephen studied to be a French and Drama teacher at Edith Cowan University and in 1995 he joined the Labor party at the University orientation day.
Stephen was elected to represent the Mining & Pastoral Region at the 2013 state election. He served as Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Kimberley, Pilbara, Gascoyne and Goldfields-Esperance regions before being promoted to the position of Shadow Minister for Mental Health; Disability Services and Child Protection in September 2013.
Stephen has been a Chief of Staff to a number of Government Ministers in Western Australia and Victoria and immediately prior to his election to Parliament, he worked as the WA State Manager for Essential Media Communications.
Alison, a geologist by background, has experience in leading large teams of professional and technical staff, strategic planning and applied pragmatic problem solving.
Her technical skills include resource, production and exploration geology, valuation and assessment of resource projects, general management, strategy, business development and leadership.
Derek Gerrard has been in the tech startup industry for over 20 years in roles as an entrepreneur, investor and advisor.
Derek likes nothing more than helping young companies scale, accelerate their growth and seeing founders achieve their purpose. Derek is an active tech and impact investor working alongside some great companies that are making the world a better place.
Brian is an accomplished executive with an outstanding record of growth and achievement in diverse technical leadership roles throughout his career with Corning. Acknowledged for his ability to work across technical disciplines and technologies, he is a recognized industry leader in the application of technology fundamentals to develop and deliver new products and processes to market. Brian holds four U.S. patents and is known for championing an industrial perspective to engineering education, serving as a member of the Purdue University Engineering Education Industrial Advisory Board, and coordinating Corning’s on-campus recruiting endeavors. He received the Purdue Outstanding Chemical Engineer Award in 2001. He currently shares these skills as a Station Director in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Chemical Engineering Practice Program, supporting programs in a variety of industries worldwide.
In the latter stages of his industrial career, as Corporate Engineering Director and an integral member of Corning’s senior leadership team, Brian provided project leadership and technical expertise to emerging and existing businesses across the corporation. He designed the Manufacturing Engineering Excellence Program deployed across all domestic and international divisions to facilitate the greater understanding and use of technology fundamentals to increase manufacturing performance.
Rotating through key strategic technical assignments, Brian began his career with Corning as a Senior Process Engineer/Project Engineer, where he developed a process and built a pilot plant for manufacturing two new materials, one from an organosilicate. He also led manufacturing improvements across the company and start-up teams for new products.
Brian moved on to technical management roles in specialty materials, environmental technologies, and diesel technologies. In his first functional management role in specialty materials, Brian built and directed teams in numerous process development and manufacturing engineering projects for an expanding $2B business. Brian also resolved a quality problem across two separate factories for one of the company’s premier customers that threatened to curtail optical production.
During his tenure with the $400M environmental technologies division, Brian led a team in the development and pilot plant construction for an electrically heated catalyst product that was awarded the American Chemical Society Award for Team Innovation. He also directed the developing and scaling up of thin-wall and ultra-thin-wall products for gasoline emissions control. Following this, he moved into a senior leadership role responsible for developing and implementing the business strategy that successfully captured an emerging market opportunity in diesel emissions control.
Brian’s success in positioning Corning to enter the new diesel emissions control market led to the spin-off of a new diesel technologies division which he helped build from a start-up $30M to $300M. He orchestrated the construction and startup of a heavy-duty diesel manufacturing plant in Corning and delivered aluminum titanate products to manufacturing for light-duty diesel emissions control.
Brian holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University and a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Michigan State University. He currently resides with his wife in Okemos, Michigan.
Sean Gilbert is the Managing Director of the MIT-China Program, MIT-Singapore Program, and the MIT-Australia & New Zealand Program.
Sean is responsible for developing projects across this Asia Pacific region with MIT students, faculty, and institutional partners. Key programs include the MIT Greater China Fund for Innovation; the Fung Scholars Program; the MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node-MISTI Collaboration, the MIT-China Educational Technology Initiative (CETI); and the MIT-China Forum. Sean founded the Singapore (2002) and Australia & New Zealand (2013) programs and is working on expanding MISTI Southeast Asia initiatives. Gilbert also manages the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science / MISTI partnership: EECS International/MISTI.
Prior to arriving at MIT in 2000, Sean co-founded EcoTrends International Co., Ltd in Taipei, importing environmental technologies and products for Taiwan construction sites (1997-2000); and worked for the Panvest Group's Offshore Investment Department, supervising Taiwanese-owned hotels in Hawaii and automotive and data processing joint ventures in Jinan, Shandong Province (1993-1997). Gilbert has also worked in New York as a reinsurance broker at Guy Carpenter & Company, placing European facultative and East Asian treaty risks with international reinsurance companies (1984-1986).
Sean holds a Master of Arts in Chinese Studies and a Princeton-in-Asia Teaching Certificate from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies & Chinese, with a Minor in Southeast Asian Cultural Anthropology, from New York University. He learned to speak Chinese initially through two years of language studies at National Taiwan Normal University (Mandarin Training Center) and Taipei Language Institute. Born in Shrewsbury, England; early childhood in Indooroopilly, Queensland, Australia; grew up in Sea Cliff, New York; studied and worked for 10+ years in East Asia.
Catarina has been working with the Cambridge/Boston startup ecosystem for over 10 years and joined Corporate Relations with a solid network in the innovation and entrepreneurial community. Prior to MIT, she was part of the team that designed and launched the startup accelerator IUL MIT Portugal, which was later rebranded as Building Global Innovators. She was based in Lisbon and worked in direct relation with the Cambridge team. She held positions including Operations Coordinator, Program Manager, and Business Developer. The accelerator soon achieved steady growth in large part due to the partnerships that Catarina led with regional and global startup ecosystems. After that, she worked at NECEC, leading a program that connects cleantech startups and industry. In this role, she developed and built a pipeline of startups and forged strong relationships with both domestic and European companies. She has also held positions in Portugal and France, including at Saboaria e Perfumaria Confiança and L’Oréal as Technical Director and Pharmacist. Catarina earned her bachelor's in chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences in Portugal. She went on to earn her Master of Engineering for Health and Medicines in France.
Daniel Stack is the Co-founder and CEO of Electrified Thermal Solutions, Inc. (ETS), a new technology startup that is decarbonizing industry with electrified heat. He earned his PhD in Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a specialization in energy conversion and thermal energy storage. His doctoral inventions form the foundation of ETS and its flagship product, the Joule Hive™ thermal battery. Daniel is an Activate fellow of the 2021 Boston cohort, an awardee of ARPA-E SEED, and a representative on the Long Duration Energy Storage Council. He has authored and co-authored a variety of papers on electrified thermal energy storage in academic and industry journals, and has spoken at various energy conferences, workshops and panels on repowering industrial processes and power plants with electrified thermal energy storage.
Ed is responsible for strategy and business development in the energy and mining sectors at Amogy. Prior to Amogy, Ed spent 8 years as a program manager at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he analyzed high efficiency HVAC technologies to reduce the energy use of commercial and residential buildings. Ed also spent 5 years in the corporate finance group at Moody's Investors Service, providing bond ratings for energy and industrial companies. Ed has an MPA from the University of Wisconsin -Madison, and a BS in Finance from New York University.
Ralph is the Director of Product Development at Mantel. He earned his PhD in nuclear engineering at MIT, where he specialized in computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer analysis of molten salt fluid systems. Before joining Mantel, he worked as an engineer at the nuclear startup TerraPower, and he worked in the research office of The Engine.Ralph also co-founded a nuclear reactor startup which focuses on driving down nuclear plant construction costs.
With years of consulting experience, backed up with experience with business ownership, Tracy Deveugle-Frink has developed extensive experience in a variety of functional roles including:
-Innovation and Entrepreneurship -Business Management -Process Improvement (Six Sigma; Lean) -Business Development -Project Management -Personnel Management -Public SpeakingWith years of consulting experience, backed up wit
Professor Robert C. Armstrong directs the MIT Energy Initiative, an Institute-wide effort at MIT linking science, technology, and policy to transform the world’s energy systems. A member of the MIT faculty since 1973, Armstrong served as head of the Department of Chemical Engineering from 1996 to 2007. His research interests include polymer fluid mechanics, rheology of complex materials, and energy.
Armstrong has been elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2020) and the National Academy of Engineering (2008). He received the Founders Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Chemical Engineering (2020), Warren K. Lewis Award (2006), and the Professional Progress Award (1992), all from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He also received the 2006 Bingham Medal from the Society of Rheology, which is devoted to the study of the science of deformation and flow of matter,
Armstrong was a member of MIT’s Future of Natural Gas and Future of Solar Energy study groups. He advised the teams that developed MITEI’s most recent reports, The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World (2018) and Insights into Future Mobility (2019), and is co-chairing the new MITEI study, The Future of Storage. He co-edited Game Changers: Energy on the Move with former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz.
Professor Peta Ashworth is UQ Chair in Sustainable Energy Futures and has responsibility for the Master of Sustainable Energy (Management). In 2020, she was appointed as Director of the Andrew N Liveris Academy for Innovation and Leadership. She is well known for her expertise in the energy field with research focuses on understanding public attitudes to climate change and energy technologies (wind, CCS, solar PV, geothermal) for climate mitigation.
Peta Ashworth brings over thirty years’ experience working in a range of senior management and research roles. Peta is well known for her expertise in the energy field, communication and stakeholder engagement and technology assessment. Peta has been researching public attitudes to climate and energy technologies (wind, CCS, solar PV, geothermal) for the past ten years with a particular focus on CCS. She currently Co-Chairs the Independent Advisory Panel for the Radioactive Waste Management Facility project for the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. She has also been Chair of the IEA GHG Social Research Network since its inception in 2009 and has assisted in the coordination of five international research meetings of the network – Paris, Yokohama, Noosa, Calgary and Cambridge (UK). Previously, Peta conceptualised and led the Science into Society Group (SISG) within CSIRO’s Division of Earth Science and Resource Engineering, which specialised in interdisciplinary research at the interface between science and society. Peta has an interest in designing a range of dialogic processes for engaging around complex issues.
Peta co-authored the CSIRO Home Energy Saving Handbook to help Australian householders save money and reduce their overall energy use, and she has an interest in designing processes for engaging on complex and contested issues with a focus on science and technology innovations. Peta was awarded an EU Horizon 2020 research project - Responsible Research and Innovation Practice (RRI – Practice). The RRI project brings together a unique group of international experts to understand the barriers and drivers to the successful implementation of RRI in global contexts; to promote reflection on organisational structures and cultures of research conducting and research funding organisations; and to identify best practices to facilitate the uptake of RRI in organisations and research programmes.
Specialties: Design Management, Innovation in the energy sector, Project and Technology Research & Development, International Speaker and Uni Lecturer.