The Startup Tri-Valley Podcast

<p>The Startup Tri-Valley Podcast, hosted by i-GATE Innovation Hub  Executive Director Yolanda Fintschenko, PhD, and other co-hosts from the Tri-Valley Startup Ecosystem, features in-depth conversations with the leaders making the Bay Area’s Tri-Valley region the go-to ecosystem for science-based startups. Listeners can expect to hear from local founders, investors, and other domain experts whose insight can help science-based companies go from startup to scale.</p>

Meet Daybreak Labs Advisor and Capital Factory Senior Venture Associate, Luis Martinez, PhD

Host Yolanda Fintschenko, Executive Director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, home of the Startup Tri-Valley (STV) Initiative, sits down with Luis Martinez, PhD, Senior Venture Associate with Capital Factory and Daybreak Labs advisor. In this inspiring conversation, Luis shares his remarkable 25-year journey from a synthetic organic chemist at Harvard to a management consultant, university professor, ecosystem builder, and now venture capitalist. Luis offers invaluable insights for...

10-28
01:19:28

Meet Daybreak Labs Commercial Real Estate Advisor: Brian Wilson, Vice President, Colliers

Host Yolanda Fintschenko, Executive Director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, home of the Startup Tri-Valley (STV) Initiative, sits down with Brian Wilson, Vice President of Office R&D and Clean Facilities for Colliers International and Commercial Real Estate Advisor for Daybreak Labs. In this compelling conversation, Brian shares his unique journey from practicing real estate and construction law in Silicon Valley to becoming a key architect of the Tri-Valley's hard tech and l...

09-09
50:25

Meet Daybreak Labs Operations Advisor: Janelle Muranaka, COO and Co-Founder, EazeBio

In this episode of the Startup Tri-Valley Podcast, hosts Yolanda Fintschenko, executive director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, home of the Startup Tri-Valley (STV) Initiative. This episode features an in-depth conversation with Janelle Muranaka, COO and Co-founder of EazeBio and Operations Advisor for Daybreak Labs. It focuses on Muranaka's journey into the startup world, her passion for the Tri-Valley life sciences ecosystem, and the unique role of operations executive. Tune in...

08-05
01:01:41

Industrializing Biology: Meet LifeFoundry COO and Co-Founder, Sam Rad

In this episode of the Startup Tri-Valley Podcast, hosts Yolanda Fintschenko, executive director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, home of the Startup Tri-Valley (STV) Initiative, and Lisa Adamos, Economic Development Manager for the City of Pleasanton, sit down with Sam Rad, Co-Founder and COO of LifeFoundry, Inc. Sam, a chemical and biomolecular engineer with a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, shares his vision for transforming chemical productio...

06-17
40:43

How AI Can Humanize Health Care: Meet "IC" Chiranjeevi Praveen Ikkurthy, CHCIO, Stanford Health Care

Host Yolanda Fintschenko, executive director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, and guest co-host Hazel Wetherford, Deputy City Manager for the City of Dublin, talk with Chiranjeevi Praveen Ikkurthy, CHCIO, Interim IT Administrative Director for Stanford Health Care - Valley Health Care. IC was a panelist in our 2024 Tri-Valley AI Summit, and we are thrilled to welcome him to the pod! Chiranjeevi Ikkurthy (“IC”) is a seasoned IT leader with a proven track reco...

05-20
40:27

Feed Your Good Genes: A Conversation with Author Reem Mahrat

In this episode of the Startup Tri-Valley Podcast, hosts Yolanda Fintschenko, executive director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, home of the Startup Tri-Valley (STV) Initiative, and Lisa Adamos, Economic Development Manager for the City of Pleasanton, sit down with Reem Mahrat, a serial entrepreneur and founder of EazeBio. Reem shares her personal journey of battling autoimmune disease and how it inspired her to write the book "Feed Your Good Genes: Avoid Autoimmune Disease....

05-01
09:31

Empowering Women's Health: A Conversation with EazeBio Founder and CEO Reem Mahrat

In this episode of the Startup Tri-Valley Podcast, hosts Yolanda Fintschenko, executive director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, home of the Startup Tri-Valley (STV) Initiative, and Lisa Adamos, Economic Development Manager for the City of Pleasanton, sit down with Reem Mahrat, a serial entrepreneur and founder of EazeBio. Reem shares her inspiring journey from a chemical engineer to a leader in the biotech industry, focusing on women's health. She discusses the innovative w...

04-01
37:05

Where AI Meets the Edge: A Conversation with Dr. Brian Spears, Director of the AI3 Incubator at LLNL

Host Yolanda Fintschenko, executive director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, home of the Startup Tri-Valley (STV) Initiative, talks with Brian Spears, PhD, director of AI3, the AI Innovation Incubator at Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL), and one of our 2024 Tri-Valley AI Summit panelists. Brian is passionate about developing deep learning for applied science, especially inertial confinement fusion. A proud Tri-Valley resident, as director of AI3, he foc...

03-11
01:08:28

Decarbonizing Our Economy

Host Yolanda Fintschenko, executive director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, home of the Startup Tri-Valley (STV) Initiative, speaks with Susan Houghton, Climate Resiliency and Carbon Management Portfolio Manager for the Livermore Lab Foundation (LLF), and David (Dave) Metz, partner at FM3 Research, and Katie Marcel, CEO of the Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group (ITV), about the inspiration for and outcomes from their most recent event, Decarbonizing our Economy, co-organized ...

02-25
52:55

The Voice of the Customer Cubed: Meet Monterey AI CEO and Founder, Chun Jiang

Host Yolanda Fintschenko, executive director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, and guest co-host Hazel Wetherford, Deputy City Manager for the City of Dublin, talk with Chun Jiang, CEO and co-founder of Monterey AI, an early stage startup located in Dublin, CA. Co-founders Chun Jiang and Ben Kramer joined Y Combinator Summer 2022. During the batch, Monterey AI started with a simple generative documentation tool for the product team. It became clear there was a bigger opportu...

05-16
39:47

Curiosity Can Change the Climate: LLNL Scientist Drew Wong, PhD and the Roads2Removal Report

Host Yolanda Fintschenko, executive director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, and guest co-host Katie Marcel, CEO of the Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group (ITV), talk with Drew Wong, PhD, a staff scientist and materials engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), about his work on the Roads to Removal Report, a new nationwide report on carbon dioxiode removal options that is being shared broadly by the Livermore Lab Foundation...

04-25
34:00

The Future is FEmale: Meet Teen Entrepreneur Krisha Singhani

Host Yolanda Fintschenko, executive director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, and guest co-host Katie Marcel, CEO of the Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group (ITV), discuss the entrepreneurial journey of 16-year old award-winning innovator, Krisha Singhani, a 2023 ITV Dreammakers and Risktakers award winner. Krisha shares her journey of creating 'FEmale, an innovative device for non-invasively detecting menstruation-induced anemia in women (watch the video of ho...

02-06
31:07

Keeping Time with Quantum Technology: Vector Atomic Co-Founder and CEO, Jamil Abo-Shaeer

In this episode, host Yolanda Fintschenko, executive director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, talks with Jamil Abo-Shaeer, atomic physicist, co-founder and CEO of Tri-Valley startup, Vector Atomic. Jamil is focused on transforming abstract research into practical devices. With 20+ years of research and development (R&D) experience within industry, government, and academia, he is leading Vector Atomic to productize the advanced quantum atomic clock technology that has on...

08-23
55:56

Once Upon a Sun Shot: Dr. Tammy Ma, Lead, Inertial Fusion Energy Institutional Initiative at LLNL

Host Yolanda Fintschenko, executive director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, talks with plasma physicist, Tammy Ma, PhD, Lead of the Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) Institutional Initiative at Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL). Tammy is an experimental laser-plasma physicist at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the LLNL. Besides doing experiments on the world’s largest, most energetic laser in pursuit of thermonuclear fusion, her current role also encompasse...

08-01
39:13

Fundraising Is Everyone's Job: Buzzkill Founder and CTO, George Farquar and President and CEO, Jeff Heimburger

Host Yolanda Fintschenko, executive director of Daybreak Labs and i-GATE Innovation Hub, talks with the founder and CTO of Buzzkill Labs, George Farquar, and President and CEO, Jeff Heimburger. Buzzkill Labs, a Daybreak Labs alum, is a sensor company that is modernizing drug testing in a legalized world. Their first product is a rapid saliva test for THC. This test is sorely needed by employers who need to make sure prospective and existing employees are "drug-free" enough t...

06-06
36:18

Why the Tri-Valley Is An Amazing Place to Start a Company: Rezolve.ai Co-Founder Saurabh Kumar

Co-hosts Yolanda Fintschenko (Startup Tri-Valley) and Hazel Wetherford ( Economic Development Director,City of Dublin) talk with Saurabh Kumar, CEO and co-founder of Tri-Valley company Rezolve.ai located in Dublin, CA. Rezolve.ai enterprise software provides internal help desk that uses proprietary AI to seamlessly connect employees to company information, services, and tools that they need to do their jobs at a fraction of the cost of existing solutions. Recentl...

04-19
35:27

The Walls Are Down: Crosschq Co-Founder and CEO Mike Fitzsimmons

Co-hosts Yolanda Fintschenko (Startup Tri-Valley) and Lynn Naylor (Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group) finish up the Startup Tri-Valley #GameChangers2022 podcast series with a conversation with Mike Fitzsimmons, CEO and co-founder of Crosschq, the company who has pioneered Human Intelligence Hiring™, the next essential software category for building great companies and optimizing quality of hire. Crosschq is backed by GGV, Bessemer, Tiger Global, Rocketship, SAP, Okta and Salesforce...

02-16
29:45

Building a Purpose-Driven Technology Company: Ammad Khan, Co-Founder and CEO of IrisVison

Co-hosts Yolanda Fintschenko (Startup Tri-Valley) and Lynn Naylor (Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group) continue the Startup Tri-Valley #GameChangers podcast series with a conversation with IrisVision CEO and co-founder, Ammad Khan. Videos illustrating the transformational power of IrisVision for people with low vision on their YouTube channel that includes a powerful user reaction video you don 't want to miss. In October of 2022, Ammad Khan also become the ...

01-11
48:46

Putting Women's Health First, Part 2: Avestria VC Co-Founders, Managing Partner, Linda Greub, and Partner, Tracey Dooley, MD

Startup Tri-Valley is thrilled to present the co-founders of Avestria VC, a Raydiant Oximetry early stage investor, and Tri-Valley-adjacent residents. Their thesis is to focus on the unseen opportunity presented by female founders in healthcare and by entrepreneurs focused on developing solutions for women's health. Our conversation was so rich with information for Tri-Valley founders, we kept rolling for over an hour. As a result, we bring you not one, but two parts so you can e...

10-18
33:13

Putting Women's Health First, Part 1: Avestria VC Co-Founders, Managing Partner, Linda Greub, and Partner, Tracey Dooley, MD

Startup Tri-Valley is thrilled to present the co-founders of Avestria VC, a Raydiant Oximetry early stage investor, and Tri-Valley-adjacent residents. Their thesis is to focus on the unseen opportunity presented by female founders in healthcare and by entrepreneurs focused on developing solutions for women's health. Our conversation was so rich with information for Tri-Valley founders, we kept rolling for over an hour. As a result, we bring you not one, but two parts so you can ex...

09-27
32:01

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