First Look SoCal Innovation Showcase 2024
May 21 @ 1:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Tuesday May 21 @ Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles (map)
The First Look SoCal Innovation Showcase is an annual celebration of the best early-stage teams commercializing deep tech and life science breakthroughs from the top research institutions in Southern California. This is the premiere gathering that celebrates research-based spinouts and connects them with top-tier investors and successful serial entrepreneurs with expertise to help them leap from the lab to market.
The day’s program will feature a pair of keynote presentations followed by a full program of 24 quick-pitch presentations with investor-led Q&A. Stay for the networking reception to (re)connect with the community.
Limited seats available for a special pre-event founder workshop on Protecting and Commercializing Intellectual Property. More details below.
Look Forward To…
Connect with investors, peers, and mentors
Unparalleled opportunities to connect with investors, mentors and other support resources crucial for early stage startups. Past years attracted over 300 attendees including over 130 investors such as Lux Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, Kairos, Wavemaker 360, NXT Biomedical, NEA, Elevation Ventures, FullCycle, Aligned Climate Capital, Mitsubishi Ventures and many more.
Keynotes
The opening keynote from Keith Strier, VP of Worldwide AI Initiatives at NVIDIA who will discuss the implications and opportunities of ubiquitous computing (AI) followed by a keynote from Mike Miller, Director of Product at AWS (Amazon) who will show you how they built a generative AI app-building playground in ‘startup mode’ inside of a massive company like AWS.
Startup quick-pitch presentations
Two concurrent tracks (Life Science and Technology) where each track features 12 startups doing 3-minute quick pitch presentations followed by 9 minutes of moderated Q&A led by a panel of investors, corporates and subject matter experts. See full lineup below.
The largest showcase of university-based deep tech and life science startups
This is SoCal’s premiere gathering of the best startups emerging from the region’s top research institutions so it attracts the region’s community in a rare concentrated program that celebrates the entrepreneur’s journey from lab to market.
Workshop for startup founders (limited seats available)
Learn from subject matter experts in IP law and licensing best practices for protecting and monetizing intellectual property as well as early stage startup commercialization of deep tech and life science innovations.
Networking Reception
Stay for drinks and small bites as we celebrate and connect with attendees and speakers.
Free Parking
Parking is available in the Skirball’s North Parking garage, located underground at the north end of the Skirball’s main driveway, approximately 150 yards north of our Main Entrance. Parking is also available in the East Parking garage, located across Sepulveda Blvd.
Lead Sponsor
Track Sponsors
Transportation Sponsor
Agenda
1:00p: Pick up Name Badge + Networking
1:30p: Opening remarks and Keynotes: Keith Strier, Vice President of Worldwide AI Initiatives at NVIDIA and Mike Miller, Director of Product at Amazon Web Services
2:45p: Startup Pitch Presentations
| LIFE SCIENCE TRACK | TECHNOLOGY TRACK | |
| Session 1 (2:45 – 3:50p) | Medtech Session 1 | Computing & Software |
| Break (3:50 – 4:10p) | BREAK | BREAK |
| Session 2 (4:10 – 5:15p) | Medtech Session 2 | Energy & Materials |
| Break (5:15 – 5:35p) | BREAK | BREAK |
| Session 3 (5:35-6:40p) | Therapeutics | Health Tech |
6:40 – 8:00p: Networking Reception
Why You Should Attend:
- Get a first look at emerging technology with high potential for market disruption and impact
- Discover companies seeking early stage funding to commercialize big ideas with massive potential
- See 24 emerging startups quick pitches w/Q&A led by specialized investors with deep domain expertise
- Unparalleled in-person networking opportunities
Registration
Speakers and Startups
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Keith Strier is vice president of worldwide AI initiatives at NVIDIA, with responsibility for NVIDIA’s strategic and commercial engagements with foreign governments. He also leads the company’s AI Nations Initiative, facilitating public-private partnerships that help governments build sovereign AI capabilities to drive economic growth. Strier has 30 years of global leadership experience, previously serving as the first global AI leader for EY and the first global chief digital officer for Deloitte. He has also been appointed to multiple AI policy advisory roles across the world, serving on the U.S. National AI Advisory Committee (NAIAC) to help coordinate the AI strategy for the President; as Founding Chair, AI Compute and Climate Expert Group, OECD, leading development of the first blueprint for building domestic compute capacity; and as the only non-Australian on Australia’s National AI Centre Think Tank. Strier holds a bachelor’s degree in labor and industrial relations from Cornell University and a J.D. from the New York University School of Law. He also served 10 years as a visiting lecturer at Harvard Medical School’s Center for BioInformatics.
Mike Miller is a Director of Product Management at AWS, leading multiple initiatives across AWS focusing on Generative AI. In November of 2023, his team launched PartyRock, an Amazon Bedrock Playground, a fun, intuitive, and hands-on generative AI app-building playground – no coding skills required. Mike previously led the AWS AI & ML Thought Leadership team, who brought AWS DeepLens, AWS DeepRacer, and AWS DeepComposer to developers worldwide, helping aspiring machine learning developers get hands-on with the latest technologies. In 2020 Mike’s team launched AWS Panorama, a service that allows organizations to bring computer vision (CV) to on-premises cameras to make predictions locally with high accuracy and low latency. Mike has been with Amazon for over eleven years, previously leading product management for Fire TV at Lab126 before joining Amazon Web Services. Mike has over 30 years of technology experience from startups to large corporations, including leadership roles at Google, OnLive, Motive, and Trilogy, spanning Silicon Valley and Austin, TX. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
PRESENTING STARTUPS
Life Science Track
Technology Track
Selection Committee
Thank you to the following members of the ecosystem who lent their subject matter expertise to evaluate the Life Science applicants. Criteria used were 1) novelty/quality of the solution/invention 2) size of commercial opportunity and/or overall potential and 3) do they fit the First Look SoCal mission of showcasing breakthrough innovations emerging from SoCal institutions. The final 12 startups were ultimately chosen by Alliance for SoCal Innovation staff using the feedback provided by the Selection Committee.
Allen Keel, Senior Director, Innovation at Edwards Lifesciences
Beth Andrews, Chief Digital Health Officer at Dell Technologies
Chris Bostick, Partner at OCV
Chris Lew, Principal at Rock Health Advisory
Dave Whelan, Managing Director at Bespoke Strategy
David H. Crean, Managing Partner at Coast BioVentures LLC
Debbie Lin, Venture Partner at T.Rx Cap
Jay Goss, General Partner at Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health
Kathryn Zavala, Chief Operating Officer at MedTech Innovator
Meet the "Judges"
Representatives of industry (VCs, corporate leaders) with domain expertise in frontier tech and life science innovation.
Tari Suprapto
Director, Search and Evaluation (West) Novo Nordisk
Kate Avaline Edwards
Early Stage VC/Startup Business Development AWS, Amazon
Duncan Huston-Paterson
Director of Business Development Amgen
Beth Andrews
Chief Digital Health Officer, Life Sciences & Healthcare Dell Technologies
Aiden Aceves
Vice President, Investments Insight Partners
Tad Funahashi
Chief Innovation and Transformation Officer Kaiser Permanente
Allen Keel
Senior Director of Strategic Innovation, Advanced Technology Edwards Lifesciences
Tulsi Patel
Head of LA Office FedTech
Zafer Sahinoglu
VP Innovation, GM – Mitsubishi Electric Innovation Center MELIC – Mitsubishi Electric Innovation Center
Kathyrn Zavala
COO and Managing Director, Biotools Innovator MedTech Innovator
Farahnaz Forozan
President / CEO Forozan OncoGen Consulting
Eric Lee
Senior Vice President Aligned Climate Capital
Katie Vasquez
Investor Calibrate Ventures
Saurabh Suri
Managing Partner CerraCap Ventures
Roberto Medrano
CEO Beach View Capital
Jay Goss
General Partner Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health
David Crean
Managing Partner Cardiff Advisory, LLC
Les Karpas
Inception Partner Manager, Robotics, Automotive & Manufacturing NVIDIA
Ken Hayes
Executive Director Cleantech Open
Ahmed Mirza
Investor Techstars
Erik Gonzalez-Leon
Analyst Propel Bio Partners
Lucy Abgaryan
Founder GrittGene Therapeutics
Participating Academic and Research Institutions
