Intersection

Designing for a more inclusive tomorrow

Intersection attracts talented individuals from all over the world to work on challenging problems from concept to execution in a variety of sectors including climate, smart cities, energy, space, advanced materials, robotics, mixed reality, engineered food, and life sciences.

With a remarkable 70% being women and nearly half hailing with international backgrounds, the potential for collaboration is massive. Many designers also come from non traditional backgrounds such as optometry and beekeeping to philosophy, military, filmmaking, legal, chemical engineering, and music, and they come together to exchange learnings on similar design challenges and give each other feedback in order to accelerate the development of innovative and inclusive design solutions.

The team of designers in the accelerator program serves as an extension of the Prime Movers Lab internal design team. They would be deployed as forward-thinking elite product designers who spend a few weeks or months at various companies to help them establish their design processes and teams before rotating on to the next. By placing these designers in our early-stage startups, they would gain significant ownership in the company, both in terms of equity and figuratively, to help steer the ship, build a team, and influence executive decisions. The exposure to our core companies and direct experience working with founders and executive teams also make it a great trial period to see if there is a natural fit for both sides.

We continued to expand the Intersection community and platform to provide better support for our partner companies and extraordinary designers throughout their journeys. Our goal is to have a lasting positive impact on our portfolio companies and witness the accelerated growth of designers who will become leaders, individual contributors, and entrepreneurs that are committed to making the world a more inclusive place.

Scope

Accelerator Program, Community

Program Development

JJ Moi, Ashley Nowicki Hudson, Kenny Lauer, Sasha Alekseyeva

Further Reading

UN unveils the world’s first prototype floating city – UN Habitat →
Are floating cities a real possibility? – Smithsonian →
Floating cities may be one answer to rising sea levels – Bloomberg →
Boom’s quest to make supersonic flights a reality again – Wired →
World’s largest vertical farm has a secret ingredient: fish – FastCompany →
Prosthetics are built for disabled people but they still lack inclusivity – CNBC →
See inside a new pilotless plane that can fly up to 200 miles – Business Insider →
Startups try to turn laser fusion into clean power plants – Science Journal →
National Lab unlocks nuclear fusion – Forbes →
Mushroom leather just got one step closer to the mainstream – Vouge →
Are mushrooms the future of alternative leather? – The New York Times →
Hypersonic plane will travel to the edge of space – Gizmodo →
Passenger aircraft that flies around the world at Mach 9? Sure, why not – Ars Technica →
Take a look at the world’s only carbon-neutral spaceship – CNN →