The PopTech Fellows are a global network of thought leaders and scientists taking an interdisciplinary approach to social entrepreneurship. Each year, PopTech chooses 10-20 Fellows from all over the world working on “highly disruptive” innovations. They come from a wide variety of disciplines, to be “mashed together” to develop new ideas on how to tackle major social challenges such a poverty and climate change. The Fellows come to Washington, DC to be trained in speaking with the media about science.
An assistant Engineering professor at University of Pennsylvania, Katherine Kuchenbecker, was recently selected as one of ten PopTech Science and Public Leadership Fellows. “I do want to connect [the research that my students and I do] to things that matter to other people — not just scientists and engineers,” said Kuchenbecker. Read more.
The fellowship provides an all-expenses-paid, multi-day intensive program focused on insights and tools for accelerating and scaling “big bet” innovations, such as branding, media relations, social media, finance, leadership, digital storytelling, and design. Fellows also participate in interactive training sessions facilitated by leaders in social innovation, as well as PopTech’s renowned annual conference in Maine, where Fellows eloquently pitch their ideas to leading journalists.