Our Mission
The Druid Collective is an initiative of the World Economic Forum’s
Young Global Leaders (YGL) and Technology Pioneers
dedicated to helping startups around the world
to bring breakthrough science- and R&D from labs to real world impact
Curing Paralysis
From waking up in his bed paralyzed to moving his legs again, Mark Pollock shares his story about how Druid Collective helps deep tech start ups drive the Fourth Industrial revolution and change the world.
Our Motivation
For more than two hundred years, science and engineering have been generating great inventions that have changed the face of humanity and made the world a much better, safer, and comfortable place to live in. As we are standing on the brink of the fourth industrial revolution, there has never been a greater promise of new and truly transformational technologies. This promise is further amplified by the fact that great science and engineering are no longer restricted to a few dozen countries.
Yet, many if not most of the great new inventions will probably never make it all the way to the final consumer. The journey from a great scientific output to full commercialization is extremely long, risky, and expensive. It can easily cost tens of millions of euros and take even ten or more years. Moreover, building science- and engineering-based companies – "deep tech" start ups – requires a lot of deep industry expertise and experience. Unless they are based in a handful of locations, such as Silicon Valley or Cambridge, entrepreneurs building deep tech companies are extremely unlikely to get access to the right people and capital – and are therefore almost doomed to fail.
The Druid Collective has set out to break this spell and ensure that potentially world-changing deep tech innovations achieve a great success no matter what part of the world they originally come from.
What We Do
We harness the power of the YGL network and larger World Economic Forum community to support the deep technology community through:
Advising startups
We introduce startups to mentors, institutions, and investors that can help propel the development of their deep tech solutions.
Policy advocacy & advice
We advise key stakeholders, such as governments on how to improve the investment and regulatory space for deep startups.
Events
We host deep tech events, including at at World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos and at the Annual Meeting of the New Champions in China.
Who We Are
The Druids are a diverse group of YGLs, Tech Pioneers and Global Shapers committed to accelerating the growth of deep technology companies. Some of our members include:
Michael Altendorf
Founder and CEO
Adtelligence
Founder and CEO
Protix
Irina Anghel-Enescu
Managing Director
SEEPEA
Martin Bruncko
Founding Partner
Steam Capital
Calvin Chin
Partner
E14 Fund
Almira Cemmell
Managing Director
FTI Consulting
Douglas Corley
Founder and CEO
DHB Global
Marga Gual Soler
Science diplomat
Eyal Gura
Founder and Chairman
Zebra Medical Vision
Marjolein Helder
Founder and CEO
Plant-e
Christian Hernandez
Founder & Venture Partner
White Star Capital
Tom Hulme
General Partner
Google Ventures
Akira Kirton
Former Managing Director
BP Ventures
Cori Lathan
Founder and CEO
AnthroTronix
Mike Moradi
Founder and CEO
Sensulin
Olivier Oullier
President
EMOTIV
Tony Pan
Founder and CEO
Modern Electron
Marlon Parker
Founder
RLabs
Mark Pollock
Founder
Mark Pollock Trust
Lucy McRae
Science Fiction Artist
Vice President
Satellogic
Raphael Schoentgen
Founder and CEO
Hydrogen Advisors
Founder and CEO
Heliatek GmbH
Keely Stevenson
Founder and CEO
Weal LifeKamel Taha
Consultant
AT Kearnery
Hayley Warren
Founder and CEO
HALO Medical Devices