776 Fellows Retreat
The first week of February was spent with the good friends at the 776 Fellowship in Austin Texas for the first offsite! Valkyrie spent the week with young climate founders in the program working on everything from aluminum manufacturing to ocean alkalization to more efficient laundry machines. The fellows met up with Lissie Garvin, the fellowship director, and Alexis Ohanian, founder of the 776 Foundation and Fellowship! They had dinner together courtesy of Midnight in the Garden and after a couple days of incredible conversations, it continued at a separate fellow-run offsite exploring downtown Austin, thrifting, and incredible memories. To the 776 mafia!
Pilot Progress: Defensible Space Program
As mentioned in our previous update, Ember has partnered with Napa Firewise to distribute grant funding to Napa residents for creating defensible space around their home to protect themselves against wildfire. We plan to help 100 residents complete defensible space work on their home from now until June 30 by reimbursing 50% of what they spend up to $3,500. For the past couple weeks we have been working hard to prepare marketing materials for this operation. We want to be able to reach as many residents in Napa as possible, so we’ve created flyers, door hangers, and we’re now working on banners that we will distribute all over town and hang up at busy intersections. Now is the perfect time to be launching the marketing capaign because it’s getting closer to fire season but it’s not too late (or too hot) to be doing defensible space work. To make applying for the cost-sharing grant easier, the team has also added a free courtesy assesment to residents who apply to make it easier for them to understand what work they need to do on their property. In the coming weeks we will continue to market the program as much as possible and begin to accept applications.
Note: if you live in Napa, you may be eligible to apply! Learn more here.
Pilot Progress: Going to Napa!
We’re going to be in San Fransisco and Napa Valley, switching between the two, for the next two weeks! Our goal is to meet as many people as we possibly can within the wildfire and climate space and also survey people in Napa that could be crucial to our pilot’s success. We will be interviewing landowners, helping with marketing, going in the field with firefighters, and getting the tour of the landscape to see how people really approach land management. We’ll also be meeting up with the Napa Firewise Association, courtesy of Paul Heiselmann and Piper Cole!
Conferences - SXSW + Aspen Climate Ideas
The next month is going to be busy! Valkyrie was accepted as a Young Climate Fellow for the Aspen Insitute’s Future Leaders Conference. She will be heading to Miami in Early March to meet other young people in climate and share ideas surrounding different areas of climate tech. Many other members of the 776 fellowship will also be attending and creating their own offsite.
From there, Valkyrie is flying back to Austin to speak for the Climate track at SXSW on March 13th. She will be discussing Ember Bazaar, plans for the future, the current state of the wildfire prevention industry and more. She will be joined by nine other TKS students in climate and energy presenting various projects and research. If you’re attending the conference, shoot us an email; we’d love to connect!
SURVEY FOR AT-RISK RESIDENTS ONLY:
We are currently conducting a survey for research purposes to better understand landowners needs and demonstrate the demand for better options when it comes to making homes more protected against wildfire. If you live in an area with high wildfire risk, we would love to hear from you. If you wish, you will be entered into a draw to win one of three $100 Amazon gift cards upon completion of the survey. You can access the survey here.