People

Ian Derrington's experience spans breakthrough biotechnology, the nonprofit MakeTruthMatter.org—created to improve public understanding through clear, evidence-based communication—and Managen.ai, a platform for navigating the fast-moving world of generative AI. At Bottlenecks Institute, he draws on this mix of technical insight and communication focus to shape AI strategy and pinpoint the friction points that stand between today's challenges and a more resilient, successful future.

Entrepreneur and expert on emerging climate & energy technologies. James is the founder of Seren Labs, the data platform that helps investors and corporations discover the climate solutions that are gaining traction and ready for scale. He brings years of expertise and insight into the challenges and opportunities in climate-related industries, and takes a special interest in novel mechanisms and frameworks related to talent, funding, research collaboration, and pilot projects.

Mehrad is a Founding Partner of Cool Climate Collective, steering a network of investors and operators that accelerates early-stage climate-tech startups from lab to market. A former Program Director of Terra.do's Climate Change for VCs, he supported 30+ investors, including teams from Salesforce Ventures, JetBlue Ventures, and 500 Global, on climate-focused diligence and capital deployment strategies. As a contributing researcher to the Dubai Future Foundation, Mehrad helped draft its inaugural future carbon economy report. He also co-created Solutions: The Game, an educational board game adopted by policymakers, students, and activists across three continents. Previously, Mehrad co-founded venture-backed ed-tech platform Qureos and has designed public-private incubator programs throughout MENA. An alumnus of Dubai Future Accelerators and UC San Diego, he has shipped products as a product manager, growth marketer, and SaaS founder.

Her unique insight comes from viewing technological advancements through an evolutionary lens—recognizing patterns in how complex systems adapt and thrive. This perspective has shaped her research at MIT Media Lab and University of Washington, her community-building with Nucleate, and her reinforcement learning internship at OpenAI. What distinguishes her is seeing technologies as part of an evolutionary continuum shaped by selection pressures. She's drawn to self-modifying systems—positioning her at the intersection where Artificial Super Intelligence meets living systems. This translates to understanding bottlenecks across fields and how organizations evolve or stagnate. She perceives social structures as living organisms and focuses on creating adaptive ecosystems.