(Credit: Karsten Würth via Unsplash)
TomKat Center
The TomKat Center is aligned with the Sustainability Accelerator to maximize impact by developing and deploying sustainability innovations and supporting innovators.
The center, founded in 2009 and integrated into the Accelerator in 2024, has a portfolio of programs that empower members of the Stanford community, primarily students, to develop and externalize impactful solutions in energy and sustainability. Over the past decade, more than 130 teams have received grants from TomKat’s Innovation Transfer program to explore the commercialization of Stanford innovations. These teams have created more than 80 cleantech startups with a combined enterprise value exceeding $9 billion. The center also awards graduate fellowships for translational research, undergraduate summer internships, and project grants.
The TomKat Center’s focus on empowering entrepreneurial students complements the Accelerator’s approach to guiding faculty-led projects toward startups, licensed technologies, public policy initiatives, open-source platforms, and more.