CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Flagship Ventures, a leading venture capital and venture creation firm specializing in life sciences and sustainable technology, today announced that Dr. Noubar Afeyan, Managing Partner and CEO of Flagship, will be presenting at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2011 in Dalian, China. The presentation, part of a panel entitled "From the Frontier: Solar Energy," will focus on Joule Unlimited, a Flagship portfolio company selected as a Technology Pioneer 2012 by the World Economic Forum. Every year, the World Economic Forum selects the most innovative technology start-ups from around the world as Technology Pioneers. These companies promise to have a critical impact on how business and society work through their disruptive technological innovations.
"We are very honored that once again one of our portfolio companies was selected for this prestigious distinction," stated Dr. Noubar Afeyan, who is also Founder and Chairman of Joule. "We founded and invested in Joule with the goal to decrease the world's reliance on fossil fuels by innovating at the interface of biology, chemistry and engineering, and it's great to see the World Economic Forum recognizing Joule's unique and significant achievements," added Afeyan.
Joule Unlimited aims to commercially produce ethanol and diesel as solar fuels utilizing a proprietary process based on photosynthetic organisms. The company was founded in 2007 by Flagship VentureLabs, the venture creation arm of Flagship Ventures. In its 11th year in operation, Flagship VentureLabs is the first institution dedicated to entrepreneurial innovation, where the acts of technology invention and entrepreneurship are performed in concert by a team of world-class innovators and professional entrepreneurs. The unit has generated over 100 inventions, and launched over 20 companies in the fields of protein therapeutics, systems biology, synthetic biology, renewable fuels, DNA sequencing, and nanotechnology. In 2007, LS9 Inc., another Flagship VentureLabs company, was selected as a Technology Pioneer.
Dr. Afeyan will be presenting on September 14, 2011 from 15.30 - 16.30 China Standard Time.
For further information on the Technology Pioneers 2012, and to see a video of Dr. Noubar Afeyan discussing innovation and Joule's technological and commercial impact, visit http://www.weforum.org/techpioneers.
About Flagship Ventures
Realizing Entrepreneurial Innovation is the mission of Flagship Ventures. The firm operates through two synergistic units: VentureLabs which invents and launches transformative companies, and Venture Capital, which finances and realizes innovative, early-stage companies. Founded in 2000, and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Flagship Ventures manages of $900 million in capital. The Flagship team innovates and invests in three principal business sectors: therapeutics, medical technologies, and sustainability/clean technology. For more information visit www.flagshipventures.com.
About Joule Unlimited Technologies, Inc.
Joule is advancing a production platform for Liquid Fuel from the Sun™, expected to eclipse the scale, productivity and cost efficiency of any known alternative to fossil fuel today. Its transformative Helioculture™ platform directly and continuously converts sunlight and waste CO2 to infrastructure-ready diesel, ethanol or commodity chemicals with no dependence on biomass feedstocks, downstream processing or precious natural resources. This process can yield renewable fuels and chemicals in unprecedented volumes with a fraction of the land required by current methods, leapfrogging biomass-dependent approaches and eliminating the economic and environmental disadvantages of fossil fuels. Founded in 2007 by Flagship VentureLabs, Joule is privately held and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Additional information is available at www.jouleunlimited.com.
About the World Economic Forum and the Technology Pioneers Programme
The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. The identification of the Technology Pioneer companies is the result of a rigorous selection process, for which the Forum received hundreds of applications from around the world, and that were evaluated by over 50 global technology experts. The selection committee includes leading academics, journalists, technologists and venture capitalists. For more information visit www.weforum.org.
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