Onward: Shell Launches Trailblazing Global Climate Tech
A climate tech company with some of the world’s biggest companies powering it and positive change has debuted its rebrand as it refocuses toward a net zero future, all while revolutionising the energy industry as a whole.
Previously known as Studio X, innovation studio Onward now has its inaugural advisory board behind it, laying the foundation for its growth and providing a unique collation of industry-wide perspectives to serve the energy sector with tools to challenge the climate crisis head-on.
The trailblazing climate tech company — powered by Shell — is working with energy and climate tech companies alike to showcase how fostering and leverage digital capabilities can be vital to not only working toward but reaching green goals.
Onward: Blazing a way toward net zero goals
“The new identity is inherent to the mission itself: to move Onward toward novel energy solutions and Net Zero goals,” Jeff Allyn, Chief Executive Officer of Onward said of the rebrand. “We eagerly look forward to using our collaborative, innovation platform to achieve rapid, previously unattainable energy solutions for our clients.
“These solutions will only become more accessible, expeditious and impactful.”
Originally established in 2020 as a vibrant digital ecosystem that powers a community of scientists, entrepreneurs and creative minds who help solve some of the world’s biggest energy challenges, Onward’s all-new advisory board is made up of five members. Each of these professionals is now working closely with Onward executives to advise across strategy, research, and project execution, providing hands-on mentorship to the company’s startup accelerator members and climate challenge project participants. The inaugural members are:
- Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPRIZE Foundation, a nonprofit crowdsourcing solution to global challenges through incentivised competitions. As well as this, Ansari is on the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Future Council and is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.
- Eric Drummond, CEO and Founder of Innovation Corridor, a seasoned strategic advisor serving on the board of a plasma fusion energy company and numerous government and NGO organisations.
- Nils Mellquist, an angel investor, analyst and strategic advisor focused on sustainable investing.
- Noel Kinder, Chief Sustainability Officer of Nike and an established ESG leader with over 20 years of experience
- Tina Sharkey, lecturer at USC's Iovine and Young Academy, who is a serial entrepreneur and operator and a prolific member of high-growth, technology-enabled companies’ boards of directors and advisors.
These executives underpin Onward’s ongoing work in supplying the energy industry with new solutions, resources and opportunities to approach evolving energy challenges.
In the last 12 months alone, for example, the organisation has three-and-a-half times created a more efficient oil slick identification algorithm in one-eighth of the time it would have taken an independent customer to develop. To as similar note, it was able to analyse a complex well dataset that would have taken a lone employee at a traditional energy company 60 years to evaluate in just three weeks.
Since its inception, Onward has attracted scientists, researchers, entrepreneurs and energy enthusiasts globally, with data scientists, AI developers, students, industry veterans, creatives and funders making up its wider ecosystem of contributors working on projects, challenges, bounties — fast, targeted tasks are organised around a theme — and learning material for the betterment of the wider industry.
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