People and Partners

Climate CoLab relies on the efforts of a large community of people and organizational partners.

Climate CoLab diverse international community includes more than 120,000 members. Among these members are over 800 volunteers who work as Advisors, Judges, and Fellows, plus a dedicated team of staff members and researchers.

Members—who submit, support, comment, and vote on proposals—are the core of Climate CoLab. The platform is open to everyone, not just scientists and policy makers, so members’ backgrounds are diverse. They bring their varied knowledge from across sectors and geographies.

Advisors are subject matter experts with deep knowledge of the contest theme and strong connections in the field. Their expertise is critical for shaping challenge prompts and providing expert feedback to proposal authors. They may also serve as challenge judges.

Judges are subject matter experts with a high level of experience in the field. They provide feedback on and select the  most promising entries.

Fellows are graduate students, post-docs, and professionals who coordinate and help shape challenges and serve as liaisons between entrants and the Climate CoLab team, Advisors, and Judges. Some Fellows were selected for their experience with climate modeling and, advised by MIT professors, use databases to help authors quantify the climate impact of ideas submitted to the site.

Catalysts are knowledgeable professionals who commit to providing feedback to proposals submitted in challenges.

Expert advisory board is made up of well-known experts who provide overall guidance for the Climate CoLab and help recruit members of the Expert Council.

Expert council is composed of scientific and policy experts who offer feedback during critical points in the contests and judged some rounds of the contests.

Project staff includes professors, researchers, community organizers, climate change professionals, and software engineers.

These organizations provided financial support to Climate CoLab. Additional financial support came from corporate sponsors of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence

These organizations collaborated with Climate CoLab’s team on sponsored challenges.

These organizations were technology development supporters of Climate CoLab. Climate CoLab Software is Open Source and publicly available on GitHub.