The 2024 Yale Innovation Summit held on May 29-30 at the Yale School of Management, Yale Science Building, and Yale Peabody Museum was a record-breaking event, attracting over 2,200 attendees, the highest number of participants in its 10-year history.

"The 2024 Yale Innovation Summit drew investors, and industry leaders from around the world to New Haven, connecting Yale innovators with the people, ideas and capital to help them succeed,” said Josh Geballe, Managing Director, Yale Ventures.

The summit featured an impressive lineup of keynote speakers, including Dr. Chelsea Clinton, Vice Chair of the Clinton Foundation; Emmett Shear, co-founder of Twitch and former interim CEO of OpenAI; Tom Steyer, author, climate activist, and investor; Matt Truppo, Global Head of Research Platforms and Computational R&D at Sanofi;  Calida Jones, Co-Founder and Managing Collaborator of Creative Evolutions, and many others.

Appropriately, Governor Ned Lamont chose the Yale Innovation Summit’s opening ceremony to announce the creation of the Innovation Clusters Program to support growth in cutting-edge industries: “Connecticut has the best educated and best-trained workforce in the nation, which is the number one resource needed to conceive, develop, and produce the cutting-edge products and services that revolutionize industries and make businesses thrive,” Lamont said.  Lamont also issued a state proclamation designating “Peter Salovey Day” in Connecticut in recognition of President Salovey’s leadership and contributions to increasing Yale investments in science, engineering and research translation that is fueling innovation-led economic growth that is the fastest in the northeast.

Five tracks of programming in arts, biotech, climate, health, and tech featured over 30+ panel discussions and pitch competitions. 260 innovators presented at the Summit and 31 were awarded $350k in awards collectively, courtesy of the event's platinum sponsor, Connecticut Innovations, the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale, and the Laura & Dale Kutnik Foundation.  

For the first time this year, the Summit hosted an invitation-only session for over 200 investors featuring talks from Matt Mendelsohn, Chief Investment Officer, Yale Investments Office; Jason Furman, Former Chair, Council of Economic Advisors in the Obama administration; and Alan Murray, former CEO, Fortune Media.

The Summit brought together Yale leadership including remarks from President Peter Salovey; Megan L. Ranney, MD, MPH, Dean of Yale School of Public Health; Nancy J. Brown, MD, Dean, Yale School of Medicine, Jeffrey Brock, Dean, Yale School of Engineering; Julie Zimmerman, PhD, Vice Provost for Planetary Solutions and Professor of Green Engineering, Yale School of the Environment; and José  García-León, Dean, Yale School of Music, as well as Pamela Sutton-Wallace, President, Yale New Haven Health, Gail Kosyla, CFO, Yale New Haven Health, and Margaret McGovern, CEO, Yale Medicine.