MoFarm, a standout startup born at Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET), is heading to the University of Notre Dame on March 27, 2026. They will represent the Golden Bears in the prestigious ACC InVenture Challenge, competing against top undergraduate teams from 14 ACC schools for $30,000 in prizes.

A New Era of Competition

Following UC Berkeley’s move to the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in 2024, a new door opened for Berkeley’s undergraduate student innovators. The ACC hosts an annual pitch competition for all ACC schools to participate and compete to see which has the best startup. To select a representative for this year’s challenge, representatives from the UC Berkeley Innovation & Entrepreneurship Council—including leaders from SkyDeck, eHub, the Blum Center, and SCET—nominated the campus’s brightest ventures, and ultimately MoFarm was selected as the most competitive team to send to the ACC event.

“This is truly a Berkeley enterprise in all respects,” says Darren Cooke, UC Berkeley interim Chief Innovation & Entrepreneurship Officer, “The team was formed in a Berkeley SCET course, uses technology created by a UC Berkeley nobel prize winner, and aims to change the world by reducing methane emissions and helping farmers succeed, a true win-win-win proposition. I am excited to see team MoFarm win at the ACC InVenture competition.”

Innovation via the Collider Model

MoFarm is a product of SCET’s signature Collider Model, which demonstrates that bringing diverse minds together can create unique and transformative ideas. The six-member team first met in the Regenerative Ventures course taught by Rana Kanaan in Fall 2025. The 6 team members are:  Ethan Foong (’26 Data Science) Zac Gibson (’28 Architecture, Structural Engineering) Tom Blake (’27 Data Science and Logistics Research) Ray Tsao (Master’s Development Engineering) and Ibrahim Noon (’27 Economics and Data Science). 

The startup is tackling two problems at once: capturing harmful methane greenhouse gases generated by cows and helping struggling farmers create a new revenue stream. By leveraging Metal-Organic Frameworks (a Nobel Prize-winning technology), MoFarm captures ultra-low-concentration methane emissions that were previously unreachable. Their mission is to turn dairy’s climate liability into a profitable new frontier of revenue. 

The startup was the top project from the Regenerative Ventures course and answered the essential question of the course: How can we create startups and businesses that are sustainable in every sense? MoFarm’s work is a step towards making farming a more sustainable enterprise.

A Track Record of Success

MoFarm has been widely recognized for its innovative work across campus:

• Collider Cup XVII: Won 2nd place and the People’s Choice award.
• SkyDeck: Received an unprecedented on-the-spot invitation from GM Sibyl Chen to join the Pad-13 program.
• Big Ideas: Team Finalist  

Watch their winning pitch from last semester

Help MoFarm Win the People’s Choice Award!

We are calling on the entire UC Berkeley community to help MoFarm bring home the gold. You can vote for our team to win the ACC People’s Choice Award via text.

• How to Vote: Text “Cal” to 415-965-7445
• When: Voting is open from Monday, March 23, through Friday, March 27.

Let’s help MoFarm become the entrepreneurship champion of the ACC!

The post Berkeley SCET’s “MoFarm” Startup Team to Compete on National TV for ACC InVenture Competition appeared first on UC Berkeley Sutardja Center.

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At 15, Esa Tilija, MBA 26, joined a group of high school students through the nonprofit Girls on Ice to climb Alaska’s rugged Gulkana Glacier along the eastern Alaska Range, one of many outdoor adventures that would come to define her life.

“I feel most alive and grounded in the mountains,” said Tilija, a Nepali-American from Seattle, who is leading a UC Berkeley Haas student trek to Mount Everest Base Camp over spring break March 19-April 4. “This trek is meaningful because I get to experience the Himalayas with my classmates while building community and teamwork along the way.”

While Haas offers a wide variety of spring break treks, this is the first-ever Haas student-led climb to Mount Everest Base Camp. Treks to Patagonia and the Andes are highlights of the Extreme Leadership class taught by Professor Omri Even-Tov, who launched the course in 2017 with organizational culture expert and Haas Dean Jenny Chatman. Even-Tov, Chatman, and Assistant Professor Erica Bailey, who teaches the MBA course Leading People, have served as the Everest base camp trek advisors. 

Fifteen MBA students will join the trek, a diverse group that includes five women, several military veterans, and international students whose backgrounds range from outdoor novices to accomplished outdoorspeople. While they won’t summit Everest, they will hike to base camp at about 17,000 feet, which is considered extreme altitude. 

The trek took months to plan and will be led by world-renowned Everest climber Lakpa Rita Sherpa, Tilija’s close family friend. “Lakpa Uncle is an inspiration to the Sherpa community and to people around the world,” she said. “I grew up going to the annual Northwest Sherpa Association camp with him and his family.” 

Many students met Lakpa Rita Sherpa last fall when he spoke at Haas with Norbu Tenzing Norgay, executive director of the American Himalayan Foundation and the son of Tenzing Norgay, who was the first person to summit Everest with New Zealander Edmund Hillary in 1953. The event was co-sponsored by The Redwoods Club and The Net Impact Club.

“We talked about reclaiming Everest for Indigenous Sherpa communities, the impacts of climate change and the broader responsibility of the outdoor industry,” said Tilija, who is a student board member with the Center for Responsible Business (CRB) at Haas and a 2025 ClimateCAP Fellow. Tilija said an important part of the Everest trip will be learning about responsible business and stewardship—at a time when Mount Everest has grown increasingly polluted by an increasing number of climbers. 

A passion for mountaineering

Tilija moved from Nepal to Seattle at age two after her mother received a Fulbright Scholarship. She began climbing through organizations such as the YMCA and The Mountaineers, which expand outdoor opportunities for youth, women and people of color, and volunteers with the Nepal Seattle Hiking Community, an organization Tilija’s father founded with community members.

Her mountaineering experience includes several summits of Mount Baker, also known as Kulshan, in the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the North Cascades of Washington State. Tilija holds certifications in both avalanche training at high altitudes and ski instructor certification, and she worked in corporate strategy at REI Co-Op for several years before coming to Haas, another nod to her love of the outdoors. 

“All of these experiences showed me how much I love climbing and the sense of belonging I’ve found in nature. I wanted to help create that feeling for our Haas community through organizing this trip.” 

While Tilija’s family is Indigenous Magar from the Annapurna region and she has never attempted an Everest climb herself, classmate Mariah Hoots, who grew up in Colorado and is also an outdoors enthusiast, thought it would be a dream trip. 

“When I heard that Esa was from Nepal and that she hadn’t climbed Everest I said, ‘We should do this together because it would be such a cool experience,’ ” Hoots said. “Every time I saw her I’d say,  ‘Are we doing this?’”

Tilija had joined two previous Haas MBA student-organized trips to India, where Hoots joined her, and Japan. Hoots and Mike O’Herron, MBA 26, helped Tilija plan the Everest trip. 

Dion Watts, MBA 26, a former U.S. Army officer, said climbing to base camp appealed to him as a unique physical challenge. “This was an opportunity that I’d probably never get a chance to do again,” he said. “I was lucky to talk to Esa at the beginning of her planning and I thought it was a great idea.” 

Training for the climb

Later this month, Lakpa Sherpa will meet the group in Kathmandu before flying to Lukla in the Eastern region. Then they will kick off the 12-day trek to base camp, with students taking turns as group lead and spending time meeting local business owners, including visits to tea houses, reflecting on how locals operate businesses as ethically as possible. The trek concludes with two days in Kathmandu before the group flies home.

Training for the trip is intense, as the group will hike for six to eight hours a day, often on relentlessly steep uphills and downhills. Preparation includes weekly team hikes, weekly gym sessions that include hours on the Stairmaster, and some trail running. In an ideal world the group would be training at higher altitudes, Tilija said. Instead, the group has been climbing East Bay hills and will be carrying Diamox, an altitude sickness prevention medicine, on Everest.

“We will take it slow and everyone is working on their fitness,” Watts said, “I’ve been incorporating more and more cardio into my workouts and just hiking in general. I think the biggest challenge for me is going to be the altitude, which is really hard to train for.” 

Tilija also led a backpacking trip during Thanksgiving break at Point Reyes, which was the first time some of the students had tried overnight backpacking. 

Hoots said she has “made peace with the fact that this will be a really difficult hike.”

“At some point during this trek I know that we’ll have to put our heads down and do it,” she said. “Luckily we have really great Sherpas and we’re going with an experienced guide, a world renowned climber. I feel confident that if one of us gets sick we will be in good hands.” 

Debriefing after the trek

When the group returns, they will work on a debriefing exercise with Chatman, who co-authored 2020 research analyzing team dynamics among Himalayan mountain climbers.  Tilija is also co-hosting a six-week speaker series “Peak Performance” with Will Synott, MBA 26, which will feature American rock climber and North Face Athlete Mark Synott, indigenous Lakota skier Connor Ryan, and others.

Hoots said she expects the group to practice many different styles of leadership during the trek.

“There will be a lot of support for each other,” she said. “Once you are up there there’s no turning around and going home. There’s no, ‘I just give up.’ That will test our leadership abilities. Part of leadership is about asking for help and supporting the group.” 

She added that those skillsets will translate well to their careers.

“Hopefully when we finish this there will be no more questions from employers about whether you have grit or ‘Do you have what it takes to hustle?’ ” she said. “I think we do.”

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Senior fellow co-leads report on globalization, innovation

Celebrating scholarship from the AI Policy Hub

Crittenden comments on state AI research bill

CITRIS announces appointment of Ikhlaq Sidhu as senior fellow

Rupert Mayer’s Bay Area house doubles as his playground: a technical lab for testing solar panels of all shapes and sizes. 

“I demonstrate them for anyone who wants to stop by,” said Mayer, who is technical director and co-founder of the nonprofit backyard solar startup Bright Saver.

Mayer started Bright Saver last year with fellow entrepreneur Kevin Chou, BS 02, who is founding CEO of the mobile gaming firm Kabam, a former venture investor, a UC Berkeley board trustee, and the namesake for the Haas School’s Chou Hall.

It’s Mayer’s job to perfect products that are being piloted among “solar curious” renters and homeowners across California. There are two offerings so far: a backyard or balcony battery-powered plug-in solar kit that provides renters and homeowners with a low-cost way to generate and store solar energy, and a net metering expansion system for people who are already using rooftop solar to boost their clean energy generation.

We interviewed Mayer, EMBA 26, a successful software entrepreneur, about his midlife career pivot, his passion for the environment, and his surprise decision to apply to the executive MBA program at Haas.

How did you meet Kevin Chou?

I got to know Kevin through a Climate Vine fellowship. Having just started at Haas, I was very intrigued about working with the guy whose name is on the building in which I was going to class. He’s incredibly smart, incredibly strategic, but also very humble and approachable. Kevin really got me excited about small solar panel systems, which I had not necessarily thought would be the game changer in fighting climate change. He convinced me that there are so many ancillary benefits of getting this technology into consumer’s hands and changing their hearts and minds on renewable energy. I then met Cora Stryker at a Haas admissions panel where I was a speaker and she became our third co-founder. She has a strong nonprofit background and runs our advocacy arm. 

Can you tell us a bit about your background?

I grew up in Austria and in Europe, and I always liked building things: sand castles, LEGOs and tree houses. Later, I worked on my bicycles and mopeds and cars. I studied mechanical engineering because I want to turn that into a career of building things. But then, like many people in my generation, I stumbled into software. A lot of opportunities were in software, and I ended up having what I call my first career in software. That brought me from Vienna to Munich, Germany, where I met my wife, and further west to California, where we’ve been for 15 years now. 

You had quite a career as an entrepreneur in the intellectual property software space before coming to Haas. How many startups have you been involved in?

I guess this is my fifth now. I’ve always been a startup person… maybe risk-seeking, opportunity-seeking, always wanting to build, being willing to push the envelope a little bit on what’s possible. I stumbled into the intellectual property world by interning at a patent law firm while I was still doing my master’s degree in engineering. That led to making software for running the law firm, which led to making software for the patent departments within companies. I started as a solo entrepreneur and after a couple of years joined forces with a company in Austria that made intellectual property (IP) management software for Europe’s largest companies. After moving to the U.S., I realized no one wanted our somewhat clunky European enterprise software here. So I had to create something new.

What came next?

Cloud computing was the big wave of the 2010’s. So I created IPfolio as a sexier, more modern, cloud-based version of that good old IP management software. It was the right thing at the right time, in the right place, with early adopters like Dropbox, Square, and then GoPro, Tesla, Facebook, Google, Airbnb, Uber becoming our customers. I sold the company in 2019 to a strategic partner, which subsequently got acquired by the market leader, which then merged with a publicly traded company. I went from running a 40-people organization to being part of a 12,000-people global organization in less than two years. After making sure that my product and team ended up in a good place through all that change, I decided it was time to find something new that I would be even more passionate about.

You made a big jump from IP software to climate tech. Why… and how did that happen?

It was very deliberate. I had enjoyed building the software, building the teams, building my skills and reputation, and building these customer relationships. But I was never deeply passionate about the impact of the product I was building. It was ultimately just a piece of enterprise software to optimize some piece of corporate process. So for my second act, I wanted to work on something that I’m truly passionate about.

You already hold a master’s in mechanical engineering. Why did you decide to do an MBA?

There’s this saying among entrepreneurs that entrepreneurship is the real MBA, and that was kind of my mindset. But the more I looked into the program at Haas specifically, I thought, ‘OK, this might actually be exactly the right thing: meeting a lot of interesting new people, expanding my horizon and finding new opportunities.’ I just thought it would be a very interesting and enriching experience. And it certainly has been. 

What do you take away from the EMBA program that you apply to your job so far?

The program is about understanding the world better. To me it’s more of an overall experience than some very specific knowledge or formulas that you would apply to solve a specific problem. It’s about opening your eyes to how the world works on many levels and showing you how relationships work. I think I’ve grown in countless ways, such as becoming a better communicator and more empathic leader. And I’ve made amazing lifelong friends.

Can you discuss the challenges Bright Saver faces now, particularly when the U.S. is retreating from climate policy nationally?

To get millions of balconies and backyards outfitted with solar, a lot of regulation has to change. You also need the right products that consumers will actually want to buy at the right price point. Cora (Stryker) took the lead on the advocacy side, getting these laws in motion and partnering with other nonprofits and building coalitions and educating lawmakers. And I’m running the product side. At the moment, that’s a little bit of a gray area, and it’s really a product for early adopters. But once this regulation/deregulation happens, it will become a true consumer mass market product.

A year from now, what would success look like for Bright Saver?

Success will be if this small backyard solar movement starts to gain real momentum. Let’s say 10 or 15 states pass a plug-in solar friendly law, making it simple and straightforward for consumers to buy these devices. The manufacturers of these solar kits, which are almost without exception Chinese companies, start to take the U.S. market seriously and develop products for it. In a year from now, we could see real momentum. We would be trending toward maybe ten thousand plug-in solar kits having been sold and installed nationwide. Squinting at the horizon, 100,000 systems could be sold in 2027. 

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Job opportunity: Corporate relations director

UC Santa Cruz I2P awards lead to USDA grants