AMS Community Synthesis for Geo-Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Accelerating Geoscience Impact to Society and the Economy

Extreme weather events, changing patterns of precipitation, stronger and more frequent tornados and hurricanes/typhoons, global warming due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and many other phenomena provide fertile ground for entrepreneurial activities and the generation of startups in the arena of atmospheric and meteorological science. However, there are very few atmospheric scientists becoming entrepreneurs and creating novel new products and services that both benefit society and help drive the economy forward. To identify the reason for this paucity of participation in innovation ecosystems, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) will hold a series of virtual events to survey its broad membership. The conversations will illuminate the factors that prevent them from initiating commercial ventures and becoming entrepreneurs. Broader Impacts of the work include uncovering the incentives, training, opportunities, and educational vehicles most likely to create a cadre of atmospheric science and meteorological entrepreneurs and startup founders, including robust representation from early career scientists and member of underrepresented groups. The AMS will made public the report of their findings by posting it on the AMS website. To solicit ideas on developing entrepreneurial talent and speed the pace of innovation in the atmospheric sciences, the 12,000+ member strong American Meteorological Society, the largest professional society of weather and climate scientists in the US, will run a series of broad, inclusive, and results-driven virtual activities. These are focused on engaging all segments of the atmospheric and space science and meteorological communities, with a specific focus on those who are early career and from groups traditionally underrepresented in science. Information will be obtained via online surveys, virtual convenings of members, crowdsourcing events, one-on-one conversations, and panels of experts. The goal is to collect and synthesize ideas from AMS constituents on what incentives, training, or gap filling needs to take place to increase and accelerate more involvement of atmospheric scientists in the entrepreneurial process, as well as increase the number of atmospheric and meteorologically relevant enterprises led by founders and CEOs coming from these fields. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.