Leone Baron

I'm interested in how we get more people working on more important things, and how we gather in communities.

Currently I'm building the Encode: AI for Science Fellowship at Pillar VC. Funded by the UK's Advanced Research + Invention Agency and the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology, we're embedding 18 AI engineers in UK science labs for 12 months.

I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences (BASc) from UCL - studying urban formation, engineering design, the Anthropocene, criminal psychology + more.

Things I've done

• Recapped 9 months of Encode via an interactive album
• Ran a weekly newsletter for 4 years, built a team of 10
• Built a 3500+ person paid climate founders and funders community for a VC fund, oversaw 300 events in 2 years
• Took a low-code swing at fixing hiring, got 80 people jobs
• Built a summer bootcamp for students looking to work in climate tech startups, also helped launched Climate Career Week
• Was first ops hire at an environmental data startup + first sustainability hire at a drinks startup
• Built a 1:1 intro tool during COVID, made 3000 introductions
• Won an Engineers in Business award for a swarm drone startup proposal
• Scouted locations for this

Evolving thoughts

• Urban design and digital/hybrid community design have a lot to learn from each other
• London needs more startup third spaces
• 'Climate tech' was never a great label, anyway
• I want to set up a philanthropically-funded fast grant scheme for community builders
• The UK needs more 'optimisim infrastructure' - new media filled with people who have built important things

How to say hello

Follow me on LinkedIn or X, or simply email me. Always open to - ideas on how to gather people, links you think I'll like, side quests.