Strategic Horizons in Critical Minerals and Materials
Overview
Critical minerals are essential to the technologies and infrastructure shaping our future, from batteries and grid systems to advanced manufacturing, defense, and AI. Yet concentrated and globally interconnected supply chains create significant economic, technological, and geopolitical vulnerabilities.
Hosted by Bakar Labs at UC Berkeley, this one-day symposium will bring together leaders across academia, industry, startups, investment, and national laboratories to explore how we can build more resilient, competitive, and sustainable critical mineral and materials systems.
The program will shift from the global supply chain and geopolitical landscape to the technologies that are transforming extraction, processing, separation, and recycling. It will also examine the capital, partnerships, policy, and procurement mechanisms needed to move promising technologies from research and early-stage companies to commercial-scale deployment.
Symposium Pillars
Three interconnected themes that frame the day’s conversation, from understanding the challenges facing critical mineral supply chains to exploring the technologies, capital, and strategies needed to build a more resilient system.
Startup and Technology Showcase
See the ideas shaping the future of critical minerals. During the lunch hour, meet the innovators, researchers, and entrepreneurs turning big challenges into real-world solutions. Explore startups, prototypes, breakthrough research, and emerging technologies advancing the way we extract, process, recycle, and recover critical minerals.
Each participant will have a designated cocktail table during the symposium lunch hour, from 12:15 – 1:30 PM. Tables are intended for informal networking, company introductions, and sharing information or materials with symposium attendees.
Interested in showcasing your work? Click “Request to Showcase” for additional information and details on how to participate.
Venue
All sessions will be held in the auditorium at the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub, located at 2625 Durant Ave., Berkeley, CA 94720. Followed by a reception in our studio space. Please review our parking and transit guide if you have not been to our location before.
Agenda
Morning Sessions
8:30 AM | Registration and Breakfast
Check-in, welcome coffee, breakfast, and informal networking. Attendees are invited to connect before the program begins at 9:30 AM.
9:30 AM | Welcome Remarks
Opening remarks framing the day around Bakar Labs’ Energy & Materials mission, UC Berkeley’s role in critical minerals innovation, and the need to connect technology, capital, policy, and customers.
9:50 AM | Keynote Panel: Geopolitics, Federal Strategy & Supply Chain Security
Critical minerals sit at the intersection of economic security, industrial strategy, and global geopolitics. This opening conversation will examine federal priorities, supply chain resilience, stockpiling, friendshoring, and the reality that critical mineral supply chains will remain globally interconnected.
Speakers: Speakers To Be Announced!
10:35 AM | Morning Break
Networking break and transition to the technical sessions.
10:45 AM | Mineral Sources, Availability & Resource Constraints
Explore how technology choices depend on the source material and its form, including mining, refining, geothermal brines, urban mining, and recycling. Include both technology and policy. Keep the session Berkeley-focused but not Berkeley-exclusive, with attention to the Bay Area and broader innovation ecosystem.
Speakers:
- Corby Anderson, Colorado School of Mines
11:35 AM | Technology Frontiers in Extraction, Separation, and Recovery
Focus on the technologies that can materially change the cost curve for critical minerals. The central question is what can deliver a 5 to 10x cost advantage or a major operational improvement that makes adoption inevitable. Preserve the productive tension between upstream processing innovation and circularity or recoverability.
Speakers:
- Alex Grant, Magrathea
- Sasha Milshteyn, Transition Metal Solutions
- Aaron Kaufman, Dyco Systems
Moderated by Robert Kostecki, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
12:15 PM | Lunch & Startup and Technology Showcase
Join speakers and attendees for lunch and an engaging showcase featuring startups, researchers, prototypes, and emerging technologies advancing critical minerals extraction, processing, recycling, and recovery.
Afternoon Sessions
1:35 PM | Capital, Scale-Up & Defense Commercialization
Moving from promising technology to commercial deployment requires more than venture capital. This session will examine the role of federal programs, defense procurement, strategic stockpiling, offtake agreements, and large buyers in creating credible demand and reducing investor uncertainty.
Speakers: Speakers To be Announced!
2:25 PM | Venture Capital, Project Finance & First-of-a-Kind Scale-Up
Critical minerals technologies often require significant capital and long development timelines. This discussion will explore the capital stack needed to move from technical validation to first-of-a-kind projects and scaled assets, including venture capital, corporate investment, joint ventures, project finance, and growth equity.
Speakers:
- Speakers to be Announced!
3:15 PM | Global Perspectives on Critical Minerals
Critical mineral supply chains are inherently global. This session will examine how different regions are approaching extraction, processing, financing, sustainable mining, and supply chain resilience, while considering China’s continued dominance across many critical mineral flows.
Speakers:
- Jeff Townsend, Critical Minerals Association
4:05 PM | Synthesis & Transition
A synthesis of the day’s key insights and the most important questions for the innovation ecosystem, setting the stage for the reception.
4:30 PM | Networking Reception
Wrap up the symposium with an evening networking reception. The reception will provide time to continue conversations from the day’s sessions and connect founders, investors, researchers, industry leaders, policymakers, and other participants across the ecosystem.
Speakers & Organizing Committee
Hosts and Sponsor Organizations
