Advisor

Mike Biddle, Ph.D.

advises

Dr. Biddle is the Managing Director of Evok Innovations, an entrepreneur-led CleanTech venture fund that aims to increase the scale, diversity and quality of early-stage innovations focused on clean energy, reducing the time it takes to commercialize technologies. Mike serves on the Boards of six Evok portfolio companies – all in the CleanTech space (Syzygy Plasmonics, Quidnet Energy, Kelvin, Koloma, Ebb Carbon, Karbonetiq) as well as one from Tin Shed Ventures/Patagonia: Bureo.  He was on the Board of Mosaic Materials before Baker Hughes bought the company early in 2022 and on the board of Twelve before Evok exited it’s position.

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Mike is a co-founder of and investor in CO280, a carbon capture and sequestration project development company, launched in stealth in 2021 and publicly in 2022.  

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Before Evok, Dr. Biddle founded MBA Polymers - literally from his garage.  He grew MBA to the world’s leading multi-national company recovering plastics from end-of-life durable goods, such as computers, electronics, appliances, automobiles and now household waste. When the company was sold, it had a processing capacity of over 300 million lbs/yr in Europe and China.  Some of the largest manufacturers in the world have used MBA’s plastics to replace virgin plastics in their new products. It is one of the few CleanTech/HardTech companies still operating and expanding more than 30 years after he started it.  

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Mike worked for several large companies, namely General Electric, Cummins Engine Company and Dow Chemical, before striking out on his own in 1992.  Mike received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Louisville with high honors and a Ph.D. in Polymer Science and Engineering from Case Western Reserve University, with highest honors.  He was a Dow-sponsored Sloan Fellow at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, graduating with an MS in Management Science.

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Mike, who is often called the “Garbage Man” for his groundbreaking work in extracting valuable resources from highly complex waste streams around the world, has won numerous international awards.  

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Examples include:

  • 2017 SME Circulars Award and the innagural Davos Prize at the 2018 World Economic Forum for the company he founded.
  • The prestigious 2012 Gothenburg Award, often called the Nobel prize for Sustainability (prev. winners include Al Gore, Kofi Annan & Gro Harlem Brundtland – former Pres. of Norway).  
  • 2014 World Technology Network Award for the Environment (Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, won it for Energy the same year)
  • 2010 Economist Innovation Award for Energy and Environment (Steve Jobs won it for Consumer Products the same year)
  • 2008 Intel Tech Museum Environmental Award
  • 2007 Ascent Award for Entrepreneurship
  • 2006 Tech Pioneer Award from the World Economic Forum
  • 2002 Thomas Alva Edison Award for Innovation
  • Only 4-time winner of “Most Promising Presenter” award at the CleanTech Forum
  • Earthkeeper Hero from MyHero.com
  • Many other international awards including Global CleanTech 100, GoingGreen Silicon Valley, CleanTech Connect, CleanTech GameChanger Award and the Society of Plastics Engineers’ Environmental Division most prestigious award
  • CNN created a short documentary on Mike as part of its Make, Create & Innovate series
  • A Big SHFT 3-minute documentary features Mike as one of “10 Innovators Changing the World”
  • Mike’s TED talk has received praise from around the world with over 1 million unique views
  • ‍Popular Science wrote a feature length (8-page) profile on Mike’s entrepreneurial journey:  The Garbage Man

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