Paul Cherukuri, Rice University chief innovation officer, spoke with the CEO and CTO of Woodside Energy March 19 at an Ion event with more than 100 attendees including C-suite leaders from nearly every energy company.
In January, Rice and Woodside Energy announced a ground-breaking five-year technology collaboration aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and providing lower carbon solutions. The Woodside-Rice Decarbonization Accelerator is an initiative that aims to bring breakthrough decarbonization technology from the Rice labs to market.
Cherukuri explained that the Rice Office of Innovation was created to pull together faculty and students to solve problems at scale and work with industry.
“Can we solve problems at scale and not just publish them (but) really do something dramatically different?” Cherukuri said when speaking about the Office of Innovation’s mission.
With experience both in academia and industry, Cherukuri identified that industry is dealing with problems that are an “order of magnitude harder” than academia in terms of scale. He wants to inject that capability at Rice to help industry reach the necessary scale.
“My vision is really to enable faculty and students to be able to solve problems that are really impactful to the world,” he said.