Institute of Politics

Overview of Organization: Conservation X Labs (CXL) seeks to solve the world’s greatest conservation problems by supporting innovative solutions that address the underlying drivers of extinction. We create solutions to prevent the extinction crisis through leading innovation competitions, developing new technologies in our labs, and empowering talented innovators across disciplines to create transformative products that serve people and our planet.

The Fire Grand Challenge: Driven by complex environmental and social factors, severe fires now burn throughout the year, even in previously unaffected ecosystems. With these rising threats, fire impacts have fast outpaced solutions. CXL has developed the Fire Grand Challenge to unearth global, collective solutions to change how we live with and manage fire across three key geographies— Western North America, the Amazon, and Indonesia. The Challenge seeks to braid together Indigenous, rural, and place-based knowledge with cutting-edge technology and other forms of innovation. The Challenge officially launched in August 2024, with the first round focused on Western North America. After an initial application period, finalist teams (each consisting of a technical applicant and a partner community from the region) will field-test their innovations in a 9-month accelerator process from March to November 2025.

We are seeking a Fire Open Innovation Fellow who can contribute to the impact and success of the Fire Grand Challenge.

Internship Summary: The Fire Grand Challenge team at Conservation X Labs is seeking a team player with a passion for conservation, partnership building, technology development, Indigenous land stewardship practices and sovereignty, and innovation. This position will work closely with the Manager of the Fire Grand Challenge to develop and implement partnership and programmatic needs involved in running the Fire Grand Challenge. This role will include activities related to accelerator program design, creating training workshops for finalist teams, liaising with Challenge partners and finalist teams, researching the impact of innovations, writing external communications, and more. Each week, the fellow will meet with members of other CXL teams to learn about their work, and the team will facilitate opportunities for the fellow to connect with environmental professionals in other organizations, in order to empower the fellow to make the most of their time in Washington, DC. Additionally, fire team members will serve as mentors, helping the fellow develop their career interests and plan.

Responsibilities: Open Innovation Programmatic Activities (50%)

• Aid the Manager of the Fire Grand Challenge with a variety of Challenge development and implementation processes that arise throughout the Challenge field-testing and acceleration program.
• Develop programming and training workshops for the accelerator program, tailored to the needs of the 12 Challenge finalist teams.
• Assist finalist teams in carrying out their field-testing activities and aid their participation in the accelerator program, which seeks to scale their innovations.
• Assist with the evaluation process, which will determine which finalists are the grand prize winners.
• Develop regular research briefs on different aspects of the wildland fire problem space that are relevant to the finalist cohort. Briefs can include updates on recent developments in the field and focused research themes.
• Find relevant scientific articles and catalog them in the reference management database.
• Attend relevant fire-related webinars and report back to the team.
• Identify relevant events the team can speak at or attend related to the Fire Grand Challenge.
• Engage with the team in weekly meetings.
• Depending on the timeline of follow-on phases of the Challenge, research the viability of available solutions for fire prevention and mitigation in the other two target geographies: the Amazon and Indonesia. This will lay the groundwork for recruitment for these Challenge phases.

Partnership Building (30%)

• Identify potential partners in the fire space that can support the 12 finalist teams participating in the field-testing and acceleration phase.
• Identify potential follow-on funders who can help finalist teams continue to scale their innovations after the closure of the Challenge.
• Recommend and contribute to the development of creative partnership engagement strategies.
• Maintain data within partnership management systems.
• Participate in external partnership calls and internal team meetings and track essential follow-up for meetings.
• Stay up-to-date on partner activities and give regular partnership updates to the team around potential engagement opportunities.

Administration & Communications (20%)

• Perform administrative functions as needed, including, but not limited to, note taking during meetings, organizing program files, call scheduling, email drafting, and event logistics.
• Write posts, newsletter features, and blog posts for communications around the Fire Grand Challenge and the organization's larger Amazon strategy.

Qualifications:

• Passionate about addressing pressing conservation crises and climate change.
• Self-starter with a track record of working both on teams and independently.
• Excellent organizational and time management skills: ability to prioritize and manage multiple deadlines and maintain a high degree of judgment and attention to detail.
• Strong research, analysis, writing and communication skills to analyze dynamics of underlying drivers of conservation problems.
• Ability to translate ideas, work plans, and scientific and technical information into relatable and inspiring text and presentations.
• Smart, capable, and excited to learn.
• Exceptional writing and communication skills in English. Spanish, Portuguese, or Indonesian Bahasa are positively valued but not required.
• Experience and/or interest in working with Indigenous-led conservation organizations or organizations that represent Indigenous and/or traditional communities.
• Ability to work across cultures and disciplines, and to listen and learn from a diverse set of perspectives and stakeholders.
• Some understanding of the conservation space and key players.
• Forward thinking, creative, and innovative.
• Currently pursuing a Bachelor's or Master's degree

About the Supervisor: Liam Torphy is an open innovation program associate at Conservation X Labs.

Location and Modality: The main office of Conservation X Labs is located in Georgetown in Washington, DC. This position is an in-person opportunity based in Washington, DC. The Fire Open Innovation Fellow is encouraged to come into the office, with some flexibility for remote work as needed.

Start and End Date: This opportunity is a full time position (35 hours per week) from June 15th to September 1st, 2023, with the option to extend through the remainder of September.