Danielle Fong (born October 30, 1987) is a Canadian scientist and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

. She was the

co-founder An organizational founder is a person who has undertaken some or all of the formational work needed to create a new organization, whether it is a business, a charitable organization, a governing body, a school, a group of entertainers, or any othe ...

and chief scientist of

LightSail Energy LightSail Energy (2008–2018) was an American compressed air energy storage technology startup. The company shut down in 2018, failing to produce a product. The unused tanks were sold away to natural gas companies in 2016. Projects A method ...

Education

Fong was born in

Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of the 2021 Census, the municipal population was 439,819, with 348 ...

, and was raised in Dartmouth. At age 12, she dropped out of junior high school, and enrolled in Dalhousie University, where she got her Bachelor of Science in Physics and Computer Science in 2005 at age 17. She joined the plasma physics program at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

as a Ph.D candidate, but later dropped out at age 20.

LightSail Energy

In 2009 at

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

, Fong co-founded

with entrepreneur Stephen Crane and Edwin P. Berlin Jr. LightSail Energy developed a form of

compressed air energy storage Compressed-air energy storage (CAES) is a way to store energy for later use using compressed air. At a utility scale, energy generated during periods of low demand can be released during peak load periods.Wild, Matthew, LWind Drives Growing Use o ...

, which was termed regenerative air energy storage (RAES). The company was initially backed by

Khosla Ventures Khosla Ventures is an American venture capital firm founded by Vinod Khosla, focused on early-stage companies in the Internet, computing, mobile, financial services, agriculture, healthcare and clean technology sectors. Some of its most successf ...

. In 2013, Fong stated she wanted to solve an energy problem and help democratize the storage of energy, in order to change how the average person lives in their home. Nova Scotia's

Innovacorp Innovacorp is a Nova Scotia crown corporation managing an early-stage venture capital fund. The organization was established under Nova Scotia’s Innovation Corporation Act, 1994–95, c. 5, s. 1. Its goal is to help early stage Nova Scotia comp ...

, a government owned enterprise invested in LightSail Energy because of Fong's relationship to the province of Nova Scotia, and it ended up as a large financial loss since LightSail never provided a product or service. In May of 2016, Greentech Media published a highly critical piece on Fong's management of LightSail and alleged untruthful statements to media about the viability of the company's products.

Recognition

In 2011, Fong was featured in ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' " 30 under 30" entrepreneurs under the Energy category. and interviewed by Forbes.com in a video titled "Danielle Fong May Save the World". She was named by the

MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...

as one of the top 35 innovators under 35 in 2012. She is a regular guest contributor to the Women 2.0 blog and was a featured speaker at the ''Women 2.0 PITCH Conference & Competition'' in 2012.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fong, Danielle 1987 births Living people Businesspeople from Berkeley, California Businesspeople from Nova Scotia Canadian energy industry businesspeople Canadian expatriates in the United States Canadian women in business 21st-century Canadian women scientists Dalhousie University alumni People from Halifax, Nova Scotia Princeton University alumni