Julia Daviy

Clean energy, policy, and sustainable innovation

Inventor, founder, and author. For two decades I have co-founded companies and organizations, and convened industries in clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and climate innovation. Founder & President of the Sustainable Innovation Council.

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Original work

EVALUATION METHOD · TESTED IN PRACTICE

The Symbiotic Matrix

Our consequence-first method for evaluating innovation, which weighs what an invention changes before how fast it grows. Developed as a simple alternative to traditional venture evaluation, and tested in the Imagine Next Global Innovation Challenge, where it was used to evaluate 162 applicants in depth.

Innovation & feasibility

Founder capability

Planetary impact · net-positive impact, the living world, community wellbeing

Adoption & real-world fit

How the Matrix works →

Ventures & institutions

About me

2024 — now

Sustainable Innovation Council

Programs and tools that help climate innovation find capital and reach the world.

Visit SICouncil →

2006 — 2025

Ibcentre

For nearly two decades, Ibcentre built the region's premier clean-energy deal-making and business-development platforms, alongside consulting and engineering of MW-class renewable and bioenergy plants in Ukraine and beyond.

2011 — 2014

Portable solar

Co-founded the first manufacturer of portable solar chargers in Eastern Europe, producing high-capacity chargers in Ukraine and bringing the category into retail.

2017 — 2021

3D-printed fashion manufacturing

Pioneered a model for manufacturing 3D-printed clothing in the United States on large-format industrial printers our team re-engineered for flexible materials, producing the first commercially sold 3D-printed garments in the U.S. Presented a fully wearable collection at New York Fashion Week.

WWD →Women of Wearables →3DPrint.com →

2021 — 2023

Digital delivery of physical goods

Replaced warehouses of physical products with online storage of 3D-printable designs, produced on demand through distributed, localized advanced manufacturing.

Co-foundedInstitute of Green Economics, Kyiv (2013–now) · Female Founders & Funders of Berkeley · Ukrainian Club of Berkeley

Founding memberUkrainian Valley

AlsoVenture Partner, Network VC · Selection committee and mentor, Berkeley SkyDeck

Policy & institution building

Helping create the conditions for clean energy to grow.

I helped advance Ukraine’s household solar market, build renewable-energy industry institutions, and bring policymakers and industry leaders together around energy security. My experience includes serving as Vice-Chair of a national energy agency’s Public Council, on APEU’s board, and on the World Wind Energy Association’s Eastern European Committee.

Today, through the Sustainable Innovation Council, I work on how public and catalytic funding reaches climate innovators. Our Rainlight Funding Monitor tracks grants and non-dilutive programs across North America and Europe.

What I believe

We have grown very good at innovation and far less practiced at asking what it should serve.

I believe we can cultivate human inventiveness, including the ability to question the goals we inherit. Human and biological intelligence are forms of Earth-native intelligence. We have already built a vast apparatus for turning ideas into reality; now it’s time to pay more attention to the ideas we bring to life.

I believe the rest of living Earth has a right to exist and to thrive, not as a resource or a backdrop, but as a stakeholder in what we build.

Take that seriously, and the brief for every invention changes.

What would we design then?

Julia Daviy

The book · December 2026

Imagine Next

Inventing Beyond the Goals We Inherited

In 2023, I set myself a challenge: one new concept every day that could help address the Sustainable Development Goals. It took 616 days and produced 365 concepts. Then the practice changed the question.

Also, with my daughter, the children’s book Eva and the Time-Traveling Turtle.

Be among the first readers

365 concepts616 days

Imagine Next Global Innovation Challenge

Finding the inventions the planet needs next

A global challenge for planet-first inventions, evaluated with the Symbiotic Matrix and awarded Silver at the 6th Annual Anthem Awards. In 2026, founders from 36 countries took part. The 2027 edition opens to ventures, policy, research, and financial inventions.

The 2027 Challenge opens November 17 →

Finalists, investors, and partners at the Imagine Next Silicon Valley Climate Tech Capital Summit — Finalists pitched to investors at the Imagine Next Silicon Valley Climate Tech Capital Summit, UC Berkeley and UC Law San Francisco, April 2026.

Speaking

Keynotes and conversations

Invited to NATO HQ, UC Berkeley, Berkeley Haas, and international platforms.

Inventing beyond inherited goals

The practice of inventiveness behind Imagine Next

Clean energy as security

What two decades of building energy markets in Ukraine teach about resilience

Speaking inquiries →

What changed

What became possible

MARKET BUILDING · REGION

Where the region's clean-energy deals were made

For nearly two decades, Ibcentre ran the premier deal-making and business-development platforms for renewable energy in Eastern Europe and beyond, spanning renewables and energy storage, energy efficiency, green building, water and waste technologies, and organic products. Manufacturers entered markets there, built distribution, and signed contracts for clean-energy projects. In 2025, the focus turned to rebuilding energy systems.

Moldova's Ministry of Energy on CISOLAR →

FIRSTS · 2009–2018

Projects that changed what seemed possible

2009: the first biodiesel-fueled ship voyage on the Dnipro, with an international alternative-fuels conference held on board
2009: a test connection of solar power to the grid, and the first renewable-energy forum powered by solar at the Ukrainian House in central Kyiv
2010: the first, and for years the largest, private MW-class biofuel boiler plant, built for Ukraine's largest private university
2012: manufacturing portable solar chargers in Ukraine and bringing the category into retail
2018: a flexible, fully wearable clothing collection made entirely with digital tools, large-format industrial 3D printers, and solar energy, shown at New York Fashion Week, followed by the first commercial sales of clothing made this way

ENERGY SECURITY · EUROPE

Renewables as European security

In 2014, I initiated the European Energy Security Forum in Brussels, organized through Ibcentre with Energy Watch Group, one of the first to frame renewable energy as a matter of Europe's security, especially on its eastern border.

Read the case study →

CLEAN ENERGY POLICY · UKRAINE

Households could sell solar power to the grid

It began on my own roof. In 2011, with a solar system installed on my home, I asked the national energy regulator to let households, not only companies, sell power to the grid. Together with industry colleagues, it took three years of public discussion and initiatives to win the regulator's decision, and by 2015 the right was written into law, helping unlock rapid growth in residential solar.

Radio Svoboda (in Ukrainian) →Tyzhden: Solar dominant (in Ukrainian) →Tyzhden: The postponed revolution (in Ukrainian) →

Recognition

Edison Awards Gold · Guinness World Record · Green Product Award · Eluxe Award · Fast Company finalist, Best Innovative Design in North America

In the press

National Geographic Bulgariapv magazineUkrainska PravdaRenewables NowDesign WeekWWD

Work cited in

Advances in Fashion and Design Research III · Springer, 2025

The Business of Additive Manufacturing · Routledge, 2024

Novel Sustainable Process Alternatives for the Textiles and Fashion Industry · Springer, 2023

Leading Edge Technologies in Fashion Innovation · Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

Digital Manufacturing Technology for Sustainable Anthropometric Apparel · The Textile Institute Book Series, 2022

Meet Julia

Julia Daviy is a Ukrainian-American inventor who has spent two decades creating companies, platforms, and institutions. She began her career as an economic journalist covering energy markets, later served in renewable-energy policy roles in Ukraine, and co-initiated the policy behind the country’s household solar feed-in tariff. She studied energy engineering, holds bachelor’s degrees in environmental science and international economics and a master’s in international economics from Kyiv, and an MBA from UC Berkeley Haas, where her coursework included energy markets and policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy.

Learn more about Julia →

Let’s talk.

For collaboration, partnerships with the Sustainable Innovation Council, speaking, and advisory roles.

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