2026 speaker

Dr. Shantonio Birch is the Founder & CEO at ThermoVerse Inc., a deep-tech, urban innovation corporation pioneering the world’s most compact thermal battery for peak HVAC demand management. An alumnus of the Innovation Crossroads program at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a recipient of the 2026 Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) in the Outstanding Young Graduate Engineering Minority (GEM) Alumnus Category, Dr. Birch is leading the industry shift toward Transactive Thermal Energy Management and Grid-Aware Thermal Energy Storage (GATES). His work focuses on utilizing active thermal storage materials and systems to unlock faster, cheaper and scalable storage capacity that enhances grid resiliency and bolster smart city readiness. Dr. Birch is also a workforce development faculty at the Washtenaw Community College (WCC) and the principal at Mountain Bird Advisory (MBA, L3C). Combined with his work at ThermoVerse Inc., Dr. Birch is building the backbone of the next industrial economy - people, technology, infrastructure, and partnerships.