Built to Last: AI, Reshoring, and the Future of Climate Tech Supply Chains
**This is a private workshop hosted within Node's FOAK Summit. You must be registered for both the FOAK Summit and this workshop in order to attend**
Hosted by Fictiv, part of MISUMI.
Abstract:
If you're a CEO, founder, or investor backing hardware right now, the old playbook is broken — chasing the cheapest overseas supplier doesn't work when tariffs shift by the quarter, reshoring incentives rewrite the math every few months, and investors are asking harder questions about supply chain risk than ever before.
Nate Evans, Co-Founder of Fictiv and Head of AI & Climate at MISUMI Global, opens with a short talk on what's actually changed in global manufacturing — including how AI is starting to give companies real-time visibility into risk they used to only discover after it hit — then leads the room through the questions every climate tech leader should be asking:
Questions:
Where is your supply chain actually exposed — and do you know it, or are you guessing? Could AI-driven visibility tools close that gap faster than another headcount hire?
Is reshoring the right call for your business, or just the popular one — and how does AI-driven demand forecasting change that math?
How do you build supplier relationships that can flex when tariffs shift, instead of breaking? Where could AI flag risk before it becomes a crisis?
What would it take for your team to stop reacting to disruption and start building around it, using AI as an early-warning system instead of a buzzword?
Format: Framing talk on AI and supply chain resilience → small-group discussion → live debrief with Nate.
You'll leave with: A clearer view of your own exposure, a framework for reshoring vs. offshoring trade-offs, a realistic look at where AI can (and can't) help you get ahead of risk, hard questions to bring to your board, and a peer network wrestling with the same problems.
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