2026 WASHINGTON YOUTH INNOVATION & STARTUP FORUM
Description
As spring arrives and cherry blossoms begin to bloom across Washington DC, WIEC — the Washington Innovation & Entrepreneurship Club — celebrates 20 years of walking alongside young entrepreneurs across the United States.
Join us for our annual Innovation Forum & Startup Pitch during the Washington Cherry Blossom Festival. The venue is within walking distance of the National Mall and cherry blossom viewing areas.
Agenda
👉 2:00–4:00 PM | Forum & Pitch Session
👉 4:00–5:00 PM | Reception & Networking
📌 Registration Fee: $30/person
The registration fee is required for non-VIP guests to help cover event costs. Please send via Zelle to 5516895266 (Yan) with your name in the memo. Your registration will be confirmed once payment is verified, a full refund will be issued if your application is not approved.
Location：
Building next to subway station Metro Center
🎤 Featured Sessions
Talk 1 — How to Self-Sponsor an H-1B Through Your Own Startup Real cases on U.S. immigration pathways through entrepreneurship.
Talk 2 — 4 Steps: From Tech Expert to Tech Entrepreneur WIEC's 20-year case studies on building from expertise.
Talk 3 — What Women Underestimate May Be Exactly Where Their Career Breakthrough Lies A candid conversation on ambition, identity, and opportunity.
🚀PITCH ROUND -Investment Pitch Competition
Project Investment Pitch Competition Live project pitches · Investor networking · Team recruitment
Apply: [email protected]
✅ Why Attend
💰 Angel Investment Access — connect with investors face to face
📣 Brand Building — pitch is marketing 🧭 Mentor Guidance — direct feedback from successful founders
👥 Team Recruitment — find co-founders and early members
🤝 Peer Network — tap into WIEC's 20-year founder community
🌸 Cherry Blossom Walk — networking in DC's most beautiful season
📋 Registration
Attendance is by invitation only upon approved registration. Limited spots available — early submissions strongly encouraged.
Entrepreneurs · Investors · Students · Industry Leaders welcome
How to apply :
email: [email protected] or via luma
🔥Speakers:
Fan Ye: SUNS International
Founder of SUNS International, a global manufacturer of industrial control components. Ye Fan entered Tsinghua University's Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1989. He later earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering from Ohio State University (1997) and completed postdoctoral research in aerospace materials at MIT. From 1999 to 2002, he worked at Corning on the production and R&D of optical communication semiconductor laser packaging. In 2003, he founded SUNS International, now a leading global manufacturer of industrial control components.
River Duan: Summit Captial
Founder of Summit Capital, a U.S.-based investment and global market advisory firm. He brings cross-disciplinary expertise in technology innovation, venture incubation, industrial commercialization, and international market expansion. River serves as an International Fellow at SRI International and Co-Chair of the International Committee at the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC). He is also a member of the Tsinghua Executive and Entrepreneur Club (TEEC). He holds degrees from Tsinghua University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and an M.S. in Computer Science from George Mason University, where he is a Ph.D. candidate in Science & Technology Policy.
Jerry Wang: CEO, Hi2 Global
Jerry Wang founded Hi2 Global in New York in 2014, an alternative asset management company. Hi2 Global allocates capital to the U.S. and emerging markets through private credit and venture capital funds. Before founding Hi2 Global, Jerry was an Investment Manager at University of Notre Dame Investment Office, managing venture capital investments in the U.S. and Asia. Jerry received Bachelor's Degree in engineering from Tsinghua University and Master's Degrees in engineering and finance from the University of Notre Dame
Bo Peng: Founder and President of AAWEA
Founder and President of AAWEA (Asian American Women Entrepreneurs Association), a nonprofit empowering women entrepreneurs through innovation and cross-cultural collaboration. Vice President of UCAPO. Recipient of the U.S. President’s Lifetime Achievement Award. With 12+ years in brand strategy and entrepreneurship coaching, she has guided 70+ startup projects and delivered 3,000+ hours of coaching. Creator of the AI Business Launch Bootcamp. Co-author of Writing Awakening. Through AAWEA, she is building an AI-powered platform connecting women with resources and pathways for scalable business growth
Zidong Zhou: Co-founder and Chief Compliance Officer at Hibee
David focuses on providing one-stop compliance solutions for startups in the United States and companies expanding into the U.S. market. His practice covers a wide range of areas, including corporate formation and governance, tax planning, employment compliance, intellectual property strategy, commercial leasing, and immigration/visa matters. David has demonstrated strong event planning and organizational capabilities, having successfully organized major events such as the NYU China-US Summit, the NYU China-US Startup Competition, and the Global Brand Innovation Forum.
Lingchen Kong: Co-founder and CEO, Ellexco
Dr. Kong holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from George Washington University and completed postdoctoral research at Stanford University. He was named to the Top 30 Under 30 Chinese-American Youth Elite List and won the Global Student Entrepreneur Award in Washington, DC. Ellexco develops a modular electrochemical lithium integration (ELI) system that enables fast, chemical-free lithium extraction and conversion to battery-grade lithium hydroxide. Recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy and backed by $1M in funding, the company is advancing toward commercialization with its first pilot in Arkansas.
Patrick Ho: Founder of Forager Station
Patrick has a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Virginia. He has served in senior roles at several startups. Patrick specializes in working with interdisciplinary teams. He has 14 years of product development experience in the mechanical, biomedical, web, and data domains.
Terry Hsiao: Managing Partner at BonHope Capital
Terry Hsiao is a Silicon Valley–based serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and mentor, currently serving as Managing Partner at BonHope Capital. He founded Mobile 365, a global messaging platform that handled a majority of cross-network SMS traffic, which was acquired by Sybase for $425 million. He later founded Hook Mobile, an enterprise communications company that went public on the NYSE. Terry actively invests in leading technology companies such as SpaceX, Anthropic, and Canva. In addition to his investment work, he serves as a professor at George Washington University and mentors startups through accelerators. He is widely recognized for his contributions to entrepreneurship and the advancement of the Asian technology community.
🔥Startup Pitches
Bijie Ren：Foundrer of SATORI
Bijie Ren is the founder of SATORI Life Technology and SATORI Biotech. Holding a PhD from UCSD and postdoctoral experience from Stanford, he specializes in the intersection of AI and synthetic biology. Pioneering the use of digital logic in biotechnology, he has accumulated over 3,500 academic citations and is applying 60+ patent applications. His company, SATORI, aims to "Decode the Source Code of LIFE" by integrating interactome data with LLMs to develop AI cell models. This cutting-edge approach drives global innovation in high-throughput anti-aging R&D, skincare raw materials, and sustainable biomanufacturing.
Bo Ci：Founder of Yesod AI
B.S. Chemical Biology, Tsinghua University · Ph.D. Biomedical Sciences, UT Southwestern. During his doctoral training, he co-led the establishment of the first international pediatric germ cell tumor data center, enabling $5M in CPRIT research funding. He then joined Genentech/Roche as a biostatistician, leading clinical trial design and data analysis across multiple oncology programs, and contributed to business development by evaluating external oncology pipelines. He also co-led AI and automation initiatives for clinical trial data analysis. As Co-founder & CEO of Yesod AI, Bo is building AI teammates for clinical trial data automation — reducing execution timelines from months to days
Ruochen Song: Founder of Joyinow
A Cornell alumnus and 8-year Big Tech veteran who pursues transforming ambitious visions into grounded, market-ready realities. Joyinow is a platform that bridges online intent and offline connection for modern social life. It exists to solve the "Social Intent-Execution Gap," the friction point where the desire for connection meets the exhaustion of seeking. By transforming a city’s fragmented social and entertainment inventory into a searchable, high-density social ecosystem, it makes urban discovery and socializing seamless. Beyond just a social platform, Joyinow also serves as a definitive search engine, where authenticated community experiences are indexed into a verified real-world guide for daily life.
Tom Y: Founder of Palimpsest
Palimpsest is an emotional AI company that uses character-driven interactive experiences to learn how people engage, then turns that insight into deeply adaptive, personalized digital relationships and products.
More Coming Soon...
🔥Investor Partners：
Summit Capital(清峰资本):
Founded in 2015, Summit Capital provide business consulting, incubation service and angel investment for early-stage technology start-up sourced from the local, Sillicon Valley, Boston and all over the world. Summit Capital, LLC is a management company, it also provides consulting service for growth stage projects in both tech and non-tech fields and assists business marketing globally, including North America, Europe, and Asia, through cooperation with many investment partners.
Taihill Venture:
Taihill Venture is a Boston-based, industry-agnostic pre-seed deeptech fund, dedicated to pioneering breakthrough technologies that tackle longstanding challenges.
Since our inception in 2017, we have invested in over 130 startups with 3 funds. With a diverse and resourceful team, we are committed to empowering scientific founders to transform their innovations into tangible, real-world solutions.
🏢 Company / Project Spotlight
SATORI Life Technology integrates AI with synthetic biology to realize our vision: 'Decoding the Source Code of LIFE.' By leveraging high-throughput interactome datasets and advanced computational simulations, we are pioneering AI-driven cell models and a proprietary Cell Operating System (Cell OS). Our mission is to accelerate high-throughput anti-aging research and development, driving the discovery and out-licensing of next-generation active ingredients for the advanced skincare industry.
AI teammates autonomously execute end-to-end clinical trial data analysis, transforming raw data into analysis-ready datasets and reports. Today, a mid-size trial requires about 1,500 hours of expert labor and costs around $150,000, while quality control still relies on manual reconciliation. Our AI plans workflows, writes code, runs analyses, debugs, and validates outputs with minimal human input. Early results show 80–90% faster turnaround while maintaining data integrity. This approach can significantly reduce manual effort, cut costs, accelerate timelines, and unlock billions in industry efficiency while bringing therapies to patients faster.
Joyinow 是新一代社交平台，将城市中分散的社交与娱乐资源整合为可搜索的高密度社交生态系统，无缝连接线上意图与线下互动，重新定义现代都市社交生活。
Joyinow, a new generation of social platform that bridges online intent and offline connection seamlessly for modern social life by transforming cities‘ fragmented social and entertainment inventory into a searchable, high-density social ecosystem.
Ellexco 开发了一套模块化电化学锂整合（ELI）系统，可在单一流程中完成锂的提取、精炼与转化，直接产出电池级氢氧化锂，全程无需化学试剂、纯电力驱动，将提锂周期从数年压缩至数小时。Ellexco 被美国能源部评选为三大新兴技术之一，并获得100万美元联邦资金支持，目前正在阿肯色州建设首个中试项目，致力于从油气采出水与地热卤水等非常规资源中高效回收锂资源。Ellexco develops a modular electrochemical lithium integration (ELI) system that extracts, refines, and converts lithium to battery-grade LiOH in a single, chemical-free, electricity-powered process — reducing extraction time from years to hours. Recognized as a Top 3 Emerging Technology by the U.S. DOE with $1M in federal funding, Ellexco is building its first pilot in Arkansas to unlock lithium from produced water and geothermal brine.
Causally 是一家 AI 原生应用孵化工作室，由 3–5 位“超级个体”协同 AI 虚拟员工组成，以极致开发效率每年推出 10 款有调性的垂直领域 AI 产品，主攻美国市场。在这里，AI 不是工具，而是默认生产力单元——人类定义目标，AI 执行落地。团队由知名美元投资人与互联网大厂骨干带队，致力于打造高效、有活力、不内卷的技术与产品团队。
Causally is an AI-native application studio powered by small teams of 3–5 “super individuals” working alongside AI agents, enabling extreme development efficiency to launch around 10 high-quality vertical AI products annually, primarily targeting the U.S. market. Here, AI is not just a tool but the default unit of productivity—humans define goals while AI executes. Backed by leading USD investors and senior operators from major tech companies, Causally is building a high-energy, non-toxic, and highly efficient product and engineering team.
Forager Station 正在研发新一代锂、镁、锰卤水精炼设备，大幅降低精炼过程中的淡水消耗，助力开发更丰富、更低污染的锂资源。
Forager Station is developing next-generation brine refining equipment for lithium, magnesium, and manganese — dramatically cutting freshwater consumption in the refining process and unlocking more abundant, lower-impact lithium resources.
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