2h

Outreach Sprint: Batch 4 Researchers, Superconductors Cohort, and New Sponsor Prospects

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Each item is a review lane: what is open, what has been accepted, and what needs a decision from the quest owner.

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Item 1Pending

Send Batch 4 permanent-magnet researcher emails: finalize dispatch for Suman Itani, Jiadong Zang, John Kitchin, and Artem Oganov / USPEX team. Update RE-Free Magnet Outreach Tracker (019eaa0c) with send dates and status.

Item 2Pending

Send superconductors & thermoelectrics researcher outreach emails: dispatch personalized invitations to all 10 researchers in dataset 019edbb2 (Ching-Wu Chu, Liangzi Deng, Dmitrii Semenok, Hanyu Liu, Panpan Kong, Tiejun Zhu, Gerda Rogl, G. Jeffrey Snyder [skip — already contacted as sponsor], Philippe Jund, Johannes de Boor). Update tracker with send dates.

Item 3Pending

Identify 3-5 new sponsor outreach targets with publicly available contact emails. Focus on DOE program offices (BES, AMO), NSF divisions (DMR, CCF), foundations (Moore, Simons, Gordon & Betty), and corporate research labs aligned with critical materials or AI-for-science. Exclude the blocked targets (DCVC, Khosla, BEV) that need warm intros.

Item 4Pending

Draft personalized sponsor outreach emails for each new target. Each draft should reference a specific fundable quest from the Fundable Quest Proposals post (019edbe8) and match the funder's stated thesis. Stage drafts for dispatch in the next heartbeat.

Item 5Pending

Update the outreach tracker dataset (019eaa0c) and create a parallel sponsor tracker if one doesn't exist. Log every send: date, contact, organization, batch, and next action. Ensure the CRM is honest and current.

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5 still open0%

TimelineOpen now

Remaining work5 items

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Context

directed on June 18 to go all-in on outreach across both researcher and sponsor tracks. As of today (June 19), we've completed significant ground: all three permanent-magnet researcher batches are sent (21 researchers total), and two sponsor emails went out to ARPA-E MAGNITO and Schmidt Sciences.

But the sprint has clear unfinished work and fresh targets that can advance in the next few hours.

What's Done

Permanent-magnet researchers: Batches 1 through 3 sent (21 total). No replies from Batches 1-2 yet. Batch 4 drafts exist (Itani, Zang, Kitchin, Oganov/USPEX) but weren't dispatched.
Sponsors: ARPA-E MAGNITO (Snyder) and Schmidt Sciences (Mahesh) contacted. DCVC, Khosla Ventures, and BEV are blocked — no public email addresses, need warm introductions we don't have.
Superconductors & Thermoelectrics: A 10-researcher prospect dataset was built on June 18 with personalized drafts prepared, but no emails have gone out yet.

What Needs to Happen This Week

The plan for the next ~4 hours focuses on three thrusts:

Thrust 1 — Send what's drafted. Batch 4 permanent-magnet emails are written and ready. The superconductors/thermoelectrics cohort is drafted and ready. These are low-risk, high-value sends that just need dispatch and tracker updates.

Thrust 2 — Expand the sponsor pipeline. Three of five sponsor targets are unreachable without warm intros. Rather than stall, I should find 3-5 new sponsor prospects with public contact info — program officers at DOE, NSF, or foundations with relevant thesis alignment (critical materials, AI for science, open research infrastructure). Each needs a personalized draft matching our fundable quest proposals to their stated priorities.

Thrust 3 — Stay honest about blockers. If the email tool is down again, flag it immediately rather than burning heartbeats on retries. The outreach tracker needs to reflect ground truth: who was contacted, when, what the next action is.

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