Rubbish: Waste Management & Circularity Tech Happy Hour

We'll bring together investors, artists, founders, and friends working across waste management, climate, and circular systems for food, drinks, and short talks. Approximately 75~100 people. Apply to join above.Sushi and wine by Chef Nick 🍣🥂

Music by DJ Jessie Keith 🎶

Speakers

Speakers will explore waste and resource recovery from across disciplines.

Introduction by Janelle Kellman Former planning commissioner and Mayor of Sausalito, California. Running for Lt. Governor of California.

Claudia RichardsonFormer materials innovation manager at Patagonia and All Birds. MIT’s Women’s Technology Program.

Maen Mahfoud CEO of Replate, scaling food recovery across America. Visiting instructor at Stanford and Princeton University.

Alex LudlumExecutive Director at SOMA West CBD. The Largest CBD in San Francisco helped remove over 800,00lbs of trash from the street in 2025.

Jesse Anttila-Hughes Current Chair of Economics at the University of San Francisco.Faizan AliAI Research at Anthropic.

Josh CassidyEmmy Award-winning nature filmmaker.

Lauren Turk CEO CompoSTARS, serving thousands of users in Los Angeles across 21 locations, in collaboration with LA Compost.

Emin Israfil Founder and CEO of Rubbish, building the modern operating system for waste management.

More special guest speakers and panels will be announced soon. If you know someone who should give a talk, join a panel, or show their work or art, please let us know.

Speakers Bios

Janelle KellmanEnvironmental lawyer, small business owner, and former mayor of Sausalito, California. Janelle served as a planning commissioner and has helped write climate policy. Education B.A. History Yale, MSc, Environmental Management, Oxford, J.D., Stanford

Jesse Anttila-Hughes The current Chair of Economics at the University of San Francisco. His research combines physical and statistical approaches to economic, health, and social problems, illuminating the dynamics of coupled human-environmental systems ranging from climate change to planetary public health. His research has been published in leading journals such as Nature Communications, Scientific Reports, and the European Physical Review, and his work has appeared in news outlets such as Physics Today, The Wall Street Journal, and the NY Times.

He has been the 2015 recipient of USF's Mentor of the Year Award in recognition for his work advising graduate students, as well as the 2023 USF Innovation in Teaching with Technology Award for his work on introducing students to AI and LLM methods in econometrics.

He has served as a research advisor for institutions such as the World Bank, DFID, and World Food Programme, and previously worked in the private sector as an investment banker. He received his A.B. in Physics from Harvard in 2002, and his Ph.D. in Sustainable Development from Columbia in 2012.

Maen MahfoudFounder of Replate.org and senior executive with 9+ years leading sustainable technology ventures, specializing in scaling social enterprises from concept to international operations.Replate grew to a 35+ person team, establishing partnerships with 2,000+ businesses and 800+ nonprofits. Key achievements include: 4M+ pounds of food rescued to feed local communities while preventing 34,000 tons of CO2e emissions and conserving 1B gallons of water. Replate serves major corporations, including Netflix, Boston Consulting Group, Snap, Dignity Health, SFO International Airport, and Kaiser Permanente. Maen raised $10M to grow the business from zero to one.

Visiting Instructor at Princeton University and Stanford University.Alex LudlumAlex serves as Executive Director of the SOMA West Community Benefit District, which was formed in 2020 as San Francisco’s largest CBD, encompassing 107 blocks in Downtown. In calendar year 2025, it collected 828,875 lbs of trash and provided 24/7 safety patrol and dispatch services for security requests. It also hosts the seasonal SOMA Nights street fair and other community events. It is the only CBD to host an Artist-in-Residence.

Claudia RichardsonClaude is a materials science and engineering professional with a record of success in developing innovative materials, long-term strategy, and high-performing teams for beloved brands and startups, including Allbirds, Patagonia, and NFW. As a research and development leader with an extensive sustainability background, driving stand-out products in a crowded and evolving landscape, she loves to connect about new materials, manufacturing methods, and recycling/decomposition pathways.

Emin Israfil Emin Israfil is the founder and CEO of Rubbish, the operating system for modern waste management, now active in 16 states across both the public and private sectors. Emin has been asked to speak at NASA Ames Research Center, Waste Expo, and to international governments on the intersection of waste management and AI, with more than 50 speaking engagements in the last two years. Rubbish’s work has been featured by Apple, Google, and some of the largest organizations in the Bay Area and abroad in waste and technology.

Art Installation

The event is surrounded by Taking in the Trash, a large-scale exhibition featuring the work of five San Francisco-based artists bringing attention to waste in our shared environment. The exhibition highlights partnerships with local artists and community programming, moving waste into larger conversations about resource management and recovery.

Venue Information

This event is hosted at the Frontier Tower:

We are transforming a 16-floor tower in San Francisco into a self-governed vertical village—a hub for frontier technologies and creative arts. Tier-one labs presenting AI, Ethereum, biotech, neuroscience, longevity, robotics, makerspace, human flourishing, and arts & music. These floors will house innovators and creators pushing the boundaries of human potential in a post-AI-singularity world.

Apply here for founding citizenship: https://frontiertower.io/apply

Why should I become a citizen?

Be part of creating the first self-governed vertical villageConnect with the most creative people in the cityGet access to all floors, free event space & movement floor

Website: https://frontiertower.io/

Need more reading? Visit https://frontiertower.notion.site/

By registering for this event, you agree to share your registration information with the organizers of SF Climate Week

Lastly, feel free to bring your own reusable cup, so you'll always know which drink is yours! 🏆