Jim Cooper is General Manager, of Blue-X (North America), a Sydney, Australia-based innovation services, and vertically integrated venture advisory, that operates at the intersection of climate, applied science and engineering, and primary industries. He has extensive experience with startups, having built and run accelerators since 2010, and has advised startups since 1998. He is also currently Blue Economy Commercialization Advisor for the UCSD StartBlue Accelerator at Scripps Oceanography, has mentored and instructed NSF i-Corps (he is currently an instructor for the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering i-Corps Regional Partner, at the ASU Desert and Pacific Hub, and for UCSC's Innovation and Business Engagement Hub), and as mentor for, and selection team to, the Canadian Lab2Market Oceans and Validate programs for more than a decade. Jim currently sits on the Strategic Planning Council and Faculty Consensus Committee for the California State University CSU Biotech, an industry group promoting biotech careers and workforce development across all 23 campuses of the CalState system, he is a commercialization Principal Advisor in LARTA Institute's NOAA, USDA and DoE SBIR Commercialization Programs, is an advisor for teams in the Beanstalk Program (Australian government's Drought Fund initiative and venture studio), Chapter Advisor to Nucleate Australia based in Melbourne, and is a mentor at BRINC, and the University of New South Wales Founders program, and across three Nucleate chapters in the US (Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego). He advises dozens of startups including BlueCarbon (Brisbane), Rekro (Sydney), JobScreenerAI (Sydney), and Bean (based in both Sydney and Halifax). Jim is a member of the New York and Seattle-based, EnVest investment syndicate, currently exploring an Australian chapter. Additionally Jim has served reviewing teams for the Pilot Innovation Fund at San Diego State University, the Innovation Catalyst Grant at UC Santa Cruz, and has reviewed applications to DoE and NOAA's SBIR Phase I and II programs. Prior to that, Jim was cofounder at Braid Theory, an ocean and maritime focused accelerator program in Los Angeles, located at the AltaSea Innovation Campus in the Port of Los Angeles, and EIR at PortTechLA from 2014-2016. Between 1998 and 2005, he was an analyst for the Australian, New Zealand and Queensland governments, and between 2005 and 2010 ran a successful market research company. Jim is currently Head Coach for the Orange County Giants Australian Rules Football Club, based in Orange County, California (between1986 and 2005 Jim amassed over 350 senior games of Australian Football), has served as Secretary of the Orange County Wildgeese Gaelic Football Club, and his interests include synthetic biology and climate. Jim studied biology, political science and economics in both Australia and the United States.