Stanford will host its second annual Climate Week from Oct. 20-26, featuring over 60 events across campus.

After a successful first Climate Week last April that included over 40 events, 30 partner organizations and 1500 student attendees, the event’s student organizing team expanded from six to 35 members and worked through the summer to plan this year’s event. 

“I noticed a gap [at Stanford] where people weren’t collaborating across different sectors [in climate], whether it’s public policy, education, innovation, tech, or finance,” Mary Lee ’26, founder of Stanford Climate Week and one of this year’s three executive co-directors, said.

“Climate Week was the perfect opportunity to tip those silos, so the theme for last Climate Week was bridging sustainability across all seven schools on campus. This year’s all about action [and] utilizing these climate skills to [make] an impact,” Lee said.

This year’s events include a Climate Tech Career Fair; keynote speakers from Gigascale Capital and the California Energy Commissio; a Green AI Hackathon; presentations from climate tech companies like Twelve, Fervo Energy and Google’s Advanced Energy Labs and an Evening of Climate and Art performances.

This year’s Climate Week aims to connect students to groups actively making a difference in the climate world. The week will include events in collaboration with speakers from Google and Microsoft, who are sponsoring the Green AI Hackathon, as well as College to Climate, World Wildlife Fund, Grid Innovation Hub, the Precourt Institute for Energy, the Doerr School of Sustainability, the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy and Stanford Climate Ventures. 

“Last year, we hosted Climate Week towards the end of the school year and found that we built up momentum [that was lost] during the summer,” Climate Week events director Danica Sun ’28 said. “The idea [this year] is to engage [younger] students, show them that they [can] apply their interests to climate and build this momentum over the rest of the school year, the rest of their Stanford careers and beyond.” 

Sun emphasized that connecting Stanford students to climate groups on campus is essential to maintaining momentum on climate action after Climate Week. To facilitate this, many of the events are collaborations with Stanford organizations such as Stanford Energy Club, Stanford Sustainable Investment Group (SSIG) and the Explore Energy house. 

“My family originates from Bangladesh, which is unfortunately at the forefront of the climate crisis, so that personal connection really spurred me to explore climate,” Climate Week events director Samir Chowdhury B.S. ’25 M.S ’25 said. “Junior year, I noticed a gap in opportunities at the intersection of sustainability, business and innovation, so I founded SSIG to build that community out myself.”

Speakers at SSIG-affiliated events planned by Chowdhury include Mike Schroepfer, former CTO at Meta and founder of Gigascale Capital, and Sophie Purdom, founder of Planeteer Capital, an investment firm that recently closed on a $55 million climate fund.

Chowdhury said that community building remains a connecting thread of Climate Week despite its myriad of collaborators and participants. In addition to speaker events and fireside chats, Climate Week features many social gatherings, including a Stanford Professionals in Energy Alumni Dinner, Sustainability x Service Fellowships Mixer and a ClimateXEnergy Mixer by StartX. 

“My North Star is community. I love supporting people and helping them become the best versions of themselves,” Lee said. “Climate Week is all about the community that you build, and I’m hopeful, no matter if [people] are going to work in innovation or research or finance, that they can bring this community out into the real world and really support each other.”

According to Sun, tracking engagement is an important way to maintain momentum even after Climate Week ends. Climate Week already has over 1,745 registrations for its events.

“We have a very clear tracking system for event participants, and we’re able to invite them back to our community,” Lee said. “We [can] have a group after Climate Week dedicated to next steps, working together and building that ecosystem as well as sending opportunities to get involved.”

Chowdhury encourages all students, regardless of their experience in climate action, to attend events that interest them, such as the opening keynote by professor Steven Chu and University president Jonathan Levin ’94 or the Explore Energy Expo for research and internships. For Sun, Climate Week is an amazing way to explore sustainability in the future. 

“I want to be working on huge problems, and I see climate as the problem of our generation,” Sun said. “I hope to continue [to see] collaborations with other clubs and other departments to connect people, connect mentors with mentees and build up lifelong [relationships] beyond Climate Week.” 

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated Mary Lee’s graduation year as 2025 rather than 2026. The Daily regrets this error.