Carlos Araque is the co-founder, president and CEO of Quaise Energy, a Houston- and Cambridge-based startup trying to drill the deepest holes in human history to tap superhot geothermal heat. A Medellin-born mechanical engineer with two MIT degrees, he spent 15 years at oilfield-services giant Schlumberger, then ran technology at MIT's venture platform The Engine, where he met the plasma physicist whose millimeter-wave drilling idea became Quaise. His pitch: vaporize rock instead of grinding it, reach depths where water turns supercritical, and use the resulting heat to run the same turbines and power plants fossil fuels use today.
Ali Raza is the founder and CEO of ThroughPut.ai, a Palo Alto supply chain decision-intelligence company that uses AI to detect, prioritize, and clear operational bottlenecks across factories and logistics networks. A University of Pennsylvania chemical engineer turned field-operations manager, he ran manufacturing and oilfield logistics in eight countries - including a stint as geomarket manager in Yemen during the 2015 Houthi takeover - before building software around the Theory of Constraints idea that every system is limited by one bottleneck at a time.