Francesco Sciortino, Proxima Fusion: Bringing Fusion Down to Earth

Keynote by Francesco Sciortino, CEO of Proxima Fusion, at the "Festival der Zukunft" 2023 by 1E9 and Deutsches Museum on July 7, 2023, in Munich. Session Description: The talk will introduce fusion and its promise for clean, abundant and safe energy. Francesco will briefly describe research in the field, discussing how private companies are further accelerating progress. He will introduce Proxima Fusion, the first spin-out company from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, which works to harness fusion energy via quasi-isodynamic stellarators. Proxima Fusion was founded in January 2023, raised private investments in February, and began full operation in Munich in April. About the Speaker: Francesco Sciortino, CEO, Proxima Fusion Francesco is a fusion researcher and entrepreneur. As co-founder and CEO of Proxima Fusion, he works to deliver fusion energy as a viable energy source. Originally from Italy, he did his undergraduate studies in Physics at Imperial College London. He entered the world of plasma physics working on a Z-pinch machine at Imperial, and did his masters thesis at the TCV tokamak at EPFL in Switzerland. Francesco worked on magnetic reconnection in Princeton and moved to Boston for his PhD in plasma physics at MIT. In 2021, he joined the Max Planck Society in Germany, first to work at the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak, and then at the W7-X stellarator. In January 2023, Francesco co-founded Proxima Fusion, a Munich-based startup that aims to develop a class of stellarators that offers the promise for robust, high-performance, and steady-state operation. Proxima Fusion is the first-ever spin-out company from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.