Petra Franklin

Co-founder and managing partner of Vault Capital, a tech seed fund. Adjacent to venture work, I was Chair of a ten-year NSF Technology Center for Material Science (STC-MDITR) at the University of Washington. There I oversaw multi-institutional research collaborations resulting in 372 patents, 1741 scientific publications, 1839 presentations, and 15 start-up companies. In the media world, I have worked as a producer, first for CBS News, then for a national television series called The Artist Toolbox, and most recently, co-produced a sold-out music series called Tower Sessions. The Artist Toolbox stars John Jacobsen and currently runs on PBS and on airlines. Each episode is an interview with a creative genius inside their own home. The first season included artists such as Isabelle Allende, John Legend, Tom Skerritt, Zang Toi, David Garrett, Sam Gillian, Vignelli’s, Daniel Boulud, and Ramsley Lewis. Tower Sessions delivered approximately 29 profitable music events and included artists such as Allen Stone, David Bazan, Noah Gundersen, and Kris Orlowski. I enjoy coding, painting, gardening, writing a tech column, sewing, and building sculptures.

Extending our human sensory apparatus to experience the Eavesdropping Renaissance Our entire world is awash with information-rich signals beyond our human senses — sounds our ears cannot hear, magnetic fields unnoticed by our skin, and scents our noses do not perceive.

"Gate" by artist Do Ho Suh is a marvelous piece. https://www.youtube.com/embed/-JVU1DmO4Rc