MIT Clean Energy Prize 2014 Kick-Off Event at Mintz Boston Offices on Friday, December 13
The MIT Clean Energy Prize Competition awards over $350,000 to new businesses and aims to help develop a new generation of energy entrepreneurs and great new companies. Conceived by the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, the program is in its seventh year. The kick-off event for the 2014 competition will be held at Mintz’s Boston offices on Friday December 13, 2013. You can register to attend here. Featured speakers include 2011 participant Leslie Dewan of Transatomic Power and Mintz’s Tom Burton.
Those interested in joining the competition can attend the kickoff event to learn more and meet potential teammates. This year, the competition held its first-ever Clean Energy Startup Weekend to help entrepreneurs network and generate ideas. Panelists for the event included Stanley Kowalksi III, Chairman of the Board at Ogin (formerly FloDesign Wind Turbine).
University teams from across the United States enter their business ideas in one of three categories:
- Energy Efficiency
- Renewable Energy
- Infrastructure & Resources
Teams must be comprised of at least two individuals, and half of the team must be enrolled as students at a U.S. university. Teams that have secured more than $50,000 in capital before entering are ineligible to compete. For more information on the rules of the competition, click here.
In January and February, each team will submit an executive summary and pitch deck. MIT CEP judges will select 15-21 business plans (5-7 from each category), which then will receive mentoring, $2,500, and access to other MIT CEP resources. During this time, semifinalists develop and refine their business plans before presenting them to a panel of expert judges at the CEP Finals event on April 27. The top two teams in each category go on to compete in the Grand Finals on April 28. For more information on the structure of the competition, click here.
The MIT Clean Energy Prize‘s mission is to be the catalyst for a unified competition to help develop a new generation of energy entrepreneurs and great new companies. This will be achieved by working to stimulate productive relationships between academic, community, industry, and government organizations with strong interests in meeting the world’s energy challenge through innovation and entrepreneurship. To learn more about the competition's mission, click here.
The MIT Clean Energy Prize was conceived by the MIT Entrepreneurship Center. Entrepreneurship Professor Bill Aulet and Entrepreneur Tod Hynes serve as advisers to the program.
We hope you will come out and get involved!
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