Monday, February 9, 2009

Clean Energy Fellowship opens to entrepreneurs

By Efrain Viscarolasaga

The New England Clean Energy Council has launched the second round of its Clean Energy Fellowship program and opened a call for applications in search of New England entrepreneurs interested in moving their expertise into the clean energy sector.

With the success of the pilot, organizers have expanded the program, this time offering the opportunity to 25 Fellows comprised of both CEOs and other senior executives from New England. The New England Clean Energy Council (NECEC) will be accepting applications until March 2, and officials expect to kick off the new round on May 5, continuing through July.

The first round of the Fellowship initiative was launched as a pilot program last year and put 12 founding CEOs from a variety of industries through a three-month crash course in designing, building and managing a company in the clean industry sector. The first round featured well-known local CEOs, including Chuck Digate of Convoq Inc., Perry Solomon of Boston Coach Inc. and Rick Daniels of MultiLayer Coating Technologies Inc., and it was completed last summer. Since that time, program graduates have gone on to found four new ventures - WindPole Ventures, ThermoGen, Aardwolf Controls and Clean Energy Venture Fund.

Aside from expanding the total number of participants, the latest round has also expanded its demographic, including accepting high-level executives (rather than just founding CEOs, as was the case with the pilot) and its geographic reach by including New York. Funding for the expansion into New York was provided by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of entrepreneurship based in Missouri.

As with its pilot phase, the program will be coordinated by NECEC president Nick d’Arbeloff and Flagship Ventures executive-in-residence Peter Rothstein. This year the tandem will also be joined by Andrew Friendly, a principal at Advanced Technology Ventures, on the committee.

Supporting partners of the program include MIT and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The first Fellowship Program was also recognized in an innovation award to NECEC by the U.S. Department of Energy.