Clean Energy Fellowship Program: Transitioning Entrepreneurs into the Clean Energy Economy

The Clean Energy Fellowship Program is an innovative entrepreneurial development program designed to rapidly transition experienced entrepreneurs into the region’s clean energy sector.

The Fellowship Program addresses a simple but acute problem: a lack of repeat entrepreneurs in the sector— a critical ingredient in venture formation, funding, and growth. There are a number of experienced entrepreneurs from other sectors such as telecom, IT, life sciences, etc., with strong interest in transitioning into the clean energy sector. The Clean Energy Fellowship Program has been planned by the New England Clean Energy Council to offer entrepreneurs from other sectors an intensive, half-time, semester-length, clean energy program to accelerate their transition into the sector.

The Clean Energy Fellowship Program combines seminars, lectures, case studies, lab visits, and capstone projects. These business planning projects are based on leading-edge emerging technologies for corporate, university and DOE labs, and done with close collaboration from leading VC’s and entrepreneurs from the clean energy sector. The sessions and projects involve a part-time commitment from all participants (20 hours per week) over 3+ months.

A wide range of institutions, organizations, and companies at the forefront of clean energy are participating. These include MIT, UMass, Harvard, local venture capital firms, DOE national labs such as NREL, established clean energy companies, policy-making bodies, investment banks and energy project financiers, and energy infrastructure and engineering companies. The Founding, Pilot delivery of the Fellowship Program includes a small, highly-experienced cohort of entrepreneurs transitioning into the clean energy sector.

The inaugural Clean Energy Fellowship Program session is made possible by the generous sponsorship of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative's John Adams Innovation Institute.

Read more about the Clean Energy Fellowship in The Economist.