The University of California Center for Entrepreneurship announced today that world renowned energy consultant and physicist Amory Lovins will be the keynote speaker for the second annual Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy (GTEA) held from July 7 to 11 at the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences in Incline Village, Nev.
Lovins, a founder, chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), who is alsoan author and MacArthur Fellow, will be speaking on issues concerning marketing sustainable energy technologies for doctoral, post-docs and research faculty in the science and engineering fields.
“The academy is all about bringing scientists and experienced entrepreneurs together,” said Dr. Andy Hargadon, associate professor of the graduate school of management and director of the UC DavisCenter for Entrepreneurship.
“It’s an opportunity to meet with experts and understand what it takes to move research out of the lab and into the market,” Hargadon said.
Lovins will be one of approximately 20 speakers ranging from leading venture capitalists, attorneys and researchers.
GTEA’s mission statement is to help participants “learn to recognize, develop and bring to market green businesses built on [participants’] research,” according to its website.
“[Lovins] will be talking specifically about opportunities in Green Technology,” Hargadon said. “He’s a very well-knownscientist in the field of climate change and technical solutions. He and RMI are leading the way.”
RMI, a nonprofit, independent, “think-and-do-tank” is headquartered in Snowmass, Colo., and dedicated to fostering “the efficient and restorative use of resources to make the world secure, just, prosperous and life-sustaining,” according its website’s mission statement.
“Right now we’re focusing on the oil endgame,” saidMissy Morgan, executive assistant to Lovins,regarding current objectives of RMI. “We are working on becoming independent of oil altogether as a planet, winning the oil endgame.”
In a long career of work in the field of green technology, Lovins has most recently led the redesign of $30 billion worth of facilities for radical energy and resource efficiency, and was awarded the Timemagazine Hero of the Planet Award, Morgan said.
Lovins is also a board member of the Energy Efficiency Center at UC Davis, which works on identifying and helping to commercialize solutions in energy sustainability.
“This is a great opportunity to meet a leader in the field who is impacting both business and research,” Hargadon said.
Participants in the Academy are expected to gain knowledge of the skills needed to recognize, develop and communicate potential commercial and knowledge distribution opportunities arising from their research and how to tap the social networks linking them to the entrepreneurial community.
Students from across the country are invited to attend the Academy, which will be accepting applications up until May 16 for the 50available spots.
CHARLES HINRIKSSON can be reached at campus@californiaaggie.com.
