A few months ago, we posted an article about a “startup accelerator for clean tech”, a company called Greenstart. Greenstart is based in San Francisco, California and provides startup assistance to budding clean tech companies in the form of mentorship, office space, investor relationship building, and seed capital. To be eligible for what Greenstart refers to as their “startup boot camp”, prospective entrepreneurs must have the goal of either increasing the use of clean energy or decreasing the use of dirty energy. Greenstart finished up a successful three month program with four promising startups in December of 2011. If you would like to learn more about Greenstart or to follow the journey of the four startup companies Greenstart worked with in the Fall of 2011, you may visit www.greenstart.com.
With the new year, Greenstart has chosen a new cohort for their startup bootcamp. This cohort includes five clean tech startups, which were chosen from a pool of over 150 applicants. In a recent article written by Sarah Perez for a technology startup blog called Tech Crunch, these five startups were described as follows:
Growing Energy Labs
Founders: Ryan Wartena, Cris Wagner
Growing Energy Labs enables advanced communications between energy storage, generation and loads via their ‘micro-utility in a box’.
Twitter handle: @growingenergy
kWhOURS
Founders: Colin Davis, Greg Davis, Shobin Uralil
kWhOURS develops a mobile data collection and management software platform for building energy auditors, reducing the time and cost of performing energy audits.
Twitter handle: @kWhOURS
Ridepal
Founders: Nathalie Criou & Mark Melville
Ridepal makes it affordable and simple for any size company to offer employee shuttles.
Twitter handle: @RidePal
Scoot Networks
Founder: Michael Keating
Scoot is a stealth startup transforming local transportation.
Twitter handle: @ScootNetworks
Smart Grid Billing
Founder: Henrik Westergaard
Smart Grid Billing intelligently shifts small business and residential energy consumption off peak, selling the shifted watts as a ‘power producer’ to ISOs.
Twitter handle: @SGBill
You can follow the progress of these five companies as they move through Greenstart’s intensive program on the Greenstart blog at http://www.greenstart.com/blog
If clean tech or sustainable business practices in general are something that interests you, Gatlin International has several eLearning courses that you may wish to explore. Green Business and Sustainability Professional is a great course to prepare business professionals for the demands of an environmentally conscious business environment. Students who complete this course will have a working knowledge of green business principles, practices, and opportunities. Another great course offered by Gatlin International under the sustainability category is Green IT – Information and Communication Technology for a Sustainable Future. This course is designed to prepare working professionals and university-level students to be the sustainability leaders of the future. Students are taught practical tools used in managing the rapidly growing eco-footprint of the ICT systems we use, and educated on how to use ICT as an enabling tool to drive sustainable development.
If you are specifically interested in the clean tech industry, Gatlin International also offers several courses in this arena including Biofuel Production Operations, Solar Power Professional, and Wind Energy Professional. Visit the Gatlin International website and click on the Sustainability link in the course catalog for a full listing of all of the sustainable business courses Gatlin International has to offer.
Tags: Green Business, Green IT