With our established track record of success in classes and events in 2017, we have been making some plans to expand our offerings in 2018.
New for 2018 will be our “Cleantech MeetUps”, eventually on a monthly schedule. CleanStart, in collaboration with the Sac State College of Engineering and Computer Science and other sponsors soon, is starting a series of these meetings. Each of these will feature 2-3 companies that are already in operation making presentations and answering your questions. The first will be on January 25 starting at 5:30 pm, with details still being arranged. The focus of this first one will be on energy management in the home. Others are being planned around batteries, electric vehicles, solar, and biofuels. You will be surprised at how clever our local companies are. The January 25 MeetUp is free and very informal, so plan to attend. Over the course of these MeetUps, you will get to hear from the majority of our local “Cleantech 100”. They will enjoy getting your feedback and appreciate getting better known.
Last year, over 150 people attended our classes and gave them rave reviews. We are continuing these classes on advanced topics this year, and planning sessions already on crowdfunding ( a follow-up to our highly successful first session in 2017), best practices in dealing with your investors, understanding how to apply for funding from the ARB and CEC, how best to manage your intellectual property, and what the bitcoin opportunity may mean for clean tech [See blog].
We are also looking for other ways to showcase our companies and to connect them to investors. We will be helping companies get well-prepared to participate in pitchfests being organized by other groups in the area and doing our own coaching and bootcamp sessions.
If you have suggestions for us, let us know. We are more than halfway to our goal of $5 billion in revenue and 10,000 jobs in the core cleantech sector. We want to be sure we get there as fast as we can.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gary Simon is the Chair of CleanStarts Board. A seasoned energy executive and entrepreneur with 45 years of experience in business, government, and non-profits.