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U.S. Department of Energy Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Regional Competitions

Six Regional Clean Energy Business Plan Competitions are taking place across the country– representing all of the United States' distinct regions.

The regional competitions have completed their second year regional final competitions. Within each region unique panels of expert judges have selected a winning team to advance to the finals. The six regional winners received $100,000 in DOE prize money and a chance to compete for a National Grand Prize at a competition held in Washington, D.C. June 11-12, 2013.

Learn more about the 2013 finalists by visiting the links below:

And to learn more about other teams that have advanced to the National Competition, you can read about each 2012 finalist and runner-up teams by visiting the links below:

The Six Regional Competitions

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology logo.

Northeast Region Lead: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA) This awardee, which has successfully run the DOE and NSTAR sponsored MIT Clean Energy Prize for the past four years, will continue to build upon its renowned competition by actively engaging student energy communities throughout the Northeast, working to create a regional ecosystem of energy entrepreneurs, and by sharing and refining best practices with the other regional competitions.

The CleanTech logo.

Southeast Region Lead: University of Maryland (College Park, MD) The ACC Clean Energy Challenge will use the competitive nature of a collegiate sports conference as a model build off an existing foundation of clean energy research and entrepreneurship programs to catalyze student innovation across the southeast region.

The Clean Energy Trust logo.

Eastern Midwest Region Lead: Clean Energy Trust (Chicago, IL) This competition, Clean Energy Student Challenge, will capitalize on experience from three existing competitions including the Clean Energy Challenge, the Cleantech Open, and the Michigan Clean Energy Venture Challenge. The competition will also draw heavy support from regional researchers, venture capitalists, industry leaders, and entrepreneurs.

The Rice University logo.

Western Southwest Region Lead: Rice University (Houston, TX) This project will take its existing world class Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC) and create the DOE Clean Energy Prize, institutionalizing a sustained clean energy track within the RBPC while leveraging the existing resources (more than $1 million in prizes and over 250 judges) to catalyze clean energy technologies in the entire region.

The CleanTech logo.

Western Midwest Region Lead: University of Colorado (Boulder, CO) This competition supports the University of Colorado–Boulder's CU Cleantech New Venture Challenge, an annual student-based cleantech competition that helps develop partnerships between regional entrepreneurs and innovators with universities, national laboratories, and other organizations.

The First Look West (FLoW) logo.

Western Region Lead: California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA) This competition, First Look West (FLoW), will build on the successful collaborative model of First Look LA to bring universities into the FLoW consortium and in turn support entrepreneurial clean energy activities throughout the seven-state, two territory region. FLoW draws on a record of successfully engaging the triumvirate of faculty, student groups and investors in driving forward the transformation of university innovation into new ventures. FLoW will be administered by the California Institute of Technology, in partnership with University of Southern California and University of California–Los Angeles.

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