General Information

National University Clean Energy Business Challenge
Win $200,000 in Prizes and Start a New Company

First Look West (FLoW) invites student teams throughout the Western U.S. to participate in the Department of Energy’s first ever business plan competition for clean energy.

FLoW offers a first prize of $100,000, a second place prize of $60,000 and third place prize of $40,000. In addition to prize money, FLoW offers mentoring programs, legal start-up packages, and the opportunity to pitch to investors who can help student entrepreneurs transform innovative ideas into commercial reality.

You may enter the competition with a ready-to-go business or a business concept (promising idea). Accepted submissions in both categories will receive mentoring, but only the ready-to-go business submissions will be eligible for entry into the national competition. However, FLoW will offer recognition for the Promising Ideas category at the Regional Awards event, May 1, 2012, in Pasadena.

Finalists will also be automatically accepted into the Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy (GTEA), offered by the Child Family Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, at UC Davis, June 25 – 27, 2012. Taught by venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, university faculty, industry executives and angel investors GTEA is a premiere academic program for commercializing green tech innovations.

Also, the national and international Cleantech Open (CTO) will accept the top three FLoW competition finalists as semifinalists in the 2012 Cleantech Open competition, cover their application fees and provide them all benefits enjoyed by other semifinalists, including attending the Cleantech Open National Academy-West Coast. Over three days students will attend intensive business education seminars, given by experts, on such topics as Business Plan Essentials; Patents and Trade Secrets; Finding & Understanding the Customer; The Business Model–How Will You Make Money?; Fund-raising and Presentation Skills.

Students attending accredited universities throughout the Western United States can submit an application by the deadline of February 28th, 2012. The final judging will be held at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena California on April 30 and May 1, 2012.

The FLoW competition is one of six awarded regionally as part of a three-year, $2 million DOE program. The winning teams from six regions will compete at a competition held at the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. in June 2012.