A Presentation of a Worldwide Broadcast from MIT, followed by a Live Local Panel Discussion in Fort Lauderdale with South Florida entrepreneurs, plus Q&A and Networking
Thursday, May 21, 2009
6:00 p.m. Registration and Networking (refreshments served)
7:00 p.m. MIT Broadcast Begins
8:00 p.m. Panel Discussion and Q&A
8:45 p.m. Closing Remarks Followed by Networking
Registration: Save $10 by pre-registering online for $25. Tickets at the door are $35 cash or check (space permitting) and Students are $10 with ID.
Location:NOVA Southeastern University – H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship, Carl DeSantis Building, Davie Campus, 3301 College Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, 33314.
Overview:
With an abundance of sun, surf, and wind South Florida would seem like the ideal area for leading the nation’s move towards energy independence through the increased use of clean and renewable energies. Driven by last year’s record high oil prices, increased concern for the environment, and a desire to decrease dependence on foreign oil, entrepreneurs and government agencies have begun to work together to create innovative solutions to address these concerns. The MIT Enterprise Forum of South Florida proudly presents a Blue Ribbon panel of local entrepreneurs, academics, and legal experts to not only discuss the future of this new and exciting energy sector, but also how individuals can create companies and attain employment within the field.
Join the MIT Enterprise Forum for a fast-paced and “energetic” discussion of energy that will cover:
- which sectors are the current hot trends
- what areas are the funders most interested in
- what hype to believe and what to ignore
- what the government’s role is in stimulating growth
- what will transpire over the next 2, 5, 10+ years
REGISTER NOW AND SAVE $10.00 PER TICKET ($25.00 online before May 20th) FOOD & BEVERAGES WILL BE SERVED
The Global Broadcast Panel from MIT Cambridge will include:
William Aulet SM ’94, Senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Entrepreneur in Residence at the MIT Entrepreneur-ship Center, has 25 years of experience in technology business operations and financing. He started his career at IBM and then ran two private companies, Cambridge Decision Dynamics and SensAble Technologies. Most recently he helped engineer a dramatic turnaround at Viisage Technology as its Chief Financial Officer. He has created hundreds of millions of dollars of shareholder value by building focused, fundamentally sound businesses and has raised $100 million in institutional financing via private placements and public offerings. Mr. Aulet now works with students and start-up companies to build strategies and operating plans that will create sustainable value. He currently has a specific interest in energy where he conceived, developed and teaches a new graduate class at MIT called “Energy Ventures,” writes on the topic for Xconomy.com, and consults for large and small companies in the field. Bill also conceived, created and serves as the Chairman of the MIT Clean Energy Prize. He has given workshops to many corporate and government entities on innovation, entrepreneurship and corporate venture capital including the US Department of Energy where he has served on their Review Board for Entrepreneurship Grants. In Janaury 2008, Bill was a featured speaker at the seminal first World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi. He has an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a graduate degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he was a Sloan Fellow.
Christina Lampe-Onnerud is Founder and CEO, Boston-Power. Dr. Christina Lampe-Onnerud is a well-known authority in the battery industry. She has pioneered the use of lithium-ion and other materials to deliver more powerful, longer lasting, safer and cost-effective batteries for laptops, PDAs, cell phones and other electronic devices. Prior to founding Boston-Power, Dr. Lampe-Onnerud was one of the youngest partners ever appointed at Arthur D. Little/TIAX, where she ran the company’s globally-renowned battery labs, defined strategies for the world’s top chemical and battery organizations, and directed high-profile market evaluations. Earlier in her career, she served as a director and senior scientist at Bell Communications Research.
Awarded 15 patents in portable power solutions, with six patents pending, Dr. Lampe-Onnerud has been recognized among the 100 Top Young Innovators by MIT Technology Review. She has also served as keynote speaker on power issues at industry and government initiatives for more than 15 years. Dr. Lampe-Onnerud earned a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry and a BS in chemistry and calculus from Uppsala University in Sweden.
Bob Metcalfe ’68 is a General Partner at Polaris Venture Partners. Bob Metcalfe has been a venture capitalist at Polaris Venture Partners since 2001. Bob received the National Medal of Technology for leadership in the invention, standardization, and commercialization of Ethernet, of which 350 million ports were shipped last year, not counting WiFi.
Bob’s interest in energy, and his views on how lessons from internet history can be applied to solving energy, can be heard in his March keynote address at GreenNet09.
The LIVE Local Panel of South Florida Entrepreneurs will include:
Traver Gruen-Kennedy is an eco-industrialist and social entrepreneur. He is ranked by NetworkWorld magazine along with Bill Gates, John Chambers and Michael Dell as one of the “25 Most Powerful People in Networking”.
He serves as the Chairman and CEO of Reset Holdings Corporation – an emerging leader in clean fuel. The World Economic Forum named him a Technology Pioneer by for his contributions to technology and to society.
As a member of the executive team at DayJet he became an active participant in the ‘greening’ of aviation in the United States by establishing the environmental committee of the National Air Transportation Association. Working with the FAA, NASA and Governor Charlie Crist of Florida, Traver is accelerating the implementation and adoption of America’s Next Generation Transportation System (NextGen) in all airspace, aircraft and airports. He is Chair of the Alliance for Sustainable Air Transportation (ASAT) – a global organization actively working to reduce the carbon, noise and cost footprint of aviation. His work holds the promise to reduce air transportation emissions by an estimated 12-15%.
Traver works tirelessly supporting diverse business and humanitarian projects. His results range from ancient forest preservation in Ghana and coral reef protection in Haiti with One Village Planet; to establishing the world’s first Cyber Sister Cities fostering improved education, health and economic opportunities in developing communities; to the strategy creating global software leader Citrix Systems; to leading the application service provider movement of on-line computing evidenced by the success of companies such as Salesforce.com, MySpace, Facebook and Google. Traver has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Fortune magazine and in the global televised media such as CNBC, Sky News and CNN.
Gruen-Kennedy was Chief Strategist at Citrix Systems where he played a significant role in the company’s post-IPO growth to become one of the world’s largest software companies joining the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ 100. He served as Chair of Secure Florida the official public-private partnership working in cooperation with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for statewide preparedness and mitigation of cyber-security and cyber-terrorism.
Tim Van Epps is currently the Associate Director for the Center for Innovation Leadership in the College of Engineering & Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University. In this capacity his responsibilities include the development of the new Innovation Leadership Honors Program as well as the liaison between the Engineering & Computer Science faculty/staff and the Architects for the new “Green” Engineering Building on the Boca Raton campus of FAU. This project is currently striving to attain Platinum Certification, the highest level of LEED Certification possible. The name Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design seems to indicate that the product of this process is merely a good design. The LEED system, however, is considerably more far reaching. It is, in fact, a comprehensive methodology for tracking a structure’s complete lifecycle from concept to design, through construction to the operation of all aspects of the building. Attainment of the LEED Certification requires attention to detail at every step in the process to insure that our environmental impact has in fact been minimized.
Prior to joining FAU, Mr. VanEpps earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Master of Environmental Science both from Miami University of Ohio. His graduate area of concentration was in Environmental Simulation and Impact Analysis and his thesis was titled: “Quantitative Procedures for Water Quality Analysis and Power Plant Intake Evaluations.”
His work experience began in the Cincinnati office of the Dames & Moore consulting engineering firm working in the area of environmental impact with respect to fossil fueled power generating facilities. From there he moved to the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO), a regional water pollution control agency covering the entire Ohio River drainage basin. In this capacity he was responsible for the operation and maintenance of the Commission’s open channel flow water quality model, STREAM.
In 1981 Mr. VanEpps joined Armco Steel Inc. as an Industrial Engineer specifically to work on the development of a plant-wide energy management system. Upon completion of this five-year project he moved into the area of production planning and inventory control where he created a new scheduling algorithm for the Continuous Casting facility and ultimately became a Supervisor in charge of the Primary Operations of two fully integrated steel making plants. After seven years in the Production Planning area Mr. VanEpps assumed the position of Senior Staff Process Control Engineer assigned to the steel making department. This position included direct supervision of seven Process Control Engineers and responsibility for all process modeling in the shop. In December of 1999 he moved to an analogous position at the Hot Strip Mill.
Paul C. Savage is of counsel with the international law firm Greenberg Traurig. Mr. Savage is the Co-Chair of the firm’s Green Building and Sustainability Practice Group and designated as a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional (LEED® AP) by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). Working in the firm’s Miami office, he serves as Chair of the Green Building Committee of the Builders Association of South Florida (BASF), and was appointed to the Miami Green Commission for the City of Miami by Mayor Manny Diaz, where he helped craft the City’s core sustainability policy document, the Climate Change Action Plan. Most recently, Mr. Savage was selected to serve on the Board of Directors of the Florida Green Building Coalition (FGBC). Mr. Savage has more than 10 years of experience in governmental and environmental law, and he assists clients with environmental and land use issues in connection with green building projects. He also represents green building materials manufacturers from the solar, air conditioning and other industries in connection with energy efficiency and building code issues.
Brian Degnan, Moderator is an Associate with Greenberg Traurig, P.A., the eighth largest law firm in the United States with 1850 lawyers across 32 offices worldwide. Brian’s practice has focused on the area of transactional real estate, primarily working with large institutional and corporate clients in the acquisition, sale, leasing and development of commercial properties across the United States. Brian is also a member of the firm’s Green Building and Sustainability Practice Group and is one of only a handful of attorneys in the State of Florida to earn the distinction of LEED® Accredited Professional from the U.S. Green Building Council, the nation’s leading authority on sustainable real estate development. He is licensed to practice law in Florida, Massachusetts and Washington D.C.
Brian is also an active member in the community, serving on the Executive Board of the MIT Enterprise Forum of South Florida. He holds a J.D., Cum Laude, from the University of Florida, where he was instrumental in the founding of the Association for Law & Business and created and endowed the U.F. Law Annual Business Law Award. Brian also holds a S.B. in Management Science from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
