World is Green

Stanford Graduate School of Business hosts the Centre for Social Innovation which aims to “inspire and educate social innovators, providing knowledge and ideas that strengthen the capacity of current and future leaders to champion social change”

The Centre shares its knowledge through the Social Innovation Review and the Social Conversations Podcasts. The podcasts provides debates and discussions on some of the important emerging themes in the social innovation area.

In the latest podcast, Eric Nee the co-host of the Social Innovation Conversations, discusses the growing Clean tech industry.

The internet boom was, in many ways, insane and wasteful. However, it was also rational and highly productive. What the boom did was kick-start an entire industry by bringing money and talent from around the world to an environment where doing something risky and even crazy was okay.

Today, we have the clean tech revolution. It hasn’t reached the frenzy of the internet boom, but it is gathering steam. Stanford University engineering students are flocking to courses on solar energy. Energy companies are setting up research centers in the San Francisco Bay Area. Venture capital firms have added solar energy and biofuel startups to their portfolios. And talent from around the world is once again flocking to startups.

There are even signs that investments in clean technology are getting a bit crazy—and this fact is a good sign. There are two companies, Planktos and Climos, which have an innovative and controversial (some say crazy) way to rid the atmosphere of excess carbon dioxide. Their plan is to grow vast fields of plankton out in the middle of the ocean that would ingest carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sink to the bottom of the sea. Planktos already has a 115-foot research vessel out in the Pacific experimenting with the process of growing carbon-eating plankton.

If you are at all interested in the clean tech revolution, you’ll want to listen to the two panel discussions we now have on tap—dubbed Climate of Capital Change. These discussions include a number of people who are involved in the clean tech industry—including venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, engineers, and consultants. One of them is Dan Whaley, the founder and CEO of Climos, who interestingly enough was also involved in the internet boom, having founded Waiters on Wheels and Get-There.com.

Check out the related podcasts.

The Climate of Capital Change: Social Entrepreneurs
The Climate of Capital Change: Funding a Cleaner World