On November 15, 2013, the Energy Club at MIT’s Sloan School of Management hosted the third Energy Business Bootcamp (EBB).  The all-day event combined academic professionals with select energy industry experts and business leaders from Boston, New York, and beyond to highlight innovative technologies and current energy industry issues.  The MIT Energy Club at Sloan creates unique opportunities for MBA students to engage the energy industry, and, in conjunction with the more broad MIT Energy Club, hosts about 100 events per year, from mixers, lectures, and discussions to their flagship event, the MIT Energy Conference (February 21-22, 2014).

The EBB kicked off with a presentation from Ajay Mehta, Project Manager at Shell International Exploration and Production (E&P).  He opened with a discussion of Shell’s current operations along with commonly-used oil and gas industry terms and structure.  A brief history of offshore drilling was next, and Ajay described the ’90s deepwater industry as “akin to space exploration.”  Ajay explained his work on Shell’s “Perdido” project and expressed optimism towards the Gulf of Mexico ultra-deepwater industry, Brazil’s offshore potential, and a few of Shell’s natural gas projects “Pearl” and “Prelude“.

The next presenter was Rachael Goydan, Senior Manager, Strategy and Planning, Energy and Resources at Deloitte Consulting.  As a leader in innovation, Rachael highlighted the Deloitte Analytics “Highly Immersive Visual Environment” or “HIVE”, a physical environment to more quickly and effectively analyze data.  To conclude, Rachael touched upon the Innovation Partnership Program, an executive program to spur global economic development and business commerce.

The third speaker was Energy Solutions Forum (ESF) Founder and CEO, Angelique Mercurio.  Angelique opened with “U.S. energy policy 101,” emphasizing the importance of policy in every aspect of the energy industry, from carbon markets to renewable technology, power generation, and beyond.  She stressed the fragmented nature of U.S. energy policy, with thousands of policymakers across federal, state, and local levels, creating an information access problem. ESF is working to address this major data access issue through its enterprise software, EnerKnol.  Angelique highlighted ESF’s dedication to move the energy industry forward through efficient access to energy policy information.

After the lunch break, Dr. Matthew Silver, Founder and CEO of Cambrian Innovation – a 2006 MIT spinout – presented opportunities in bioelectricity and advances in electrochemistry. He described how Cambrian helps convert wastewater into clean water and energy through electrically active microbes, and their recent commercial-scale launch of EcoVolt.

Next, Peter Zschokke, Director of Regulatory Strategy at National Grid, discussed Smart Grid innovation and how to enhance grid reliability and reduce costs.  He described the emergence of local (solar) energy production and associated DC power as “the ghost of Thomas Edison”.  Peter explained how local power generation and microgrid technology will require new infrastructure, pricing, and regulatory frameworks – a daunting challenge.

To finish the day, Matthew Nordan, Vice President at Venrock, provided an upbeat presentation on energy business from the venture capital perspective. He stressed the challenges with venture-stage investing in energy companies, as they typically have a long commercialization period (as compared to software technology plays).  Matthew concluded with a discussion of a select few Venrock energy portfolio companies – Phononic Devices, FINsix, and Nest.

Also showcased at the MIT Energy Business Bootcamp 2013 was a series of 10-minute “Student Perspective” presentations throughout the day.  The brief presentations gave the audience insight into various completed internship projects across oil and gas, consulting, government and policy, cleantech/startup, and energy finance sectors.

The MIT Energy Business Bootcamp 2013 was a great success, with stimulating two-way dialogue throughout the day driven by a diverse group of speakers and attendees.  ESF would like to recognize the MIT Sloan team of Mayank Agarwal, Mustafa Ali, Ricky Ashenfelter, Rupali Chawla, Meltem Demirors, Shaun Githuku, Nick Graham, Deepika Goyal, Luis Macias-Navarro, Tom Muscolo, Lydia Ng, Vincent Nguyen, and Zaahir Papar for organizing and hosting this great event!

 

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