COURSE NUMBER: MBA 212A.1
To ensure that C2M teams
can begin meaningful work on the first day of class, C2M DOES NOT ALLOW
ADD/DROP. This is consistent with other client-based consulting
courses at Haas.
This course is cross-listed
with the EWMBA Program.
COURSE TITLE: Cleantech to
Market
UNITS OF CREDIT: 3
INSTRUCTORS: Beverly Alexander & Brian Steel
E-MAIL ADDRESSES: balexander@berkeley.edu, bsteel@berkeley.edu
COURSE WEB PAGES:
http://ei.haas.berkeley.edu/education/c2m/, http://ei.haas.berkeley.edu/education/c2m/c2m-course.html, http://ei.haas.berkeley.edu/education/c2m/course-details.html
PREREQUISITE(S): No firm prerequisites; however, Energy & Environmental Markets
is helpful.
CLASS FORMAT: Lectures, guest speakers, in-class teamwork; in-class mentoring.
REQUIRED READINGS: Given the dynamic nature of cleantech markets,
C2M develops a custom reading list every year tailored to the specific projects
in the course. Because most cleantech information
is out of date by the time it is published, many of our readings are from the
Internet.
BASIS FOR FINAL
GRADE: 65% team performance: market report (~100 pages, half analysis and half
interview notes and appendices) and symposium presentation (30-minute presentation to a public symposium of 100+ cleantech professionals and a one-hour debriefing with your
scientist). 35% individual performance: teamwork and participation,
including peer feedback surveys.
CAREER FIELD: The many industries that comprise cleantech,
including energy, environment, green chemistry and water. Also skills
that cross industries, such as finance, product development, project management,
and manufacturing.
ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S
CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
Cleantech to Market is a cross-disciplinary,
capstone project course in which graduate students apply their core courses as
well as business, engineering, scientific, and legal knowledge to help define
and improve pathways to market for cleantech research.
Students are drawn from up to 20 different graduate programs at UCB including
Haas, the College of Engineering, the Energy & Resources Group, many
science programs, Berkeley Law and the Goldman School of Public Policy.
Over 15-weeks, students
produce in-depth market assessments of inventions from existing startups,
top-tier universities such as UCB, Stanford, Caltech, USC, Princeton, and
nationally acclaimed DOE labs and programs such as ARPA-E and the Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory. Students work in four to six-person teams
and collaborate as a class to support each other’s work. In addition, each team
interviews at least 40 subject matter experts and reviews at least 40 different
written sources on their technology. The course culminates in teams
presenting their findings (1) at an all-day, public seminar for 100-200 energy
industry professionals and (2) privately to their technology partners.
For further details, see
C2M’s sample Syllabus at http://ei.haas.berkeley.edu/education/c2m/docs/Sample_C2M_Syllabus.pdf (we
update the syllabus every year to support the new round of projects).
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES:
Beverly Alexander is the Founding Director of the Cleantech to Market program, and has been involved in
energy and environmental innovation for almost 30 years. Bev serves as an
advisor to the Berkeley Energy & Resources Collaborative, and won the 2013
Berkeley-Haas Best Case award for a cleantech
commercialization case study on Alphabet Energy. She is also a member of
the Haas Club of 6 for excellence in teaching. As a Senior Vice-President
at Pacific Gas & Electric Company, she was in charge of customer services
and the largest energy efficiency, solar, and demand response programs in the
United States. Those programs moved $1.2 billion into the California economy
and won over 75 awards, including the United States Department of Energy's
Energy Star Sustained Excellence award. Bev also held Director, Chief Counsel,
and Vice President positions in generation,
transmission, distribution and customer services, with a focus on leadership
development and strategic planning. Before PG&E, Bev specialized in
emerging environmental law and policy. The National Law Journal recognized her
as one of the top 40 attorneys under the age of 40 in the United States for her
pioneering work. After PG&E, Bev consulted on clean energy solutions,
including sustainable communities. She received her B.A. in Environmental
Studies from UC Santa Cruz and her J.D. from UC Berkeley, where she was
Editor-in-Chief of Ecology Law Quarterly, and clerked on the United States
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Brian Steel is Co-Director of the Cleantech to
Market program to which he brings 30 years of business innovation and
leadership experience. He is a member of the Haas "Club of 6" for
teaching excellence. He is a member of the external advisory board of the
Innovation Incubation (a Wells Fargo/NREL joint venture). He is also a Senior
Advisor to Renewable Energy Trust and an advisor to the Berkeley Startup
Cluster. In addition, he has served as an advisor to the Department of Energy,
working on both renewable energy financing and solar initiatives. Prior to
joining the UC Berkeley faculty, Brian was Vice President of Corporate Strategy
& Development for PG&E Corporation, where he led the energy industry’s
first tax-equity solar project financing by an investor-owned utility,
investing $400 million in nearly $1 billion of photovoltaic assets from
2010-2011. Prior roles include Chairman, International, Pandora Media – the
world’s leading Internet radio company; President, International, Overture
Services – building a billion-dollar division of Yahoo! with operations in 20
countries; President and CEO, Idealab Silicon Valley
and Managing Director of Idealab; and President and
COO, On Command. Previously, Brian was Senior Vice President and co-head of the
Real Estate Merchant Banking Group at Shearson Lehman Brothers. He has served
on the boards of more than 20 early-stage technology companies, several of
which went public, and many of which had successful acquisition exits. His
separate angel investments include LiveOps and Powerset (sold to Microsoft). Brian holds a B.A. magna cum
laude in Economics from Duke University, where he was an Angier B. Duke
Scholar.