Are you an innovator? Do you have an emerging business or solution related to energy, climate, sustainability, or cleantech? Are you ready to take your innovation or business to the next level? The PowerNorth Virtual Incubator is a 10-week program tailored for early-stage energy and cleantech entrepreneurs in Minnesota.

Innovation Crossroads, a Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program, is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office, Building Technologies Office, Office of Electricity, Office of Science Advanced Scientific Computing Research program, and the Tennessee Valley Authority that leverages Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s unique scientific resources and capabilities and connects the nation’s top innovators with experts, mentors, and networks in technology-related fields to take world-changing ideas from research and development to the marketplace.

Innovation Crossroads is a two-year program for fellows focusing on energy and advanced manufacturing technologies. Through an annual national call and competitive stage-gate process, top entrepreneurial-minded fellows are selected to join the program. Selected innovators receive a fellowship that includes a personal living stipend, along with health insurance and travel allowance, a substantial grant to use on collaborative R&D at ORNL, and comprehensive mentoring assistance to build a sustainable business model.

Chain Reaction Innovations (CRI) is a two-year fellowship program at Argonne National Laboratory for innovators focused on clean energy and science technologies. Through an annual call, four to six individuals are selected to join CRI. It is part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program (LEEP), one of four ‘nodes’. The others are located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Lead the future of innovation at your higher education institution with the VentureWell Ecosystem Futures Fellowship. This new fellowship is an evolution of our Course & Program Grants that focuses on scalable science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) ecosystem solutions through the lens of environmental and social sustainability and inclusive innovation. This program offers professional development, immersive learning experiences, and a supportive community of leaders. It enhances the role of faculty and higher education leaders as ecosystem builders in partnership with industry and government.

Sponsored by the Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the American-Made EnergyTech University Prize (EnergyTech UP) challenges student teams to compete for cash prizes for successfully identifying a promising energy technology, assessing its market potential, and creating a business plan for commercialization. Faculty are challenged to create innovative implementation plans that expand energy technology commercialization.

Students: Develop and present a business plan that leverages National Laboratory-developed or other emerging energy technologies developed by students, faculty, or industry. Throughout the competition, they receive mentorship and materials to help them succeed, all while competing for more than $400,000 in cash prizes.

Faculty: Develop and implement educational activities to engage more students in energy technology commercialization and entrepreneurship topics at their institution. While faculty have always been, and remain, welcome and encouraged to mentor a team competing in EnergyTech UP, this new track is designed to incentivize and support faculty directly, with more than $100,000 in cash prizes available.

Third Derivative and RMI are launching the Industrial Innovation Cohorts. Enabled by a $2M grant from The Lemelson Foundation, we’re launching the Industrial Innovation Cohorts initiative to source, select, and support the most promising innovations in cement and concrete, iron and steel, and chemicals decarbonization.

For startups, this initiative represents an opportunity to get their innovation to market faster through a founder-friendly accelerator program designed with their needs in mind. For our collaborators, it means a front-row seat to the most exciting startups working on industrial decarbonization and access to novel research and analysis on innovation in these sectors.

The Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential (SCALEUP) Ready program provides a vital mechanism for the support of innovative energy R&D that complements ARPA-E’s primary focus on early-stage transformational energy technologies that require proof of concept. This program focuses only on scaling and pre-pilot projects of promising technologies that ARPA-E has previously funded. A SCALEUP Ready award would substantially build upon innovations achieved under the original ARPA-E award.

This opportunity is designed to reduce risks for deployments, increase the potential for commercial adoption through longer-duration demonstrations (expected to last six months to two years), and offer additional benefits to help quickly advance WECs. This includes the ability to identify and mature high-potential WEC technologies, reduce financial risks for developers and incentivize investors, progress technologies at smaller scales while developing toward utility scale, and increase learning for installation, operations, and maintenance.

The Climate Change Investment Initiative (2c2i) is a 10-year, $20 million, joint commitment between Exelon Corporation and its philanthropic arm, Exelon Foundation, to invest in and cultivate innovative start-ups focused on advancing climate change mitigation, adaptation and resiliency efforts, while also promoting social equality and economic prosperity, in Exelon’s service territories. Through the combined resources of Exelon Foundation ($10 million equity investment commitment) and Exelon Corporation (up to $10 million in-kind service commitment), 2c2i supports innovative start-ups that catalyze solutions to climate change challenges within Exelon’s major market areas, while advancing social equality and economic prosperity. Specifically, we’re looking for startups focused on any aspect of sustainability (e.g. GHG mitigation, climate resiliency, etc.), that are currently doing work, or have the potential to do work, that impacts any of Exelon Corporation’s six major markets—Atlantic City, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Wilmington, DE.

The FLIPspace: Advanced Mobility Northwest Arkansas pilot program is a seven-month initiative that focuses specifically on addressing the transportation challenges of the region, offering participants the opportunity to develop and commercialize new mobility technologies that will shape the future of transportation. Throughout the experience, teams will gain a deep understanding of tech transfer, with support from the FLC FLEX Program, to refine their market research skills and evaluate federal technologies in a competitive business landscape. Participants will collaborate with industry leaders and expert mentors to shape their ideas into market-ready solutions that address real-world challenges in transportation and mobility.