The Future Climate Venture Studio brings together UConn, a national and global leader in interdisciplinary climate research; R/GA Ventures, a venture studio operator and early-stage investor; CT Next, Connecticut’s innovation agency; and additional partners from energy finance, venture capital, and technology.

The Studio’s mission is to identify, support, and collaborate with the startups addressing the most critical dimensions of the climate challenge, including decarbonization, alternative energy, planetary resilience, social impact, and more.

The Department of Transportation’s Thriving Communities Program (TCP) aims to ensure that disadvantaged communities adversely or disproportionately affected by environmental, climate, and human health policy outcomes have the technical tools and organizational capacity to compete for federal aid and deliver quality infrastructure projects that enable their communities and neighborhoods to thrive. Apply for the program two ways:

1. A Call for Letters of Interest (LOI): For eligible applicants to receive technical assistance, planning, or capacity building services. There is no cost requirement to participate, and DOT will prioritize helping the most under-resourced disadvantaged communities.
2. A Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO): For eligible applicants to provide technical assistance, planning, or capacity building services to help disadvantaged communities.

The Energy CLASS Prize is designed to provide training and cash prizes to school district administration and facilities staff to make energy management a sustainable feature of their communities while positioning them to make meaningful infrastructure improvements that will reduce utility costs, improve indoor air quality, and improve learning environments long-term. A total of $4.5 million in awards is available, including $3.75 million in cash prizes for selected LEAs to fund energy management professionals-in-training and an additional $750,000 in technical assistance from Energy CLASS Training Network partners. The Energy CLASS Training Network includes professional training organizations and energy efficiency experts who will provide training and support to Energy CLASS participants.

• Work with the LG NOVA Team to co-create new market opportunities and grow your business
• Get access to resources and potential investments from LG Electronics, LG Display, and other LG NOVA affiliates that could total in the millions of dollars
• Qualify for grant funding to support pilot, POCs and/or joint product development
• Co-collaborate with LG for potential opportunities to develop multi-million-dollar engagements as new businesses within LG’s global innovation portfolio.

Patents protect inventions so that inventors can focus on their work and be compensated for it. But many people don’t know how to navigate the patenting process, or even where to start. That’s why The Inventor’s Patent Academy was created. This free, one-of-a-kind, e-learning course aims to help people understand the patenting process and get them ready to apply for their own patent. It also explores challenges inventors may face along the way—particularly those that typically affect women, people of color, veterans, low-income individuals, people with disabilities, and other underrepresented inventors—and provides advice to overcome them.

This $5.75 million prize was launched by the Department of Energy’s Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) to pave the way for the cost-effective domestic manufacturing and deployment of commercial utility-scale floating offshore wind energy turbines in U.S. waters. Up to eight winning teams will receive $100,000 each in cash and $75,000 each in vouchers for technical support provided by DOE national laboratories. The winning Phase 1 submissions will be those teams that have:

• • Determined critical hurdles to the commercialization of their floating platform technology.
  • Demonstrated they can make significant progress toward identifying and developing a supply chain within the US to produce the technology.

The Regional Energy Accelerator for Commercializing Hardtech (REACH) is now accepting applications from energy hardtech startups, entrepreneurs, university faculty, and founders to join the 2023 cohort! Application deadline is November 18th, 2022 and teams will be notified by December 16th.

Project Enginuity, a National SBIR Accelerator, was designed to accelerate and empower Black, Hispanic, Latino and women innovators led by the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce’s Minority Business Partnership (DACC MBP) in collaboration with the Entrepreneurs’ Center (EC) and support from Chase.

Program participants receive expert training, which supports their application for necessary funding via Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards. Businesses that receive non-dilutive capital from SBIR are able to explore their technological potential, profit from commercialization and build long-term wealth.

The partnership helps to support and accelerate climate tech and clean energy hardware startups in the Greater Midwest. Partners support startups and small businesses via tailored accelerator programs, virtual and in-person events, sector-specific curriculum, mentorship, prototyping resources, and connections with industry.

IMPEL+ is a Department of Energy tech-to-market program focused on building technologies, funded by the Building Technologies Office and implemented by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Our program helps early-stage individuals from business, academia, and DOE’s national labs translate the premise and promise of their technology into the language of business, boosting their chances of bringing it to market. These IMPEL+ Innovators have a passion for the building lifecycle (design, construction, operations, and circular technologies) and for energy technologies that integrate with buildings (onsite renewables or grid integration incorporating electrification, energy storage, and electric vehicle charging).

Activate empowers scientists to reinvent the world by bringing their research to market. The two-year Activate Fellowship is the most immersive, supportive, and comprehensive program for early-stage hard-tech science entrepreneurs to access the funding, technical support, networking, community, and time they need at the outset of their entrepreneurial journeys. Activate does not charge any fees or equity to participate.

The purpose of the RCP Program is to reconnect communities by removing, retrofitting, or mitigating transportation facilities such as highways and rail lines that create barriers to community connectivity including to mobility, access, or economic development. The program provides technical assistance and grant funding for planning and capital construction to address infrastructure barriers, restore community connectivity, and improve peoples’ lives. The variety of transformative solutions to knit communities back together can include: high-quality public transportation, infrastructure removal, pedestrian walkways and overpasses, capping and lids, linear parks and trails, roadway redesigns and complete streets conversions, and main street revitalization