Little Duck Leaves the Nest

Good news from our friends at the Newburyport CleanTech Center (NCTC) who have announced their first "graduate." A non-profit business incubator, the Newburyport CleanTech Center (NCTC) was established in 2011 "to promote sustainability and clean technology in the greater Boston area,” said Bob O’Brien, president of the NCTC.

Now they've proudly nudged Little Duck Organics out of their incubator nest. Little Duck Organics, an innovator in healthy snacks for kids, thrived while at the NCTC storage facilities and is moving on to bigger horizons in Brooklyn, NY.

“Little Duck Organics is a great example of how innovative cleantech companies and the NCTC can collaborate to create eco-friendly companies and create jobs to promote sustainability,” said O'Brien.

For more info, check out: http://newburyportcleantech.com

Cleantech Job Opportunity

ACTION (Assoc. of Cleantech Incubators in New England) is seeking a flexible and action-oriented team player to join their staff. The selected candidate will effectively multi-task across various programs in support of ACTION’s mission, taking a strong and visible leadership role to varying degrees across ACTION’s activities, events and programs, with volunteer, intern and active member support, in a variety of areas.

The fellowship is expected to be offered as a regular full-time position with an annual base salary that may have some upside flexibility based on performance, contributions and results achieved. The selected candidate will work remotely most of the time, may ‘hotseat’ at a variety of ACTION incubators, and will routinely travel around the region promoting and supporting the ACTIONetwork membership and objectives. Most travel expenses will be reimbursed.

A business or technical graduate degree, technical proficiency, and an interest and some knowledge of the Cleantech industry are expected. A complete mastery of state of the art business management tools (local and web-based) is a strong plus. Consistency, reliability and a ‘get it done’ approach is a must.

While a minimum of 5 years professional experience is required, ideally in roles of increasing responsibility and leadership, ACTION is most interested in engaging with a detail-oriented, energetic, and creative individual who will come up to speed quickly and help scale our ‘start-up’ company and the entire ACTIONetwork.

ACTION has specific interest in hiring a veteran for this position.

Interested candidates should forward their resume, cover letter and references to info@actionnewengland.org ASAP with ACTION Fellow in the subject line.

The Association of Cleantech Incubators of New England (ACTION) is New England’s only network of cleantech incubators sharing the common goals of accelerating the growth and success of early-stage companies, strengthening the regional cleantech cluster, and creating more green jobs in New England.

NSIV Kicks-Off "Entrepreneur U"

First Seminar: "Avoiding Common Legal And Tax Mistakes of Start-Ups"

Come join the North Shore InnoVenture incubator team on Wednesday July 20^th at 8 a.m. at the Cleantech Center in Lynn for the first meeting of Entrepreneur U, a series of seminars on key business issues for early-stage business leaders.

Entrepreneur U

The objective is to give member companies in the NSIV Incubator system a comprehensive introduction to important issues and functional skills needed to successfully build a business.  Topics will run from basic legal issues, to setting up your accounting and IT systems, to building your team and finding funding.  Each month, an expert from our team of sponsors, mentors and advisers will cover a key topic that you need to know.

These seminars are not about your cool technology or awesome business concept but instead cover the basic nuts and bolts of running an early-stage business with limited resources.  The focus is not on theory but on the essential and practical issues that you need to deal with now.
 

Wed., July 20: Avoiding Legal & Tax Mistakes

Kicking off the series, are Nicola Lemay and Bob Warren of Foley Hoag  "Avoiding Common Legal And Tax Mistakes of Start-Ups." 

Nicola Lemay, JD, MBA, is a partner at Foley Hoag LLP and is the Chair of the firm's Taxation Department. Bob Warren, JD, CPA, is a corporate attorney at Foley Hoag LLP counseling entrepreneurs and venture capitalists on a wide range of issues in support of their companies’ growth, from corporate formation to compensation strategies and liquidity transactions.   

All current NSIV incubator members, candidate companies, sponsors, mentors and advisers are invited.

The seminar will open with coffee and informal networking to get warmed up.  Presenters will then cover the key issues in an interactive presentation that will run about an hour.  They will  stick around for questions and one-on-one office hours to deal with your company specific concerns.  In addition to other entrepreneurs, many of our sponsors, mentors and advisers will also be there, so there will be plenty of opportunity to discuss the issues, make valuable connections and get additional input.

The event is free but help us to plan by sending an email to Laura Van Drie at intern@nsiv.org.  You can also register on site on Wednesday.

U-Launch Program: Helping Clean Tech Start-Ups Get to Market

At this morning’s Sustainability Forum, our pal and founding member Eric Graham announced U-Launch – a brand new grant opportunity that will fund commercialization assistance for early-stage start-ups and university-originated clean energy technologies. By offering grants and venture creation services up to $100K, the group will focus U-Launch specifically on enabling university clean energy technologies to progress to the commercial stage.

Eric, who is director of Fraunhofer’s Techbridge Program, was quoted as saying“The New England region is a leading center of innovation and perfectly positioned to facilitate revolutionary new technologies in the clean energy space.”

The U-Launch program will be jointly administered by Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems (CSE), the New England Clean Energy Council (the Council), the Association of Cleantech Incubators of New England (ACTION), and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC).
Applications will be accepted through the end of 2010.The first round of U-Launch grants will be awarded in early 2011. Information for interested parties, including university researchers, technology licensing officers and potential applicants, can be found on-line on the TechBridge U-Launch page.
More to come on the lovely and talented Betsy Blaisdell who, as environmental steward for Timberland, gave us new insights into the shoemaker’s “earthkeeper” efforts.