CLT hosted DECC EEF “Towards Successful Commercialisation”

CLT developed and executed a very successful “Towards Successful Commercialisation” event on the 12^th November 2013 as part of the package of incubation support that they deliver to DECC for the Energy Entrepreneurs Fund (EEF). The venue was at maximum capacity with 140 registered attendees including over 75 directors of UK SME energy companies.

The event facilitated the sharing of best practice in technology innovation and commercialisation to increase the chance of success of EEF funded projects to market. It created opportunities for collaboration within the EEF funded projects group. A number of key strategic partnerships are forming out of event introductions.

To highlight the imperative for low carbon technology commercialisation we heard excellent keynote speeches from Energy Minister Michael Fallon, Programme manager Emma Owen, Chief Scientific Advisor David MacKay, and we heard from CLT’s Beverley Gower-jones.

To share potential pitfalls and share best practise Richard Reed of Innocent, Win Rampen of Artemis IP, Mark Lawson-Stratham of Intelligent Energy and Dynshaw Italia of Bluewater Bio shared experiences and inspired us all.

The day also included 6 workshops for start-ups to work on specific challenges they are facing in areas such as product design process requirements specification, predicting and manageing delay risks, test planning and trialling, alternative finance models for roll out, getting designed into the build environment, introducing new technologies into complex systems.

Delegates fed back positive feelings of “All/most start up face future funding issues, we are not alone in the challenges we are facing commercialising our technology, every project is different and needs to be considered on its own merits and that there are many ways to solve a single problem”…

“I learnt a lot about the innovation process and commercialisating technologies”

“Everything was useful: talks excellent, workshops excellent, networking excellent”

“It gave insights on where we are and what we are doing right/wrong”

The event was also an opportunity for DECC Monitoring Officers and Incubation Managers to further develop their relationships with grant recipients to enable enhanced level of commercialisation support to be provided to the projects. This was very well received with delegates commenting that key insights from the event were just how committed DECC is to supporting Energy Entrepreneurs and how helpful and knowledgeable everyone involved in the programme is.