Visit our "EnergyTech UP Regional Explore Events" tab for student Explore Phase presentation details and our "EnergyTech UP Faculty Track" tab for faculty track details. Students present to judges on February 27, 28, and 29. The Faculty Track Implementation Plan submission deadline is April 5, 2024. The entry form for the Faculty Track opens on March 1.
Overview
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.
Starting in 2024, EnergyTech UP offers the ability for both students and faculty to compete in their own respective tracks.
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 part of $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 $100,000 in cash prizes available.
About the Prize
This prize is sponsored by DOE’s OTT, as well as several other program offices. EnergyTech UP, in partnership with American-Made Challenges, is designed to be approachable, equitable, and scalable nationwide. Winners are chosen based on the strength of their business proposals. Participating students are provided with a curated list of National Lab technologies that are ready for commercialization and that can be used for their business plan.
Prize Structure for Student Competitors
Student teams compete for more than $400,000 in cash prizes as they explore business opportunities for lab-developed or other high-potential energy technologies, assess commercialization opportunities through market analysis, and present a viable business plan to industry judges.
Understanding that energy is often inherently local, competitor teams first present at their designated regional events in February, where regional finalists are identified. Teams that are invited to participate in the regional events receive free access to OTT’s Energy I-Corps curriculum. Finalists are provided exclusive mentorship to help students refine their ideas throughout February and March. Finally, the finalists pitch their complete business plan as part of Zpryme’s 2024 Energy Thought Summit in Austin, Texas on April 15, 2024.
Prize Structure for Faculty Competitors
The faculty track is designed for educators who may benefit from mentorship and resources to create an implementation plan for their blossoming ideas for integrating or expanding energy technology commercialization or entrepreneurship activities at their home institution.
Faculty (or faculty teams) will compete for part of the $100,000 prize pool through three phases of competition. They will develop a proposal to expand energy technology commercialization or entrepreneurship activities at their home institution; receive access to a DOE mentor and DOE resources; and work toward showing how their plans could be integrated into student activities.
How to Compete
Are you a collegiate student or faculty member interested in transitioning energy technologies to market? The EnergyTech University Prize is for you! Here are next steps you can take to get started:
Indicate your interest in competing by filling out this interest form
Sign up to compete on HeroX, the official competition platform.
Learn about DOE National Lab-developed energy technologies to use for this competition on the OTT Lab Partnering Service.
Send questions about EnergyTech UP to .
2024 Important Dates
Please see the official timeline in HeroX for the most current schedule of events. All dates are subject to change, including contest openings, deadlines, and announcements.
Congratulations to the three faculty winners and five runners-up in the inaugural EnergyTech University Prize (EnergyTech UP) Faculty Track! First-, second-, and third-place winners were awarded $25,000, $15,000, and $10,000, respectively. Additionally, five faculty runners-up were awarded $2,000 each.
The EnergyTech UP Faculty Track supported faculty members at collegiate institutions as they explored, developed, and implemented educational activities to engage more students in energy technology commercialization and entrepreneurship at their institution. The track offered $100,000 in cash prizes throughout its three phases.
Congratulations to our EnergyTech UP 2024 Faculty Track winners!
First Place, earning $25,000: Maryam Younessi Sinaki, PhD, Cleveland State University (Cleveland, OH)
Second Place, earning $15,000: Brien Walton, J.D. Ed.D., Husson University (Bangor, ME)
Third Place, earning $10,000: Kassandra McQuillen, J.D., Texas Tech University (Lubbock, TX)
Additionally, we congratulate the five Faculty Track runners-up, earning $2,000 each (organized alphabetically by last name):
Derek Abrams, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (Edinburg, TX)
Mohammad Biswas, University of Texas at Tyler (Tyler, TX)
Gary Koenig, the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA)
Dawen Li, The University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, AL)
Irene Reizman, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (Terre Haute, IN)
EnergyTech UP is a collegiate competition for both students and faculty, aimed at growing clean energy entrepreneurship. The Office of Technology Transition has announced the upcoming launch of EnergyTech UP 2025, which will again offer students and faculty members cash prizes for their efforts in energy entrepreneurship.
The 2025 program will open in fall 2024 and both tracks will begin competing in early 2025. Follow EnergyTech UP on HeroX for updates on the 2025 competition.
Congratulations to the student winners of the EnergyTech University Prize 2024! The announcement was made on April 15 at the conclusion of the National Pitch Event during Zpryme’s Energy Thought Summit in Austin, Texas.
During the event, the 28 finalist teams pitched their business plans to a panel of industry judges. At the conclusion of the event, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Technology Transitions announced the three National Winners and 13 Bonus Prize Winners.
First Place, awarded $50,000: Team Rise Reforming from The University of Chicago
Entry: Rise Reforming
Second Place, awarded $20,000: Team ProPika from the University of Arkansas
Entry: Biomass to Jet Fuel
Third Place, awarded $10,000: Team Ion Clean PV from Hawai’i Pacific University
In addition, 13 teams took home bonus prizes—and $22,000 in cash each—in the following categories.
Office of Technology Transitions
Undergraduate-Only Winner: Team GarboCarbo from theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Harvard University, and the University of California, Berkeley
Entry: GarboCarbo: Cleaning Paper & Construction Sectors
National Lab IP Licensing: Team EcoGrains from the University of Notre Dame
Team HeatVault from the Georgia Institute of Technology
Entry: HeatVault: Heat Recovery as a Service
Geothermal Technologies Office
Team Geo@MIT from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Entry: Advanced GDHC/Thermal Storage Systems at Colleges
Hydrogen Fuel Technologies Office
Team ECHO Solutions from theUniversity of Houston
Entry: Electrochemical Carbon and Hydrogen from the Ocean
Office of Electricity
Team FlowCellutions from theUniversity of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University
Entry: Flow Battery Diagnostics for Energy Reliability
Team OptiGen from Duke University
Entry: OptiGen-State of the Art Power Generation Dispatch
Team ClimateWatt from Rice University
Entry: MASTERRI: Making Electric Grids Happy & Resilient
Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management
Team EarthFlow AI from Stanford University
Entry: EarthFlow AI: Accelerating Subsurface Clean Energy
Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains
Team COMPScan from Texas A&M University
Entry: COMPScan: Saving Money in the Air
Office of Nuclear Energy
Team Molten Salt Consulting from Snow College
Entry: Molten Salt Consulting Inc.
Solar Energy Technologies Office:
Team Agrivoltaic Design Studio from Cornell University
Entry: Agrivoltaic Design Studio
Water Power Technologies Office
Team KelpNext from the University of Michigan
Entry: KelpNext
Congratulations to all of the competing teams on their accomplishments throughout EnergyTech UP! And don’t forget that next year’s competition will be underway soon—check back here to stay up to date on how to get involved.
The prize’s 28 Regional and Technology Bonus Prize Finalists will be presenting their innovative ideas for commercializing a promising energy technology to a panel of industry judges on Monday, April 15, during the Energy Thought Summit in Austin, Texas. This year, teams can win any prizes they’re eligible for—not just for the categories in which they were named finalists!
Anyone attending the conference is invited to attend the National Pitch Event—then hear the big winner announcement at that evening’s closing event! Not attending? Access the event livestream and complete event schedule on the EnergyTech UP 2024 National Pitch Event page. And be sure to check HeroX after the event to catch up on which teams earned National Winner titles and cash prizes.
The final event of the EnergyTech University Prize 2024 is happening April 15 at Zpryme’s Energy Thought Summit (ETS) in Austin, Texas! Learn more about the National Pitch Event, including the student pitch order, what students will win, and how to livestream the event.
During the National Pitch Event, the competition’s 15 Regional and 13 Bonus Prize Finalists will present their innovative energy-focused business pitches to a panel of industry judges in the hopes of taking home winner status and a cash prize.
At the conclusion of the pitches, three National Winners will be selected, and 13 Bonus Prize Winners will be announced.
Student teams can win any of the prizes they’re eligible for—in other words, a Bonus Prize Finalist could become a National Winner, or a Regional Finalist could take home a Bonus Prize. Additionally, students are eligible to win more than one prize.
Regardless of the outcome, the finalist teams gain valuable experience during their time at ETS. The conference offers key networking opportunities, exposure to many great educational sessions, the chance to practice pitching in front of their peers, and so much more.
Faculty, don’t forget the Faculty Track Implement Phase deadline is coming up April 5 at 11:59 p.m. ET! Whether or not you previously applied to the Faculty Explorer phase, and whether or not you were selected as a Faculty Explorer, all eligible faculty members are welcome to enter their proposals to the final competition phase. Prior submission or selection is not a pre-requisite or barrier.
Proposals should include how the proposed topic could be integrated into student activities along with a letter or letters of support signed by the relevant department chair or administrator such as an associate dean, dean, provost, or vice provost. The implementation plan submitted as part of this phase should include a timeline for implementation at the competitor’s home institution, and faculty should indicate if implementation is possible in the 2024/2025 academic year.
Up to eight faculty competitor teams will be identified as winners, earning the following prizes:
1st place: $25,000
2nd place: $15,000
3rd place: $10,000
Runners up (five in total): $2,000
To support faculty, we have hosted several training sessions. The recordings are available for review:
Additionally, the Office of Technology Transitions will host an Office Hours session for faculty on Friday, March 29, at 2 p.m. ET. Register here.
Important update: The rules indicate that faculty winners will be announced the week of April 15 in conjunction with Zpryme’s Energy Thought Summit, where student presentations will take place at the EnergyTech UP National Pitch Event. The faculty winner announcement will now occur the week of April 22. This does not impact the submission deadline.
If you have any questions around the Implement Phase submission, please reach out to . Don’t forget to upload your submission by 11:59 p.m. ET. Prize administrators highly recommend uploading your submission early to avoid any technical difficulties.
We look forward to seeing the energy entrepreneurship education implementation plans submitted by faculty soon!
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EnergyTech UP Faculty Track
Regional Explore Events
Regional Explore Events
The EnergyTech University Prize (EnergyTech UP) 2024 kicks off its first student milestone: The regional Explore Events. From Feb. 27–29, up to 225 student teams will present live, virtual pitches to panels of industry judges in their assigned regions.
Within the three regions—East, Central, West—teams will be divided into groups of up to 15 teams, each led by a partnering regional convener organization. Teams will then have 8 minutes to explain their idea to a panel of judges (5 minutes for their initial pitch and 3 minutes for a Q&A period).
At the end of each event, one team per group will be selected as Regional Finalists, winning $3,000. Additionally, all teams qualifying for a bonus prize will have their pitches reviewed by U.S. Department of Energy program offices to select the Technology, National Lab Intellectual Property Licensing, and Undergraduate-Only Bonus Prize Finalists.
All finalists will be invited to move on to compete for even bigger cash prizes in the National Pitch Event on April 15 at the Energy Thought Summit in Austin, Texas.
