Anyone who has been a parent knows that if we pay attention, we can learn a lot from our children. After years of being both a father and an entrepreneur, it dawned on me that most kids are born entrepreneurial by nature. Young children exhibit many of the characteristics that are the essence of great entrepreneurs. So, good news: If you act a little bit (more…)

Israel NewTech is launching an exciting new tool to showcase Israeli companies’ projects in the cleantech arena throughout the world – the CleanTech Map. This Facebook application allows visitors to view Israeli cleantech projects and installations anywhere in the world. Visitors simply go into the map, and search by either category and subcategory (for example – (more…)

“Israel has some of the largest and most innovative water projects in the world,” said Peter Tunnicliffe, Executive VP Global Market Development at CDM Smith. Tunnicliffe spoke as part of a delegation of over 40 heads of water solution companies, investors and government representatives who are in Israel this week, meeting with Israeli start-up companies and (more…)

The bubble has burst. The hype and euphoria of 2008 and 2009 is a distant memory. Fueled in part by the externality of the stimulus handouts from the stimulus package, and the (now fleeting) spike of natural gas and oil prices, cleantech has experienced its own mini dotcom era now followed by a dot bomb phase.

The politicization of Solyndra, the fracking revolution (more…)

Clean energy innovation in the United States is moving to financially friendlier shores—like China

Looking at 2011 VC investment figures, it seems like the cleantech industry in the United States is doing just fine. According to the Cleantech Group, a market intelligence advisory group based in San Francisco (more…)

Here’s the main reason I couldn’t get within a million miles of an elected position in the US: I wouldn’t vote for the political grandstanding represented by legislation like the “No More Solyndras” Act. I wouldn’t be a part of obscuring from the American people that energy sector loan guarantees from the federal government have resulted in a huge number (more…)

A recent Forbes article, Why Great Ideas Fail, attempts to answer this question and offer guidance towards improved business innovation success. Drilling to the heart of the issue, the post explains that it is not the idea but more often the culture that fails. Instead of confining creativity to a closed-off lab, the concept of an open innovation model is (more…)

We all know that Silicon Valley is the beating heart of the tech industry, with large corporations, tiny start-ups, entrepreneurs and the finance community all living, working and drinking coffee together. (This last bit isn’t a throw away reference to our increasing addiction to the black magic bean, but to an article I read in Harvard Business Review in 2010 which said (more…)

While business sustainability and economic growth are the ultimate goals of most companies, evidence shows that these effort are best served by a strong and stable work environment. Our sustainability consulting finds that successful business sustainability cultures focus on communication and (more…)

Yesterday, the Commerce Department announced that it would impose duties as high as 4.73% on solar energy equipment imported from China. Stemming from a complaint lodged with the government last year by a group of solar manufacturing companies led by SolarWorld, this latest round was expected. (more…)