NSTAR's Keynote Speech Semi-Finals Announcements

Remarks of Joseph R. Nolan

 Senior Vice President, NSTAR

MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize and

$110K Entrepreneurship Competition

 Team Dinner, March 13, 2008

Introduction --- Recognition of Teams and Mentors

Good evening.  It’s a pleasure to join you tonight here in Cambridge.

Let me begin by congratulating each semi-finalist team competing in the MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize and the MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competition.  

It’s been said that MIT is an “idea factory”.   These competitions fully support that label.  The breadth and depth of your proposals are extraordinarily impressive and bode well for the future. 

I wish each team that has made the semi-finals the best of luck in the weeks ahead.  We look forward to learning more about your innovative ideas and helping you to move them off the drawing boards and into the marketplace.

This year I understand there were a record number of entrants and the quality of entrees was the highest in MIT history.  So the bar was set very high.   To be chosen as the top 50 teams out of 232, you truly are among the elite.  

I hope you will avail yourselves to the mentoring that is being offered.  Each mentor has agreed to take time from his or her busy schedule to share their experience and offer their expertise to each team.  The efforts of the mentors are the real prize because they pave the way for success long after the competition ends.

To those teams and individuals who may not make it to the finals, I urge you to keep pursuing your ideas and innovations.  History has repeatedly shown that perseverance is a key factor to the long-term success of every innovator and each entrepreneur. 

Thomas Edison --- an inventor, innovator and entrepreneur --- had it right when he said “The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”

NSTAR and Clean Energy Prize

NSTAR is very proud to be a sponsor of the MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize.   We’re the largest electric and gas utility based in Massachusetts, delivering energy to 1.4 million customers in 81 communities – including Boston and Cambridge.  

At NSTAR, we’ve made a commitment to conduct business in a way that least impacts the environment.   In other words -- to meet our customers’ needs in the cleanest, most efficient way possible.

We’re always looking for new ways to meet that commitment.  And, the MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize is one of them – to accelerate the pace of energy innovation and entrepreneurship in and around MIT.   

We need dynamic and innovative solutions to reduce fossil fuel dependence, lower greenhouse gas emissions -- and meet escalating energy demand.  In combination – these challenges represent a clear and present threat to our environment and economic competitiveness.

Last year, Massachusetts had the third highest electricity prices in the country.  That’s because we still depend on fossil fuels to produce a very large percentage of this vital commodity.  This leaves us vulnerable to price instability – especially with today’s record high oil prices of about $110/barrel.   It also impacts our environment.  Our dependence on fossil fuels for electricity generation produces almost a third of the state’s global warming emissions.

Efforts to dampen the impacts on our economy and environment are needed.  One solution is to diversify our electricity generating fuel mix to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.  Another is to find ways to use our existing resources more efficiently. 

It’s unlikely, however, that one silver bullet will emerge to cost-effectively reduce fossil fuel dependence, slow climate change and meet increasing energy demand.  Instead, many innovative technologies – together – will most likely change our energy future.  Entrepreneurship – which is the reason we are gathered here tonight -- will play a key role.

Boston as a Center for Entrepreneurship/Clean Energy

Boston has become a hub for start-up companies that produce practical results from scientific and technological innovation.

In the 1980s, Route 128 was rightly called America’s Technology Highway.   It was home to so many first generation high-tech companies.  One of the entrepreneurial legends of that era was an MIT grad named Ken Olsen.  His company, Digital, led the industry’s rise.  Even in his company’s decline during the industry’s epic shakeout, it still spawned many spin-off enterprises.

Today, Massachusetts has become a recognized leader in life sciences.  In fact, the Commonwealth is home to the world’s largest concentration of life science companies per square mile.    Entrepreneurship has led the world into the era of the so-called billon dollar molecule.  It is this generation of entrepreneur that will lead the way to unprecedented cures and therapies for those so desperately in need.

Entrepreneurship was the catalyst in igniting the silicon chip and life science industries.  It merged the powerful forces of individual dreams and cooperative efforts.  

Entrepreneurs keep our economy strong and competitive.  They are the creators --- risk takers --- inventors --- and leaders of our economy.

 According to the Massachusetts Office of Small Business & Entrepreneurship -- small businesses -- led by entrepreneurs  --  represent 85% of all companies and employ over a quarter of the Commonwealth’s workforce.    

That’s because benchmarked against global competition in Asia-Pacific, Europe and other regions, Massachusetts is among the leading players in the marketplace of ideas, products and services.

 According to the latest Index of the Massachusetts Innovation Economy by the John Adams Innovation Institute, Massachusetts invests more than 5% of its Gross State Product in R&D – the best performance of any region in the world.  

Entrepreneurship is now playing a key role in Massachusetts’ emerging clean energy industry. According to the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the number of clean energy companies in the Commonwealth is on the rise. These companies have created more than 14,000 jobs – mostly from small start-up efforts.  Clean energy has now become the 10^th largest industry in the state. 

That’s impressive, but it’s only a start.  As I said earlier -- we are facing unprecedented environmental and energy challenges.   These are times of rapid technological change and increasing global competition.   It’s vital that we have a new generation of entrepreneur – and a different type of entrepreneurship.

Long lead times, significant capital investment, and the need for multi-disciplined expertise in science, engineering and business – present unique and formidable challenges to bringing energy innovations to the marketplace.

That’s why NSTAR and the U.S. Department of Energy teamed with MIT to accelerate the pace of entrepreneurship.   The teaming of industry --- academia and the federal government has been successful in the past -- right here in Massachusetts.  It’s produced new fields of research --- new concepts --- new industries --- and new academic disciplines.  We think it will be successful again.

Closing

On behalf of NSTAR, I again want to congratulate all the semi-finalists of the MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize and the MIT 100K Competition and wish you the best of luck.  One team will emerge as the winner in each competition.  But the ultimate winner will be our quality of life – through your hard-work, determination and perseverance.