TIEcon Wrap-Up for Cleantech: The Mundane Matters
There were many viewpoints this weekend at TIE’s annual ‘pow-wow’ TIEcon 2009 when it came to cleantech, but if I were to boil them down (in a electric stove running on renewable energy) I would say the essence can be summarized as this: the mundane matters.
I say this not because there was a lack of enthusiasm in the air-absolutely the opposite-rather I say it because a more zoomed-out perspective on cleantech has begun to crystallize, and with that everyone from VC’s to the entrepreneurs bootstrapping their way through the battlefields of innovation has recognized the value of niches within the ‘ecosystem’ of cleantech.
This, of course, is a fitting metaphor for the area of innovation hoping to save us from ourselves. The area of innovation slated to reinvigorate our intuitions about what it means to work alongside nature as opposed to taking it for granted. At the same time, the principles of business and innovation surrounding growth of capital via monetization requires these innovations to return deep profits for those invested. Here’s how that duality played out in real-time:
