Energy industry experts will come to Tufts tomorrow to discuss clean energy and other industry-related issues during a conference with students from across the Boston area.
The conference will feature panels on technology, policy and financing. Each panel will address how its topic relates to energy startup companies.
The event is organized and sponsored by Tufts Energy Security Initiative (ESI), a division of the Institute for Global Leadership. Additional sponsorship comes from Young Entrepreneurs at Tufts and the Fletcher Energy Consortium.
Sophomore Daniel Enking, co-director of the ESI, said that he hopes the event will attract students who are already interested in the energy industry as well as those who are not as familiar with the topic.
Enking said the conference will have a "broad focus," with a variety of speakers and panel topics.
"We want to show students that the energy industry is a really good industry to get into right now in terms of a career path ... because it's evolving and changing," he said. "Getting into the energy industry is a good way to effect social change."
William Moomaw, a professor of international environmental policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, will give the opening remarks. Moomaw directs Fletcher's Center for International Environment and Resource Policy, and he is the senior director of the Tufts Institute of the Environment. He has also served on the United Nations' Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
After a keynote address from Steven Connors, the director of the Analysis Group for Regional Energy Alternatives at the MIT Lab for Energy and the Environment, the first panel will feature energy company executives. Conference organizers hope these businessmen will show attendees how young people can make changes in the energy industry.
"I think there's a lot of willingness ... within the industry right now to get young people involved," Enking said.
The second panel will address policy aspects affecting energy startups and the industry as a whole.
"It's such a new thing, all this alternative energy stuff," said senior Alex Wright, the founder and co-director of ESI. "A lot of the time, there aren't a lot of regulations out there for all the things these companies are doing."
Nick D'Arbeloff, co-executive director of the New England Clean Energy Council, will deliver a second keynote address before the third panel, which will highlight the financing factor.
This year's conference will be ESI's largest since its founding in 2005, and organizers hope to make it an annual occurrence.
Students can register to attend the conference at www.tuftsgloballeadership.org/programs/esi_conference.html, although it is not required. The morning's first events will be held in Braker 001, with later events in Paige Hall's Crane Room and in Cabot Auditorium.
