Author: August Wagner

ECCE 2017

ECCE 2017
October 1-5, 2017
Cincinnati, Ohio

Building on the success of previous year’s conferences, ECCE is world’s leading technical conference and exposition for energy conversion solutions. We provide opportunities for practicing industry engineers, researchers, students, and professionals from the broad spectrum of energy conversion to exchange technical knowledge, and develop their skills. ECCE is unique in our emphasis on integrated systems, presenting the best in applied integrated systems research together with innovations in individual energy conversion components.

ECCE 2017 enables knowledge exchange in a wide range of settings. These include peer-reviewed technical presentations, special panel sessions, interactive town-hall sessions, tutorials, as well as plenary talks and the exposition. Exhibitors at ECCE showcase state-of-the-art technologies, products, and solutions, creating a highly interactive networking environment when mixing with the poster sessions and student demonstrations on the same floor.

A novel development at ECCE 2017 will be the co-location of ECCE with the IEEE IAS Annual meeting. Attendees will be able to choose to register for ECCE alone, or to jointly register for ECCE and the IAS Annual Meeting at a reduced combination rate. We welcome our IAS colleagues to join us at our Exposition, Special Sessions, Industry Product and Services Sessions, and social functions.
Read More

IEEE ET&D 2017

IEEE ET&D 2017
November 7-9, 2017
Aalborg, Denmark
Professor Divan was an invited speaker.

Power electronics is changing from a technology that enables renewable generation and energy-efficiency improvement to the foundational technology for grid modernization. Electronic power transmission and distribution power grids are being envisioned in the near future.

The workshop, jointly sponsored by the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) and the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES), is organized by Aalborg University, Denmark. This year’s event will be focused on industry, consisting of 3 Executive sessions, 5 Industry Panel sessions, and 2 Technical E-poster sessions, with over 80 presentations from government, industry, and academia. A tutorial on IEEE Std. 1547 for interconnecting distributed energy resources with electric power systems, and a technical tour on 1.7 GW (LCC- and MMC-) HVDC station will be provided. All presentations will be archived in the IEEE PELS and PES Resource Centers.
Read More

ARPA-E ENERGY INNOVATION SUMMIT

ARPA-E ENERGY INNOVATION SUMMIT
February 27 – March 1, 2017
Washington, D.C.

ARPA-E held its eighth annual ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit February 27 – March 1, 2017 at the Gaylord Convention Center, right outside of Washington, D.C.

Attendees heard from top leaders, policy and business experts, including Lynn Good, chairman, president and CEO of Duke Energy; L. Rafael Reif, president of MIT; Ajay Royan, co-founder and Managing General Partner of Mithril Capital Management; Thomas Siebel, founder, chairman and CEO of C3 IoT; Thomas Hager, author of The Alchemy of Air; and Saul Griffith, founder and CEO of Otherlab.

Each year at the Summit, ARPA-E Program Directors and Fellows give a “Fast Pitch” – a rapid-paced succession of exciting current program concepts as well as some completely new, “out-of-the-box” ideas.

Read More

2017 Asian Conference on Energy, Power and Transportation Electrification (ACEPT)

2017 Asian Conference on Energy, Power and Transportation Electrification (ACEPT)
October 24-26, 2017
Singapore
Professor Divan attended as a Plenary Speaker.

The Asian Conference on Energy, Power and Transportation Electrification (ACEPT) as a part of Asia Clean Energy Summit (ACES) is held in conjunction with Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW 2017) and will cooperate with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE) to bring together the world leading experts to present emerging topics on energy, power, and transportation electrification.
Read More

Slow and Steady Wins the Race: Other Models for Entrepreneurship – December 2016

I have been writing consistently about entrepreneurs who target disruption and force change in
markets, change that existing market leaders often will not initiate. This can lead to spectacular success or spectacular failure. Remember, every major transformative change typically occurs on the backs of three rounds of dead investors. Global communications operating at ultralow costs exist today because companies such as Lucent put fiber across the globe but could not recover their investments.
Read More

Identifying and Avoiding Some Common Traps – June 2016

As new entrepreneurs, we love our novel, game-changing technology, the advantages of which are obvious when compared with the ancient relics made by global market leaders. We also know that
when we get to scale and can make a million pieces, we will have a cost advantage and will surely win. Time to do a start-up and begin planning that Caribbean vacation! Although this is somewhat satirical and an oversimplification, it shows some of the traps entrepreneurs, especially first-time entrepreneurs, often fall into.
Read More

What’s the Difference Between a US$0 Million and a US$0 Billion Company? – March 2016

During last year’s Khosla Ventures Summit, leading tech venture capitalist (VC) Vinod Khosla raised a very interesting question: what is the difference between a US$0 million and a US$0 billion company? Companies that are just starting out do not have a product, employees, or revenue—only a promise. So why, then, do different companies end at up very different places? Why do some, like WhatsApp, become unicorns, with stratospheric valuations, while some become modest lifestyle businesses, and so many others fail? Is it purely chance, or is there a structured way to go about building a billion-dollar company?

Read More

You Have Decided to Take the Plunge—Now How Do You Fund It? – December 2015

There is an autobiography of a leading oil tycoon that starts with the statement “There
were these few oil wells that my father had left me…” This is clearly one way to fund your start-up, but it is one that is not open to most of us. How to get your promising start-up off the ground is probably the subject that generates the most angst and confusion, especially for first
time entrepreneurs. It is a complex subject and will be addressed in more detail in future columns. This time, we take a high-level view of the start of the process.
Read More