Industrial Revolution 2

Tom Friedman and Dov Seidman at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
This a wonderful discussion on core aspects of change and preparation for
the next century.

There is an “I” in Vision

ash maurya
Practice Trumps Theory: Lean Startup + Customer Development + Bootstrap
There is an “I” in Vision

May 3, 2010

The press loves to celebrate stories of visionaries that saw the future and charted a course to intersect it with a “revolutionary” new product offering. In a visionary product launch there is no place for being too early or too late:

While these make for great stories, behind every visionary story usually lies years of hard work, experimentation, and learning. Even the unveiling of the visionary computer in Steve Job’s words were years in the making – The “revolutionary” iPad is built on at least 3 generations of software and 5 generations of hardware.

The story actually played out is never quite as simple:

First, there is never a single customer adoption curve but a whole family of them – with each customer segment adopting solutions at different rates. You launch based on your best understanding of who you thin

Here’s the article…

Aurora Biofuels Secures $15M in Funding, Appoints Scott McDonald CFO

ALAMEDA, CA –– March 17, 2010

Aurora Biofuels, Inc. said it has secured an additional $15 million in a recent funding round led by Oak Investment Partners, with the continued support of Gabriel Venture Partners and Noventi Ventures. This third round of financing brings the total amount of money raised by the company to more than $40 million. The new funding will be used to support the continued path to commercialization for its advanced algae biofuel technology.

In addition, the company has hired Scott McDonald, a veteran Silicon Valley executive, as its Chief Financial Officer. Mr. McDonald brings to Aurora Biofuels a 25-year history in executive management and in planning and executing corporate strategy. He has substantial experience in operations, administration and financial oversight, and has helped to build and scale many successful startup and high growth companies.

“This additional investment will be critical as our company expands its field of operations and further optimizes its technology,” said Mr. McDonald. “I am excited to be joining a company with truly enormous potential and an ample reserve in the bank, and look forward to implementing Aurora Biofuels’ financial and operational strategies moving forward.”

Brian Hinman, Oak Venture Partner and Aurora Director, added that “Aurora Biofuels has made a significant genetic engineering achievement in doubling the productivity of its proprietary algae, and this round of funding will allow the company to demonstrate the productivity and production processes at scale.” Mr. Hinman added that “we are pleased to bring Scott McDonald to the company, as he has a wealth of experience in finance, operations and technology, which will be tremendously important as we build out the company’s capabilities on the demonstration scale.”

Mr. McDonald has lead private and public company financings, mergers and acquisitions, financial restructurings, and system implementations for Castelle (CSTL), where he was Chief Executive Officer; Conxion Corporation, where he was Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer; and at CIDCO Inc. (CDCO), where he was Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. He was also Chief Financial Officer and VP of Finance and Administration at Integrated Systems Inc. (INTS). Mr. McDonald is a member of the Board of Directors for the Paramit Corporation and Momentum Data Systems, Inc., and has previously served on the corporate boards of Octant Technologies, Inc., Castelle, Digital Power Corporation (DPW), and CIDCO Inc. Mr. McDonald holds a BS in Accounting from the University of Akron and an MBA from Golden Gate University.

About Aurora Biofuels

Aurora Biofuels manufactures fuel from genetically optimized algae in a patented production process. Leading technologists at Aurora Biofuels have engineered a cost-competitive and scalable method for fuel generation, using robust and highly-productive custom algae strains. The Aurora Biofuels process is carbon-neutral, non-competitive with agricultural resources, and capable of industrial yields with a minimal land use. Aurora Biofuels investors include: Oak Investment Partners, Noventi Ventures and Gabriel Venture Partners.

About Oak Investment Partners

Oak Investment Partners is a multi-stage venture capital firm with a total of $8.4 billion in committed capital. The primary investment focus is on high growth opportunities in communications, information technology, internet new media, financial services, clean energy, healthcare services, and consumer retail. Over a 31-year history, Oak has achieved a strong track record as a stage-independent investor funding more than 481 companies at key points in their lifecycle.

About Gabriel Venture Partners

Gabriel Venture Partners® is an early-stage venture capital firm committed to fostering innovation by actively assisting entrepreneurs in technology and technology-enabled businesses. Gabriel seeks investment opportunities in capital-efficient companies that have the potential to be market leaders. Gabriel is based in Silicon Valley and has over $260 million under management. Gabriel’s investment team consists of seasoned technology entrepreneurs and industry executives, each with international operating experience and strong domain expertise. Representative investments include Placeware (acquired by Microsoft), NetScaler (acquired by Citrix), Iridigm (acquired by Qualcomm), LVL7 (acquired by Broadcom), NeoPath (acquired by Cisco) and IPWireless (acquired by Nextwave Wireless).

About Noventi Ventures

Noventi Ventures is Silicon Valley-based, early stage venture capital firm focused on building successful companies through the partnerships with entrepreneurs. Noventi leverages decades of operating experience, a global network of resources, and a proven record in venture investing to focus on opportunities at the convergence of technology, energy, and the environment. Noventi past investments include Bitfone (acquired by HP), EasyMarket (acquired by TUI), Sygate (acquired by Symantec) and M7 (acquired by BEA). For more information visit http://noventivc.com

Here’s the article…

Technorati Tags:
Bio Fuels, Energy

Very happy to see this great info all in one place. I know what I’m doing this weekend. Reading:
State of Green Business

Includes the following:

Food Companies Supply Chains

Carbon Management

Building Efficiency and Retrofits

Green Innovation

Corporate Climate Management

The Business Case For Sustainability, that could make you a millions

Financing

Toxics Become a Strategic Issue

IT Offsets Its Wwn Carbon Footprint

Car Fleets

Green Business Opportunities in China

Green Marketing

How to Size Up the Triple Bottom Line

Forest Carbon Markets

Green Job Creation

Green Business and Building Forcasts

10 Climate Trends

Green Business Decade in Review

DOE: Building Energy Codes – Home

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Energy Codes Program is an information resource on national model energy codes. We work with other government agencies, state and local jurisdictions, national code organizations, and industry to promote stronger building energy codes and help states adopt, implement, and enforce those codes.

The Program recognizes that energy codes maximize energy efficiency only when they are fully embraced by users and supported through education, implementation, and enforcement.

Here’s the site.

Technorati Tags:
Construction, Building Codes, Green Building Codes

By AL GORE</ br>Published: February 27, 2010</ br>It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it. </ br>Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.

via Op-Ed Contributor – We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change – NYTimes.com.