Deadline for applications is February 25, 2010. Teams that make it into the semifinals will receive one-on-one mentoring from experienced industry leaders and entrepreneurs.

The competition has proven to be a launching pad for clean energy companies. The 2008 Grand Prize Winner FloDesign Wind Turbine and 2009 Energy Efficiency and Infrastructure semifinalist FastCAP Systems recently were awarded more than $13 million by the Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

Stanley Kowalski III, CEO of FloDesign Wind Turbine, says the competition made all the difference in his team being able to successfully launch a clean energy business. "The MIT CEP competition was great practice for prime time," he says. "By the time we had completed the mentoring and training, we had a clear and concise message that earned us multiple VC term sheets. We are eternally grateful to MIT CEP and our mentors."

The competition is organized into five tracks: Energy Efficiency & Infrastructure; Renewables; Clean Non-Renewables; Transportation; and Deployment. Competitors from previous years have developed products or technologies that promote, enhance or advance diversity of supply sources or transmission; promote efficiency in resource use; and those that lead to reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Panels comprised of venture capitalists, policy experts, CEOs, and prominent academics will oversee the judging. According to the guidelines, all funds awarded must be used solely towards the launch of a new business, and the resulting company to grow out of the winning idea must be established in the United States.

"President Obama, who spoke at MIT in October, encouraged the Institute and the country to play a leadership role in developing clean energy," says Janet Lin, MIT Sloan MBA 2010 and co-managing director of the Clean Energy Prize. "The MIT CEP is a platform designed to help students catapult their ideas to the next level and bring them into the marketplace, creating more jobs and a greener environment in the process."

MIT CEP is organized and run by students enrolled in MIT's science and engineering schools as well as those from MIT Sloan School of Management. The $200,000 grand prize funding for the award is provided by NSTAR and the United States Department of Energy.

MIT CEP is affiliated with MIT's $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. Since its launch in 1989, the MIT $100K has facilitated the birth of approximately 120 companies with aggregate exit values of $2.5 billion captured and a market cap of over $10 billion. These companies have generated approximately 2,500 jobs and received $600 million dollars in venture capital funding.

For more information and to submit an application, please visit www.mitcep.org.

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