In an exciting event in the Boston startup community, College to Climate and GreenTown Labs recently partnered together to run a job fair for college students looking for internships and full-time positions in the climate and environmental industry.
Twenty startups and over one hundred students from several schools in the Boston area attended the February 15th live event. And a few days ahead of the event, College to Climate and Greentown Labs ran a virtual prep session. The session set expectations about the job fair and share how students could get involved. It introduced the students and community to the two organizations hosting the job fair event, College to Climate and Greentown Labs.
Here's a recap of both exciting, informative events and a bit more about the organizations that hosted them.
About College to Climate
This mission-driven organization was described by a representative at the virtual event as“dedicated to empowering students with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities to find jobs in climate”. They build community through three channels: monthly meetups, a launchpad program, and their Slack group.
Monthly Meetups: In these virtual meetups, with industry guest speakers, College to Climate aims to bust the myth that the climate industry is solely a tech problem and introduce students to a different side of climate that they are more likely to participate in. “One of the key beliefs of College to Climate is that we don't want to just focus on the tech." said the representative at the virtual event. "We don't believe that you have to be an engineer or a computer scientist to have a place in climate - We believe that every job is a climate job, so we really emphasized bringing in speakers from all different backgrounds."
Launchpad Program: The College to Climate launchpad program is a four-week long program with a couple of workshops every week where we go through different hard and soft skills. Students are taught how to find a job in the climate and entrepreneurial industry. They learn how to do a cold outreach to employers to begin the interview process.
Slack Community: this open group helps students and employers keep up-to-date with news, events, and job postings. “We have over 700 students from all across the world that stay connected to the organization through Slack." Students and employers can ask questions, share stories about their journey, and look for jobs and applicants.
Check out the College to Climate website here to join their Slack community, keep up to date with virtual monthly meetups, and read their job board for job postings and potential job candidates.
About Greentown Labs
The second organization involved in this event, GreenTown Labs, is a climate startup incubator whose mission is to advance climate solutions through entrepreneurship and innovation by building a network of scientists, investors, policy makers, entrepreneurs, students, private citizens and corporate executives. They have two incubators in Somerville, MA and Houston, TX with more than 250 member companies.
“GreenTown Labs is a community of climate pioneers working to design a more sustainable world”, the company’s representative said on the virtual meeting. “It is a climate tech incubator, so it's a place where startups can join to have different perks: Lab space, prototyping space, or office space.”
Interested partners can support GreenTown Labs in a few ways:
Corporate Partnership Program - support to Greentown’s startups by becoming strategic partners, investors, customers, and pilot sites
Investor Program - GreenTown Labs has an investor program to help investors prospect startups and deal flows. Investors can click the link below to learn more about the program and companies that had benefited from the program.
Mentorship Program - experts can volunteer their time to mentor early-stage ventures.
The Job Fair: Three Boston Climatech Organizations to Check Out
The day of the job fair hosted by these two organizations arrived the following Thursday. The major theme of the fair was to introduce students to major sectors of the climate industry they are interested in working in.
The framework provided some context on how to get into climate: agriculture, building, electricity (energy), manufacturing, transportation, and resiliency and adaptation. The twenty companies in attendance each represented at least one of each sector to help students understand what space the company works in and how they wish to tackle the problems in their sector.
Three innovative companies who attended the GreenTown Labs Job Fair were IVYS Energy Solutions, H20K Innovations and Folia Materials.
IVYS Energy Solutions is a hydrogen gas station that fuels fleet and mid-size commercial trucks and carriers. They are the distributor of hydrogen gas, and they do not supply or purify the hydrogen. According to a mechanical engineer who represented his company at the job fair, he said that Ivys has a hydrogen pump right outside the Boston Office of GreenTown Labs. Though Massachusetts is way ahead of other states in funding hydrogen gas pumps for commercial use, these hydrogen pumps are still scarce - which is why Ivys is targeting companies and not the mass market. If they could target millions of vehicles, then it could save on carbon emissions because the exhaust of hydrogen is water. No carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Click here to learn more about IVYS Energy Sources and their open job opportunities.
H20K Innovations helps food and beverage companies save on water and money by checking the quality of the cleaning process of their pipes. A chemical engineer representing the company shared how companies like Coca-Cola must clean their pipes every ten minutes. That requires a lot of water and money for daily maintenance. H20K helps their clients monitor the quality of the last cleaning process and gives feedback on which location of the pipe was cleaned well and where needs to be cleaned more. Click here to learn more about H20K Innovations and their open job opportunities.
Folia Materials had developed a special metal-ionic cardboard that can be used to filter water for people in developing countries, mostly in Bangladesh, who must go to neighborhood pumps to retrieve water. The company is expanding into Kenya because that country has similar water infrastructure and water problems that Bangladesh has. Additionally, a secondary use of their metal-ionic cardboard is to replace traditional cardboards and plastic with a eco-friendly alternative. Click here to learn more about Folia Materials and their open job opportunities.