MIT Poised To Announce Clean Energy, Entrepreneurship Prizes

Springtime means two things in Cambridge, MA. Outdoors, public works crews are getting busy filling the city's overpopulation of potholes. Indoors, MIT judges are making their final decisions and writing jumbo-size checks to the winners of MIT's $100K Competition and its cousin, the MIT Clean Energy Prize.The goal of both contests is to create the best business plans for new ventures showing significant business potential.

Now in its 20th year, the $100K Competition is open to students from all academic disciplines across campus, but the winningest teams over the years have combined members from technical disciplines with members from the Sloan [business] School.

Over the years, more than 100 real companies with an aggregate market cap of more than $10 billion have emerged from among the contestants. Akamai, Zipcar, and Virtual Ink are familiar names that began as student ideas in this incubator. Get a glimpse of the future by checking out the list of semi-finalists here. The winner will be announced Wednesday.

Working in partnership with the MIT $100K Business Plan Competition, the MIT Clean Energy Prize aims to provide a platform to educate, network, and celebrate a new generation of energy entrepreneurs. The CEP is open to any team of two or re with at least one student from a U.S. university.

On Tuesday, the winner of the $200,000 CEP will be announced. The categories are biomass, clean hydrocarbons, energy efficiency and infrastructure, renewables, and transportation. You can check out the 25 semi-finalists here.

Stay tuned for the winners, meantime, keep dodging those potholes.