Singapore Climate Ventures Program

Open to: All NTU and NUS graduate students, research fellows, and research associates

Important dates:
• 12th July 2024: Application deadline
• 18th July and 25th July: Pre-class mixers for short-listed applicants
• 15th August to 30th October: Program sessions

NTU and NUS, in collaboration with Breakthrough Energy and Temasek, are launching the Singapore Climate Ventures program.

Participants will work with experienced global climate tech entrepreneurs and VC leaders (including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Temasek and Xora Innovation) to explore opportunities to commercialize climate tech innovations from NTU and NUS.

Instructors, presenters and mentors for the program include (non-exhaustive):

• David Danielson – Managing Director, Breakthrough Energy Ventures
• Phil Inagaki – Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer, Xora Innovation
• Phil Morle – Partner, Main Sequence Ventures
• Vijay Chandrasekhar – Cosmos Innovation

This is a part-time program running from mid August 2024 to late October 2024. All graduate students, research fellows and research associates at NTU and NUS are eligible to apply. 

Successful applicants will be matched with the developers of NTU and NUS climate tech innovations to form well-rounded, multidisciplinary teams. Each team will be paired with an experienced Mentor (ex-founders, VCs) for weekly mentoring.

With their instructors and mentors, teams will do hands-on work for their innovations on the following topics:

• Global climate change trends and policies, and their implications for SEA
• How to discover your innovation’s value proposition
• Fundamentals of techno-economic analysis for climate tech innovations
• Investor perspectives on climate tech ventures and how to prepare your story
• Sources of funding for climate tech ventures (globally and in SEA)
• Entrepreneurs’ perspectives on climate tech ventures
• Finding the right business model
• Sales and marketing fundamentals
• Company building fundamentals

Throughout the program, teams will embark on thorough customer discovery and venture exploration, progressively building pitches for their innovations, culminating in final presentations to a panel of experienced climate tech investors. While this is not an actual pitch for an investment, teams will be better prepared and be more tuned into the climate tech ecosystem as they look to commercialize innovations going forward.

Please note: This application is to join the program as an individual. Team formation will be done organically pre-class mixers as well as in the first two classes. If you are a researcher with a climate tech innovation you would like to include, please reach out to the relevant NTU or NUS contact mentioned above.

Program details are as follows:

• Program session dates: 15th August to 10th October 2024 (9 weeks, Thursdays 9am – 11am)
• Final presentations: Week of 28th October 2024
• Time commitment: In addition to program sessions, teams will be expected to make time for customer discovery interviews with industry experts and weekly meetings with mentors
• Location: Program sessions alternating between NTU and NUS

To apply for the program, please click on Apply Now above and note the following important dates:

• Friday 12th July 2024: Application deadline
• Thursday 18th July and Thursday 25th July: Pre-class mixers for short-listed applicants

For any additional questions, please reach out to the relevant NTU or NUS contact.

Key Contacts:
- NTU: Chris Powell ([email protected])
- NUS: Jerry Wang ([email protected])