NYU-Poly teams with state, city to quickly create green-technology business leaders

NEW YORK, Dec. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) is about to jump-start New York's clean-tech leadership base via a unique executive management course.

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Unlike many boot camps that provide anecdotal lessons from green-tech panelists, the NYU-Poly CleantechExecs program will offer 10 intensive, day-long work sessions and seminars featuring best clean-tech industry practices, operational lessons, site visits and participation in real-world projects. Senior faculty members from NYU-Poly and New York University will be joined by lecturers from industry and finance experts. The curriculum for CleantechExecs is the result of intensive research and original curriculum development. Its engineering viewpoint is key for leaders in a field that requires exceptionally strong technical knowledge.

By choosing from candidates with at least 10 years of executive experience, the pilot program will attempt to quickly power up the number of clean-tech leaders needed in New York.

"The burgeoning clean-tech industry in New York needs more leaders to launch and expand start-ups and to fill high-level positions at established corporations," said Mel Horwitch, professor at NYU-Poly Department of Technology Management. "Thanks to the New York State Energy and Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), CleantechExecs will quickly and efficiently expand New York's base of effective green-tech leaders, giving them strategic and operating skills to grow the types of clean-tech businesses that New York in particular can nurture."

"Programs like CleantechExecs are absolutely essential for developing the leaders of the clean energy economy who can fulfill Governor David Paterson's vision of a New Economy based on knowledge, innovation and technology," said Francis J. Murray Jr., president and CEO of NYSERDA. "NYSERDA helped to create the NYC Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy business incubator, and I'm pleased to see this comprehensive approach being taken to build the new generation of businesses for the future."

NYSERDA, which provided $1.5 million earlier this year to create the incubator, will fund tuition for the first class, which begins Feb. 18 and runs through May 7, 2010. Classes will be held in the NYC ACRE facility, 160 Varick St., Manhattan.

"We have designed CleantechExecs to provide students with the managerial knowledge to move a new venture quickly beyond the startup phase," said Bruce Niswander, NYU-Poly professor of technology entrepreneurship and managing director NYU-Poly's NYC ACRE and other business incubators.

CleantechExecs will accept up to 25 candidates who have at least 10 years of leadership experience in technology-based companies, raising capital and launching new products or businesses. Participants may qualify for master's degree credit at NYU-Poly. Application and course information is available at http://www.poly.edu/cleantechexecs.

Among the scheduled speakers are Dr. Sharon Nunes, vice president of big green innovations in IBM Systems & Technology Group and a member of CleantechExecs' advisory board; Francois Pages, partner of Galileo Global Advisors, with 25 years of experience in international banking and financing major new projects, and David Anthony, managing partner of 21Ventures, which has provided seed, growth and bridge capital to 39 clean-technology ventures across the globe. Senior faculty members will be Dr. Horwitch and Dr. Ari Ginsberg, professor of management and entrepreneurship at New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business.

About Polytechnic Institute of New York University

Polytechnic Institute of New York University (formerly Polytechnic University), an affiliate of New York University, is New York's most comprehensive school of engineering, applied sciences, technology and research, and is rooted in Polytechnic's 155-year tradition of invention, innovation and entrepreneurship - i-squared-e. The institution, founded in 1854, is one of the nation's oldest private engineering schools. In addition to its main campus at MetroTech Center in downtown Brooklyn, it offers programs at sites throughout the region and around the globe. NYU-Poly has centers in Long Island, Manhattan and Westchester County; globally, it has programs in Israel, China and will be an integral part of NYU's campus in Abu Dhabi opening in autumn 2010. For more information, visit www.poly.edu.

SOURCE Polytechnic Institute of New York University

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