1st Solar Power International Start-Up Alley Challenge Winner Is…

November 6th, 2013 by Zachary Shahan

Our friends over at GreenLancer.com were recently recognized for their hard work and good ideas, winning 1st place in the 1st annual “Start-Up Alley Challenge” at Solar Power International (SPI).

The competition offers several start-ups the chance to present their early-stage businesses to a group of accomplished and knowledgeable judges. In this first Start-Up Alley Challenge, 19 semi-finalists were brought together at one of SPI’s booths to be accessible to solar industry leaders for evaluation and feedback. The inaugural panel of judges, who picked a winner from the 9 finalists who made it to their desk, included a range of true cleantech leaders:

Raghu Belur, Co-Founder/Vice President of Products & Strategic Initiatives, Enphase
David Drescher, VP Wind & Solar, Exelon Generation
Declan Flanagan, CEO, Lincoln Renewable Energy
Adam Lerner, Vice President, McNally Capital
Daniel Li, Wanxiang
Steve Markscheid, Independent Director, Jinko Solar
Jigar Shah, CEO, Jigar Shah Consulting
Stephen Weiland, Vice President, KPMG

Surprisingly, and showing how much promise GreenLancer.com has, the judges unanimously voted GreenLancer.com (though, they were given the option of voting for 3 applicants).

GreenLancer.com takes aim at the infamous “soft costs” of solar, “using an e-commerce platform that is able to provide design and engineering services to the online world of cloud computing.” Here’s more:

GreenLancer advantages include easy to use engineering support on the fly, anywhere in the world, and fast accurate delivery of engineering documents. According to Jigar Shah, one of the judges, “GreenLancer stood out among the competition by demonstrating a visionary and innovative business model.”

Congratulations to GreenLancer.com, especially occasional CleanTechnica contributor and GreenLancer co-founder Douglas Elbinger.

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Tags: GreenLancer, Solar Power International, spi

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

JamesWimberley

A panel of nine men picks a male winner from a set of ten finalists including one woman.

Houston, we have a gender problem.

BTW, the engineer who has done more than anybody else to reduce the power consumption from electronic devices is not only a woman, but transgendered. Sophie Wilson (né Roger), designer of the first RISC processor for what later grew into Intel’s nemesis, ARM of Cambridge, England. My tribute is here: http://www.samefacts.com/2012/05/technology-and-society/lives-of-the-great-lgbt-engineers/
- SAbbs
  
  Do you suppose they pick the one woman because she’s a woman or are you simply making the observation that this is an industry predominately male?