California is taking its first steps on the path toward recovery. Thanks to bold and swift state and local leadership, we have avoided what could have been a much worse public health catastrophe. Now, as we begin to slowly reopen our communities, we must apply that same leadership to a robust economic recovery that puts our state, businesses, and workers on a stronger footing than when the pandemic began.
As Electrek previously reported, the $5 million Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) Impact Fund launched on January 15. LACI is working to eradicate monoculturalism in cleantech startups by bringing on its most diverse cohort yet in spring 2020. More than 50% of participating founders are of color, and nearly 40% are women. We hear from three of those founders in the LACI spring cohort below.
As our institutions strain under the uprising in cities across the country, I’ve been struggling to comprehend the depth of racism in America.
I understand why these moments of police violence, the senseless destruction of black bodies caught on tape, would spark a fire that rages across this country. I also know that the tinder has been building for generations and is about so much more than this one horrific moment. Every sector plays a part. Including clean energy.
It’s no secret that there are grave inequities in clean energy. In the spirit of this moment, I turned the microscope on my own sector to ask, how does racism manifest in clean energy?
The city of Santa Monica’s main business district has been chosen as the pilot for the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator’s new Neighborhood Zero Emissions Delivery Zone. The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) has put out an RFI (request for information) to companies far and wide who may have the technological solutions they need to solve this challenge. It’s one of the first tools in their Transportation Electrification Partnership, which you must have read about here.
Apply to submit your product, service, or startup (if it’s at the Market Access Program phase in the firm’s growth) by June 29, 2020!
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