Over the past 6 months, our CEO Mel Clark has been traveling with the Washington State Department of Commerce on several international study missions to Australia, Japan, and Vietnam. Each trip was a fascinating opportunity to learn about clean energy and clean technology projects underway across the globe.
Projects such as state-of-the-art waste reduction techniques in the Bangaroo development in Sydney, carbon fiber additive manufacturing and hydrogen demonstration fueling station in Melbourne, a custom for hydrogen transport vessel in Japan, and e-bike manufacturing in Hanoi all provided insight into a global decarbonization and electrification effort that is well underway.
The trips included a lot of opportunity to connect and collaborate – things we do at the CleanTech Alliance every day. Mel toured, met with, and presented to leaders at universities, investors, global corporations, startups, students, women’s networking groups, regional governments, and more: the exact same mix of members that make our Alliance an effective force to advance cleantech solutions. Opportunities to dialogue internationally demonstrate that we are all facing many of the same challenges. Project finance and sighting, commercialization scale up, supply chains, and workforce development – none of these roadblocks are unique to Washington or the US. There is enormous opportunity to collaborate in new ways with new partners.
The trips also granted amazing opportunities to network among delegation members – cleantech leaders, researchers, government reps, and traditional businesses execs – all touring cleantech projects – and then discussing them on the bus ride to the next site. It is a fantastic opportunity to educate our state’s leaders about projects happening here at home – and opportunities to develop new projects and find ways to collaborate even more closely.
We want to thank Commerce and Governor Inslee, and his amazing team, for all of the work that goes into developing these trade and study missions: they elevate the work we are doing here at home, and they build incredible connections that will help the globe collaborate to mitigate climate change. Finally, we want to express our thanks to members BattGenie and Planted Materials. Both helped sponsor travel costs, and we got to make connections for them directly with international investors and corporations interested in their tech.
If you want to learn more about being export ready, grant and technical assistance to attend trade shows, or upcoming state coordinated travel – we encourage you to join us at our annual 2024 CleanTech Innovation Showcase, which will include workshops and presentations on this topic.