A preview of the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, which showcases the most advanced and revolutionary breakthroughs in energy technology today.
February 28, 2011
minute read time
President Obama has recently been talking about his plan to “Win the Future.” Whether it’s taking steps to reform our education system, rebuilding our infrastructure, or encouraging breakthroughs in technology, the phrase is about marshaling the country’s best and brightest to solve today’s problems. As the President put it, “To win the future, we have to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world, tapping the creativity and imagination of our people.”
The ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit that kicks off today just outside of Washington, D.C. highlights the amazing ingenuity of our citizens and businesses. This annual summit showcases the most advanced and revolutionary breakthroughs in energy technology today. These aren’t base hits. They’re the potential home runs – the breakthroughs in clean energy innovation that could make it affordable to put solar panels on every house in America, put millions of electric vehicles on the road or even harness wind energy that’s miles and miles above the ground a lot sooner than you might think is possible. We’re talking about truly changing the world – and making the U.S. the global leader in clean energy technologies.
Over the next three days, key players from academia, business and government are converging to discuss exactly how we can bring about the next Industrial Revolution in clean energy technologies. With keynote remarks from Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, Bank of America Chairman Charles Holliday, and Senators Lisa Murkowski, Lamar Alexander, and Mark Udall – the program itself promises to be a real treat. (full program).
Stay tuned to the Energy Blog over the next few days to see exclusive video interviews, inside looks from the Technology Showcase and in-depth profiles of featured projects.
Also be sure to follow along on Twitter, as we will be live-tweeting the events tomorrow with hash tag #ARPAE.
Dr. Arun Majumdar is the Director of the Advanced Research Programs Agency - Energy.
Arun Majumdar
Arun Majumdar is the Jay Precourt Provostial Chair Professor at Stanford University, where he serves on the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and is a Senior Fellow of the Precourt Institute for Energy.
Prior to joining Stanford, he was the Vice President for Energy at Google, where he created several energy technology initiatives and advised the company on its broader energy strategy. He continues to be a consultant to Google on energy.
In October 2009, Dr. Arun Majumdar was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate to become the Founding Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E), where he served till June 2012. Between March 2011 and June 2012, Dr. Majumdar also served as the Acting Under Secretary of Energy, and a Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy.
Prior to joining the Department of Energy, Dr. Majumdar was the Almy and Agnes Maynard Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and the Associate Laboratory Director for Energy and Environment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research career includes the science and engineering of nanoscale materials and devices as well as large engineered systems.
Dr. Majumdar is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1985 and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989. He currently serves on the US Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board, the Council for the National Academy of Engineering and the Electric Power Research Institute, as well as the Science Board of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He is a member of the International Advisory Panel for Energy of the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry and the US delegation for the US-India Track II dialogue on climate change and energy.