Hello All,

The past week has been a great success for the alumni network.

The hearing of the Alumni Association’s business plan was held in

London last month. President, Prageeth Jayathissa, and treasurer,

Ognyan Iliev, presented in front of Climate-KIC’s CEO Mary Ritter, RIC

director Aled Thomas and the education director, Ebrahim Mohamed.

The scope of events and workshops planned for the members of the

Alumni Association impressed, and the collective positivity about this

year’s plans were evidenced by the acceptance of the new business

plan. There are exciting changes already underway and you’ll be the

first to hear about these developments in due course.

If you are not part of the Alumni Network or would like to receive more information about it, or just

have an awesome idea you would like to realise, don’t hesitate to contact them through the medium of

email alukic@climate-kic.org or just click on their (soon to be re-launched) website.

Student Stories:

Marjolaine Bouchy, Journey alumni from 2013, has continued our student stories series with a blog

post about her recent mobility experience in Oslo, Norway. She blogs about her experiences away

from her native France and how Climate-KIC has helped her deepen her understanding of climate

change mitigation and adaption.

If you have received mobility funding and would like to write a post about your experiences, please

contact Phillip Wood.

London is the venue for Climate-KIC’s professional start-up advice drop-

in centre. Held on the 2nd Tuesday of every month at the Imperial

Incubator, they welcome any start-up of any stage with any problem.

Climate-KIC’s UK entrepreneurship lead, Andrew Burford, business

coach, Richard Barker and our entrepreneur-in-residence, Stephen Voller are there to help.

If you would like to book an appointment please email Liz with a line or two about what you would like

to cover in the session and we will match you to one of our experts.

Dates for your diary:

5 February 2014: Got an innovative business idea which will substantially reduce

greenhouse gas emissions? Haven’t yet founded the company but are ready to? If you or a business

partner lives or plans to live in Switzerland then click here to find out how you can be supported. Up to

three ideas can be submitted but be quick, deadline for submission is 5th Feb.

14th

February 2014: Members of the Alumni Association will be attending the Cleantech Forum this

year in Sweden and we want to send two people there. If you would like to apply for one of the

volunteer positions please follow this two-stage process. First, send an email to Michele Parad who

can confirm if you can be a volunteer at the event.

Once accepted by Michele, please email Maria Peeva with a brief email on why you would like to

represent the Climate-KIC Alumni Association in Stockholm and how it would benefit you.

Don’t forget to attach a picture of yourself (so we know who you are), along with Michele’s acceptance

email. Deadline is Valentine’s Day.

Spark! 3rd

March: The Netherlands will be hosting the next Spark!

session which will focus on topic of Extreme draught periods in

Europe. The event will be delivered by the well-known Dutch

meteorologist Reinier van den Berg.

Three weeks before the lecture, Van den Berg will introduce an

extreme event of draught and the possible corresponding scenario’s

for transport, forest-fires, agriculture and the access to drinking water in a video, to be released on the

website. The lecture with a live broadcast to the different Climate KIC co-locations (CLC’s) will start

with a serious game around the extreme weather event of a long period of draught. During the three

weeks in advance and at the workshop at 3 March participants will come up with solutions to deal with

the extreme event and will pitch these to the other CLC’s

The serious game starts at 17.00h. The life broadcast of the pitches starts at 18.00h. Location:

Groene zaal, W.C. van Unnik Building, Utrecht Science Park, Heidelberglaan 2, Utrecht. At 18.30h

More details will arrive in your inbox from your local education manager.

Local Representatives Meeting

For very first time in the history of Climate-KIC’s Alumni Association, the regional

representatives from every region and centre gathered in Utrecht, the Netherlands,

to discuss goals for 2014. The local representatives were there to present the yearly

strategy and schedule a series of local events and meetings.

They will foster different activities in the CLCs and RICs and engage with the local communities.

The meeting brought up topics like Journey 2014

representation, more efficient ways of communication,

financial independency and a job platform for the Alumni.

The inter-pillar collaboration was also emphasised and

negotiations with Climate-KIC start-ups and partners have

been actioned in Berlin and the Netherlands.

Access to external events will be also supported by the

Association and they aim to give young entrepreneurs and

enablers a chance to network with the clean-tech world.

More Greenhouse places will be offered for alumni in order to work on their projects from the PiP and

Journey programmes.

The Alumni Association is always looking for volunteers who would like to be part of the local

representative team. Please click here to see a list here of the local reps in every region - do not

hesitate to contact them any time.

Platform news:

The first quarterly newsletter from the Climate-KIC platform, Making Transitions Happen,

contains the latest news, events and opportunities for the alumni to get further involved with

Climate-KIC and the MTH platform.

This month has a special from London-based alumni, Christoph Mazur.

PhD Bootcamp video now on YouTube

Berlin held its first PhD boot camp which saw 18 participants from across German and Sweden pitch

their PhD thesis research idea. You can now see the highlights from all their pitches on this video.

Climate-KIC