GE and four venture capital firms announced an unusual, $200 million partnership Tuesday to find breakthrough smartgrid ideas – from small, startup companies or solo inventors – and speed those concepts to market.
General Electric and its partners will solicit ideas for improving the electricity grid, evaluate each proposal’s potential and decide which ones to finance. Ideas with the most promise could eventually become GE products or products sold in collaboration with GE.
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Ideas can be submitted to the project’s website, challenge.ecomagination.com/ideas. The proposals deemed to have the most potential will be evaluated by GE’s technical experts, as well as experts from the venture capital firms. But website visitors will also be able to see and comment on the proposals.
More here.