ICE Volunteers

The MIT Enterprise Forum Energy Special Interest Group is a volunteer organization with 1.5 paid staff at the Forum. All our events and programs, including the ICE Competition, are created and produced by volunteer committees; all judges, mentors and speakers also volunteer their time.

We appreciate that successful professionals place a premium on their time and that circumstances associated with volunteer time change with one's career and life. We have volunteer opportunities for every time constraint, from helping out during an event for a couple hours to being a mentor to a team for an hour a week for three months to running a committee (don't ask).

If you are interested in getting involved in the Clean Energy Cluster or just want to give back to the community of entrepreneurs, please let us know how you'd like to help and we will find a good match for you, your talents and your available time.

• Mentors: More information or apply.
• Judges:More information or apply
• Other Volunteer Positions: More information or apply.

Mentors

The ICE Competition sets itself apart from other competitions via our focus on training and coaching by industry experts and leaders. To that end, we are indebted to the many investors, attorneys, professors, consultants and experienced entrepreneurs who generously donate their time as mentors to help the competitors (and the Competition) excel. We endeavor to have a very high ratio of expert mentors to contestants to maximize the opportunities and quality of interations between the two groups. Thus, if you are an experienced professional in Clean Energy or related business capabilities, we would like to hear from you!

To maintain our high standards, we require all mentors to apply for the position. In addition, all mentors must be members of at least one of the following:

• MIT Enterprise Forum,
• TiE Boston or
• the MIT Venture Mentoring Service.

If you are not currently a member, you may apply to be an ICE Mentor and then join once you are accepted. Please print out the Mentor Application Form, fill it out, sign it and submit it via fax at 508-698-6811. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Judges

As with our mentors, our judges help make the ICE Competition unique in its commitment to learning and development for the contestants. Judges are given the opportunity to provide feedback directly to the contestants either in writing for the executive summary or in person at the Semifinals. Judges never see the same team twice during a given competition to ensure that all teams receive the same exposure.

The judging commitment is more limited in time than that of mentor as each judge usually participates in just one segment of the Competition, amounting to a commitment of a few hours on a given day as opposed to approximately one hour per week for the team's duration in the Competition.

Other Volunteer Opportunities

If you lack either the time or the experience (or both) to be a Judge or Mentor, we still have many opportunities for you to get involved in the Clean Energy Cluster. There's no quicker way to meet people with years of experience in various industry sectors and have them get to know you. We believe in continuous improvement, so you can make your mark on the ICE Competition (or the Energy SIG in general) in whatever way you can add value.

The 2007 Organization Chart provides an overview of the many positions available to volunteers. We have several Chair positions open if you are ready to dive in while all of our Committees would benefit from additional volunteers if you would prefer to start with less responsibility and a lower time commitment. If you just want to get your feet wet, please volunteer to help at an event. For all volunteering opportunities, please contact us for more information.