The Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute (ROSEI) had a big turnout for its inaugural Translation to Market (T2M) Workshop for energy and sustainability technology.

Held in the Glass Pavilion on the Homewood campus on September 27, the all-day event was well-attended by faculty, staff, graduate, and undergraduate students, who took part in four separate sessions focusing on different aspects – entrepreneurship, federal agencies and funding, venture capital and state, local and JHU resources – of the T2M process. Each section had at least one external keynote speaker and a panel mostly comprised of non-JHU presenters that the crowd could interact with.

The places of work for the external speakers were wide-ranging, including Stanford University, Monolith Materials, ARPA-E, Dow Ventures, and the Maryland Energy Innovation Accelerator, among others.

ROSEI Director Ben Schafer enjoyed everything involved with the formal schedule, but he was also excited by the networking and personal interactions portions of the workshop.

“It was incredibly rewarding to see all the new connections that were being made between Hopkins faculty, students, and even alumni with leaders in energy commercialization,” Schafer said. “Building a community of energy scholars and entrepreneurs is a goal for ROSEI and a workshop like this one really brings that to life.”

Schafer also noted that this was a great opportunity for ROSEI to flex its muscles and show it can host these kinds of events. In its second year of existence, Schafer is excited that the ROSEI team – which was led by ROSEI Leadership Council Member Chao Wang, Managing Director Ben Link and Administrative Coordinator Colleen Amaral – was able to put together an intensive all-day event. Schafer believes it’s an indication of what’s to come from the institute, and in particular, a multi-day ROSEI Summit that is scheduled for mid-January that should be equally valuable to the Hopkins public.

“The participation and feedback at the workshop was excellent. I am super proud of the ROSEI team that pulled together this inaugural translation event,” Schafer said. “ROSEI is looking forward to hosting similar events in the future. So, we hope to see you at an event of ours soon!”