NANYANG MBA

MBA Clean Tech Club

Contributed by: Alexander Briggs (Cord), Class of 2017 

One of my favourite parts of the Nanyang MBA was the experience of helping to found the MBA Clean Tech Club. This social group afforded me and several of my classmates the opportunity to network with industry leaders, learn about key trends, and even wrestle with real-life business problems in this emerging sector. The final event for 2016/2017 Clean Tech Club occurred on May 25^th when Madhur Gupta, Bernard Templo, and myself presented to the management and board of the micro-grid development start-up Canopy Power Pte. Ltd (www.canopypower.com). The presentation was the culmination of a three-month pro-bono strategy project that sought to advise the company on how to pursue a digital platform based growth strategy.

The presentation covered four main sections: 1- an overview of platform business models, 2- a review of two successful platform businesses Indiamart and Agrostar, 3- an analysis of the pain-points in the micro-grid value chain, and 4- a suggestion for a how to leverage a platform model to address these pain-points.

Micro-grids are defined as small electrical grids that service only one or several smaller customers and which are only connected to the larger power-grid sporadically or not at all. Canopy Power currently targets resorts and other off-grid customers who can save money through deploying renewable energy and storage options to reduce diesel fuel consumption. The business model they propose is still new, and the technologies that it relies upon are only now gaining the trust of major investors. As such our project sought to show how the matching abilities possible on online platforms (think Amazon or Alibaba) could enable greater project development in the micro-grid industry. The goal of the company is to eventually address the huge global electrification gap that currently leaves 1.3 billion people without access to power.

Through our work with Canopy Power, my partners and I gained valuable insight into an emerging industry and received access to a network of new contacts. As I move forward to a career in solar project development, I am grateful for the opportunity that I had at the Nanyang MBA to start a club, pursue interesting projects and build my network and knowledge. After all, the ultimate purpose of an MBA is to apply what you learn to solve real world challenges and NTU encourages this active application.