Henry Vehovec with University of Toronto Engineering Science students, 2010.
On January 15, 2010, Mindfirst President Henry Vehovec spoke to 250 students and faculty on the topic Energy Systems Design kicking off the 2010 University of Toronto Engineering Science Education Conference. Hilary Inyang, originally scheduled to speak was unable to travel to Toronto. Prof Hilary Inyang is the Duke Energy Distinguished Professor of Environmental Engineering and Science, Professor of Earth Science and Director of the Global Institute for Energy and Environmental Systems at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Other sessions on the agenda covered aerospace, nanoengineered materials, bioengineering, sustainable infrastructure, electrical and computer engineering, and quantum materials.
Henry Vehovec, U of T Civil Engineering 1979, reflected on coming full circle to speak at the John Bahen Center where he had been a student and himself hired by John Bahen upon graduation. He used his recent Olympic Torch Relay experience to illustrate lessons he had learned during his business career and also talked about things he wished he had been told as an undergraduate. He described Sustainable Development Technologies Canada (SDTC) as a leading investor and catalyst for early stage investing in sustainable technologies in Canada. And finally, he gave profiles of a broad cross section of innovative energy projects that had obtained commercialization funding from SDTC. Henry Vehovec has been a member of the SDTC Investment Committee since inception in 2001.
Earlier in the week SDTC announced sixteen clean technology projects from across Canada will receive $58 million in funding to help move innovative technology solutions to the market. The announcement, confirming the decision of the Board of Directors of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), was made on January 12, 2010 by the Honourable Lisa Raitt, Minister of Natural Resources, and Vicky Sharpe, SDTC’s President and CEO. These new investments bring SDTC’s total portfolio value to over $1.5B. SDTC’s SD Tech Fund™ has completed fifteen funding rounds, committing $464 million to 183 clean technology projects, and leveraging over $1B from project consortia members.