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A Brief History of blueEnergy
What Began as a Class Project Now Serves Nearly 1,500 Beneficiaries.
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In October of 2002 Mathias Craig came up with the idea for blueEnergy during a class entitled "Entrepreneurship in the Developing World", at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mathias worked with two other classmates to develop a business plan for blueEnergy to serve as the deliverable for the class. The class was created by world renowned computer scientist Professor Alex (Sandy) Pentland who saw a need to spur the development of business ideas that would address the needs of the world’s underserved populations. The premise of the class was that the two billion people of the world who are often ignored by private enterprise represent a market that awaits a new wave of entrepreneurship where technologies and products are developed that are low cost enough to be widely accessible.
blueEnergy’s first business plan was created as the deliverable for this course and was submitted to the 2002 MIT $1k business plan competition. Out of the 128 submissions entered into the competition, 10 were selected as winners, with blueEnergy chosen as the winner in the Global Markets category. This victory, while small in terms of prize money, gave blueEnergy considerable momentum and helped propel the idea beyond the classroom.
After graduating in the spring of 2003, Mathias Craig dedicated himself to blueEnergy full-time, eventually incorporating it as a nonprofit on November 19, 2003, in the District of Columbia. Mathias assembled a dynamic team to form the core of blueEnergy, which began operations in Nicaragua in May 2004. A French sister association, ER&DE, was formed by Michèle Grégoire, Colette Grinevald and Lâl Marandin (one of blueEnergy's core members) late in 2004 to help facilitate European support for blueEnergy's projects.
blueEnergy obtained its tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service on October 18, 2005.
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blueEnergy QuickFacts:
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Number of Installations:
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8
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| Number of Communities Served: |
6
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| Total Number of Beneficiaries: |
1,500
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| Installed Capacity (kW): |
7.5
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| Number of Local Employees: |
14
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| Total Number of Historical Volunteers: |
+85
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