Are you interested in getting more involved with MassCEC’s support of climatetech startups and innovators across the Commonwealth? If so, we’ve got an exciting announcement for you!
To expand our base of volunteer project reviewers, MassCEC’s Tech-to-Market Team is looking for reviewers with a diverse range of experiences and areas of expertise to take part in our evaluation process in the future.
The Tech-to-Market team runs the AmplifyMass, InnovateMass and Catalyst/DICES programs, which are all competitive, pre-commercial innovation grant programs for climatetech startups and academic researchers.
To ensure an equitable and competitive application process, we often rely on the expertise of external reviewers to help us evaluate projects. External reviewers are professionally qualified -- by training, experience, or both -- in scientific or business-related fields. We maintain a list of reviewers to call upon on an as-needed basis throughout the year. This is always a no-obligation process!
The opportunities are as follows:
- Written reviews: It usually takes about 1-2 hours to read and consider each application and complete the review template. We assign applications to reviewers based on topic area.
- Pitch Day judging: Pitch Day competitions, which are virtual, usually take 5-7 hours during work hours, and include a set of pitches from the finalists of a given program round. You would be sitting on a (virtual) panel of judges and interacting with the innovators and other judges directly.
Who are current external reviewers? They have a range of backgrounds: professors, academics and researchers, serial entrepreneurs, investors, lawyers, engineers, project and program managers, operations specialists, utility industry professionals, and more! We value a diversity of experiences and viewpoints in our external reviewers.
One of our current reviewers, Jess Charlap, Program Manager of External Programs and Partnerships at Olin College, says, “Being a MassCEC reviewer is one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. It enables me to make a positive impact on both the climate crisis and the economic development of my community. The staff works hard to make reviewing easy to fit into my work schedule and they are very clear about how to evaluate the proposals. It also gives me a preview of exciting new ventures to support in the future. I love seeing startups who I recommended for funding featured at events or in the media.”
If you are interested in becoming a reviewer, please fill out this interest form.
After reviewing your response, we will reach out if we think you are a good fit for our reviewer program!