Entrepreneur in Residence
The Washington Clean Energy Testbeds Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) advises entrepreneurs and early-stage climate tech startup companies on team formation, product development, strategic marketing, fundraising, manufacturing strategy, and business development. Weekly office hours are free and open to aspiring and established climate tech entrepreneurs and business teams.
Babu Jain
Babu Jain is a renewable energy entrepreneur with more than 30 years of experience leading global startups as well as technology teams at Fortune 500 companies, with leadership experience in the United States, India, Singapore, and Germany. He is the Founder & CEO of Navia Energy Inc., a renewable AI technology company, and has served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at UW CoMotion since 2017. As a founder, Babu led NavSemi Energy from launch to acquisition by Alpha Technologies Inc. (now an EnerSys company). As a VP for Design Centers, Babu scaled Infineon’s small R&D team in Asia to 600+ engineers and scaled sales operation for Infineon India. As an Engineering executive, he deployed game-changing technologies in power and industrial controls, communication, and optical networking while at Infineon and other technology corporations. Babu has an MBA from SUNY-Buffalo and a BSEE from BITS Pilani (India), and holds 4 patents in energy systems.
Babu’s office hours are 1–2 pm Monday–Thursday or by appointment. On-site office hours will be held about once a month, with other office hours held virtually.
Contact: babujain@uw.edu
Past EIRs
Volha Hrechka — Industry AI, Microsoft
Dhileep Sivam — CEO, Aquagga
Tom Madden — CEO & Co-Founder, Cool Amps Corp.
Ben Bierman — Principal Consultant, Integration Advantage
Scott Case — Co-Founder & CEO, Recurrent
Ramkumar Krishnan — Head of Cleantech Incubation, LG
John Plaza — President & CEO, SkyNRG North America
Investor in Residence
The Washington Clean Energy Testbeds Investor-in-Residence (IIR) program was established in partnership with E8, a climate tech angel investment group based in the Pacific Northwest. The Testbeds IIR provides free consultations on funding proposals, investor pitches, financial strategy, fundraising, and strategic partnerships to climate tech entrepreneurs and startups via regular office hours.
Jeff Canin
Jeff Canin is a member of the Board of Directors at VertueLab and a co-manager of the E8 venture fund. Jeff’s career includes extensive experience in financial services and venture capital. His current efforts are focused on providing advisory services to early-stage companies and university technology commercialization spinouts.
To schedule a meeting with Jeff, contact wcet@uw.edu.