Letters of Interest_American-Made Challenges Program Education Partner

Introduction
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) provides funding support for a range of programs that incentivize the development and advancement of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. One of these programs,  the  American  Made  Challenges  (AMC)  program  which  is  administered by  the  National Renewable  Energy  Laboratory  (NREL),  was  launched  in  2018  to  support and encourage  innovators  to create and deploy  innovative solutions to advance U.S. leadership in
the energy industry.

The AMC program is a Fast-Track to the Clean Energy Revolution, supercharging a revolution of bold ideas to create a just, clean energy future where everyone can thrive. The AMC program alone now includes representation from 10+ offices within DOE across 25 prizes with more than $100M in cash prizes and in- kind support already awarded. Because of this quick growth NREL is seeking to supplement the existing resources  within  the  American-Made  Network  to  build  new capabilities and support  the  incoming competitors who need additional training and mentorship not yet available. Additional support may be needed for other DOE/EERE innovative programs in the future.

The AMC program is supported by an ecosystem of national laboratories and industry experts including accelerators, energy incubators, and other resources, forging more than 600 connections to date with prize   teams.   As   “America’s   Energy   Innovation   Engine”,   this   network seeks   to   provide   training, connections,   teaming,   mentoring,   and   more,   helping   to  
 recruit   and   upskill   new   innovators and entrepreneurs to the clean energy revolution. Just like Google created a Fast-Track to In-Demand IT jobs, we need to create a Fast-Track to In-Demand Clean Energy jobs, workforce training, teaming, mentoring, and entrepreneur upskilling.

NREL is seeking new organizations to join the AMC program and play a strategic role in providing some of the identified support gaps for competitors within AMC and other related DOE innovation programs to amplify the impact of these programs in the long run. These entities are labeled “Education Partners,” and they will be engaged to provide support to innovators across the various prizes.