Profile

Frans Nauta

Visiting scholar

Bio

I'm an EU-guy working in Silicon Valley and a Valley-guy working in Europe on innovation & entrepreneurship, with a strong affection for clean tech. I love kickstarting new stuff and teaching. Kickstarting new stuff is what I do best, especially on the cross roads of startups, innovation and building innovation ecosystems. Some of the things I started: • www.ClimateLaunchpad.eu, probably the worlds largest competition for clean tech business ideas. 28 countries, >750 applications, >300 startups trained • Climate-KIC Startup Accelerator, with to date around 500 startups enrolled and >200 M€ attracted in funding • Dutch Innovation Platform for (and chaired by) the Dutch Prime Minister, designing a new innovation policy for the country • www.kl.nl the leading Dutch think tank on social innovation and knowledge economy • Environmental monitoring system of the city of Amsterdam • First canal boats on clean natural gas in the canals of Amsterdam (still going strong) Aside from kickstarting projects I teach in Executive Education at UC Berkeley. And I coach startups, run innovation projects with corporate and government clients. And I write. My most recent book (dec 2012) is 'Agents of Change: Strategy and Tactics for Social Innovation'. In 2008 I published a book on the time I worked as innovation secretary at the Prime Ministers office in the Netherlands (in Dutch).