Ph.D. student Kobina Akyea Ofori (chemical engineering) is currently representing Michigan Tech and the Department of Chemical Engineering during a four-day intense training session in Baltimore, Maryland, as part of the MINER BOOST research program and featuring tons of information and socialization opportunities.
MINER BOOST (Mining Innovations for Negative Emissions Resources – Business Orientation and Origination of Spinouts Training) is organized by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), specifically ARPA-E (the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy), under Douglas Wicks, the program director for waste-to-energy projects.
The program caters to graduate students, stakeholders and investors, and aims to address the absence of a vibrant mining and mineral processing start-up community. It seeks to:
- Create a community of mining and mineral processing innovators by bringing together students and postdocs from academic groups within the MINER program.
- Teach participants practical skills related to pitching, networking and company building.
- Develop case studies evaluating the commercial potential of current projects students and postdocs are working on within the MINER program.
Ofori expressed his enthusiasm about the journey thus far, stating, “The experience has been incredibly exciting!”