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How the Energy Innovation Center

ecosystem works.

What Is a Business Ecosystem?

A network of organizations—including for-profit & not-for-profit companies, customers, competitors, universities, foundations, and government agencies, and so on—all involved in the delivery of a specific and aligned outcome through a competitive and cooperative model.

Each entity in the ecosystem affects and is affected by the others, creating a constantly evolving relationship in which each entity must be flexible and adaptable in order to advance their common goals while still thriving individually. 

 

An effective business eco-system functions very much like a healthy biome in nature, where each organism's optimization depends on the collective thriving of the biome.

The Energy Innovation Center ecosystem

The Energy Innovation Center is an ecosystem.

It is a highly functioning collection of companies, universities, government agencies and others all collaborating around the common objectives of advancing the future of energy, learning, and work in clean, sustainable, equitable, and profitable ways.

Many of the 15+ campus tenants (including several major universities with cutting edge energy tech transfer labs, hospital, private equity and opportunity zone funds, international energy companies with a focus on sustainable downstream technologies, innovative food and food technology companies, NGO's, training organizations and others) along with the more than 180 corporations, universities, government agencies and foundations all collaborate for the common good of their aligned missions thereby forming one of the nation's most productive public/private ecosystem in operations. 

 

The Brookings Institute refers to the Energy Innovation Center ecosystem, and the wider Pittsburgh Innovation District we are in the heart of, as one of the best public/private innovation districts in the world.   

Pittsburgh Gateways Corporation, an independent 501 (c)(3) organization,

is the founder of the Energy Innovation Center,

a 6.4 acre, 240,000 sq. ft. campus located in the Lower Hill District between

Pittsburgh's business and university centers.

Pittsburgh Gateways Corporation's mission is to engage corporate and community leaders, align workforce development and education, develop and demonstrate energy and smart building technology, and incubate businesses, to support emerging clean and sustainable energy markets.   Robert Meeder, PhD is the founder, President and CEO, Bill Miller is the COO, and Jessica Lee is Vice President of Pittsburgh Gateways.  Through various subsidiaries, they are the sole owner, developer, and operator of the Energy Innovation Center campus.

Our organization, The Energy Innovation Center Institute, was founded in 2013 as an independent 501 (c) (3) organization to, in large part, implement the Energy Innovation Center's mission by helping build the eco-system and directing its trainings, summits, corporate supported programing, commercialization, and other community facing activities of the Energy Innovation Center. 

Pittsburgh Gateways Corporation and the Energy Innovation Center Institute, Inc. collaborate formally in their aligned organizational missions' through an operating agreement that governs implementation of the strategy and tactics of the Energy Innovation Center.

In addition, both organizations also pursue their missions' with other partners and in other locations.

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