Hi, my name is Chris wedding. I'll be your teacher for this course on Renewable Energy and Green Building Entrepreneurship. In this first video, I'd like to tell you about two things. The first, a little about my background and why I created this course. The second, what I hope you will learn in this course. First, who am I? And why am I teaching this course? Well, ever since elementary school, I knew I wanted to make a positive impact and help solve problems in the environment. That led me to study environmental science and later to conduct ecological research and teach about conservation in the rain forest of Central America. Along with my students, the indigenous well-rounded children, and an awe inspiring diversity of plant and animal life, including bellowing howler monkeys and mosquitoes often infested with malaria or dengue fever. Good times indeed. Back then I thought that business and finance were the enemy. Only causes of problems and only concern about profit. But I was wrong. Later I learned about the catalytic capacity of investment in entrepreneurship. And today I spend little time talking about biodiversity metrics, air pollution control technology or organic chemistry, instead I focus on financial modeling, business partner dynamics, risk management, legal lingo and startup tools. My path has led me to become the founder and managing partner of IronOak Energy, a renewable energy financial advisory firm, a faculty member at Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Institute for Defense and Business. In addition, I'm a senior adviser to private equity Angel Investing and Venture Capital firms that have collectively raised over $4 billion to invest in real estate, energy technology including over 600 projects or companies. I'm also the founder of the Invest for Impact Academy, a mentorship in online educational platform focused on impact driven business and finance. In the process, I've learned a lot via success, failure, and working with peers much smarter than me. So I'm excited to share those lessons with you. So why teach the course? Well, I want to help you understand the power of entrepreneurship. A challenging but potentially high impact career path. I want to tell you about the enormous business opportunities in renewable energy and green building. Key parts to the $1.4 trillion advanced energy economy globally. Twice the size of the airline industry and almost as large as the global apparel industry. And I want to walk you through the practical steps from idea to business launch. Hopefully, this course will help you to find and refine business ideas, to launch them into the market. I believe that in the end there's one question that I use to judge my success. As my kids get older, will they be proud of and excited about the work that I do? So far, I've got them putting fake solar panels on their LEGO spaceships, so we're off to a good start. My goal is to make renewable energy and green building entrepreneurship real and tangible with practical action items and case studies of success. I don't want you to just read stuff and watch videos. I want you to digest and process the information. To pause the videos, answer my questions along the way and engage in the forum with comments and questions for your peers. My hope is this course helps tens of thousands of you around the world generate and refine new business ideas in these high growth sectors. Along with your one page business model canvas business plan and then within a few months your website, some partners, an advisory board, and a 10-slide pitch presentation. Again I'm so excited that you're joining me for this course. It could literally change your life, as it has mine and change the world. As Warren Buffett has said, "Imagine what your ideal future looks like when you're say, 70 years old, then, work backwards to the present moment." What action will you take now to make that impact you seek to make? Onward and upward, make it a great week. Oh yeah. P.S. I hope this is just the beginning of our conversation. I might be able to help you learn more about renewable energy and green building entrepreneurship via these other platforms. Earn a degree or engage in executive education at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment. Finance or renewable energy project or company via my company, IronOak Energy. Go deeper in online education and learn much much more on these topics or get a dedicated business mentor via my other company, The Invest for Impact Academy. And find more tips, tools, and the latest news on these topics by becoming part of a community of fellow change makers. Join our LinkedIn group on renewable energy finance and entrepreneurship. You will learn more about these, via my course profile in Coursera. All right, then, I'll see you in the next video.
