Benny Kim, MSIM ’17, selected as first Greentown Fellow

In September, Tufts University announced a new partnership with Greentown Labs, the nation’s largest clean technology incubator. The new collaboration will allow for faculty and student engagement with the sustainable incubator, whose mission is to support clean tech startups and entrepreneurs by providing lab space, resources and funding to member companies.

Benny Kim, MSIM ’17, was selected as the first Greentown Fellow, a position that serves as a bridge between Tufts faculty, students and Greentown Labs. Based at the Tufts Institute for the Environment, Kim will also work to grow Greentown’s global outreach identification of international opportunities.

“As the Fellow, my main task will be to establish a strong relationship between Tufts University and Greentown Labs by connecting students, faculty, researchers, entrepreneurs, and thinkers in the clean technology field,” Kim said. “I’m very excited to be back at Tufts!”

Kim spent his spring semester Innovation Sprint working at Greentown Labs, which helped spur the collaboration between the Gordon Institute and Greentown. Students in the Gordon Institute’s programs will have the opportunity to collaborate and work with member companies.

“Greentown has a spectrum of companies in the energy sustainability space, so I’m hoping that by interacting with them, it’ll help stimulate ideas and thoughts for the Gordon Institute and for Tufts students in general,” Kevin Oye, Director of the MSIM program, said about the collaboration.

The collaboration will also allow for a member of the Tufts faculty to serve as a faculty-in-residence to Greentown’s companies, advising fledgling businesses in the incubator. Startups run by Tufts affiliates (students, faculty, postdoctoral associates, staff or alumni) will be able to receive access to become Greentown Labs member companies

“The beautiful thing about having the memorandum of understanding is it’s a signal that Greentown and Tufts are acknowledging that there’s opportunity to do things together,” Oye said.