Internship Description
Max de Boer'23 interned with the Climate Knowledge Initiative (CKI) within the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise. CKI is an innovative online platform that maps the full landscape of emissions sources, abatement technologies, economic sectors, and policy scenarios, and then arms business leaders with the tools and research-backed insights to invest in implementing solutions whose long-term benefits outweigh their short-term costs. Max helped gather and filter up-to-date knowledge on climate for different sectors and made them presentable in such a way that they are easy to interpret.
Over the course of the summer I worked closely together with CBS Professor Gernot Wagner as a research fellow to set up the new Climate Knowledge Initiative (CKI) at Columbia Business School. The goal of CKI is to make relevant climate knowledge more accessible to people in business. My main responsibilities during my time at CKI were the following:
- Help to develop an initial business plan, which was presented to a group of potential donors and used to gain official approval for the initiative.
- Author a report on the current state of the the solar photovoltaics industry, which is to be published under the CKI flag within the next six months.
- Assist in the writing of a POV on green technologies in the steel industry, as well as assisting in organizing and expert workshop with academic and business experts on the steel industry from all over the world.
The internship was a perfect addition to my CBS experience. I could build on the climate and business knowledge I gained during CBS courses such as Climate Finance and Climate Policy. This provided an incredibly valuable stepping stone, especially when it came to writing a full report on the solar PV industry. The fellowship was also a pleasurable experience overall. Professor Wagner gave me a lot of freedom to set my own course and was appreciative of the work that I put in. Overall, the fellowship helped me to further deepen my business and climate knowledge extensively, which will undoubtedly benefit me in my future career.