NextGen Program

"NextGen at CERAWeek opened a door that no classroom could fully open. It helped me witness how energy, geopolitics, capital, and technology meet in the real world—with generosity, urgency, and purpose."

-Grace Tian
Master’s, Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

"CERAWeek's decision to include students is visionary. As a researcher and science communicator, experiencing the policy, finance, and business forces shaping energy makes me exponentially more effective."

-April Moreno-ward, Postdoctoral Research Associate, AASPI
The University of Oklahoma

"Attending CERAWeek as part of the UChicago delegation was one of the best weeks of my MBA. Presenting on Innovator’s Row and debating real tradeoffs with practitioners who live them daily was the highlight."

-Sumedh Wargantiwar
University of Chicago, Booth '26

"I've been coming to CERAWeek for over two decades. It's never lost the character of the premier conveing of the energy tribe that I really benefit from enourmously. The opportunity to cross paths with people from all sectors of the energy bsiness, the energy policy world, the energy research wrold, is really a unique experience."

-Dr. Ernest Moniz
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Energy Futures Initiative, 13th U.S. Secretary of Energy and Founding Director, MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI)

"I brought some students with me who are at the very beginning of their career, and they want to work in energy, and they're technical...their eyes are about a mile wide. We need to expose more of them to not just the single narrow part that they're going to work on but let them see the bigger picture. "

-Barbara Burger
Former President, Chevron Technology Ventures and Senior Advisor, Lazard

"...so many opportunities to raise visibility for what we're doing at Rice University - opportunities to get the pulse of the energy industry and understand what are the priorities, the needs, how people are thining about the energy transition."

-Marie-Nathalie Contou-Carrere
Executive Director, Rice University

"You have the academics here, the policy people are here, the entrepreneurs are here. Legends are here."

-Van Jones
CNN host, best-selling author and social entrepreneur, Dream Machine Innovation Lab