Car kids shine in prime time

By Cliff Newell

The Lake Oswego Review, Nov 2, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Submitted photo / pamplin media group photo / Lake Oswego Review

Exchanging ideas on how to change the world at the recent Dow Jones Emerging Ventures Forum were, from left, Mario Landau Holdsworth of Greenit, Anton Aboukhalil of MIT, Jose Gomez-Marquez of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Amber Case of Greenit, Panjak Sood and Tarek Sadek, both of McMaster University.

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When Mario Landau Holdsworth and Amber Case attended the Dow Jones Emerging Ventures Forum on Oct. 18, it was an overwhelming, stunning experience.

Which was to be expected at the Silicon Valley gathering of the cream of Wall Street and some of the most brilliant inventors in the world.

“We’ve been in the shallow end of the pool with little water wings,” Case said. “There we were in the deep end of the pool. And it was cold.”

However, they proved to be quite stunning themselves.

“We were the youngest people there, hands down,” Holdsworth said.

“People were shocked,” Case said. “They said, ‘Are you serious? You aren’t PhD’s.’”

True, with both of them just 20 years of age, Holdsworth and Case are quite dazzlingly young, and they didn’t bring the big bucks financial backing boasted by many of the venture groups. Their learning curve goes straight up for as far as the eye can see.

But they found out something crucially important: They deserve a place at the table.

Along with their colleagues on the Lewis & Clark College Electric Car Club and Greenit – Adan Vielma, Joey Braman and Ben Thonney – they have developed an idea that has come at a perfect time: Producing an electric car that is efficient, affordable and can save this nation untold amounts of energy.

America and the world are turning to sustainable practices, and the Lewis & Clark kids want to have one of those companies meeting the huge demand for sustainable products at this critical point in history.

Holdsworth said, “What we really took out of it is we have this great idea, but we need a lot of work to shape it and solidify it so Wall Street people say, ‘This is what we’re looking for.’ We need to do everything we’re doing now and much more.

“Yes, we have the technology. Yes, we can compete. Yes, it’s feasible. We don’t need to convince people there’s a problem. It’s convincing them the problem should be solved in a certain way.”

“Something has to happen,” Case said. “If we don’t do it, someone else will. We’re happy to be part of it.”

First comes the work, however, and Case and Holdsworth were suitably awed at an event that attracted 41 award-winning inventors, including a Nobel Prize laureate.

It was the type of event where Case could turn to someone sitting next to her at a banquet, mention a problem encountered by her team, then have the man immediately reel off what steps they should take.

“My brain felt heavy afterward,” Case said. “I feel a lot of stuff was added to my brain. It compressed time. What would have taken me a month to research I got there in two days. Now I sit up in the middle of the night and think about something I learned there.”

More poetically, she said, “It was like flying away from earth and looking back on this planet. Everything was put into perspective.”

As for Holdsworth, he admitted to being a bit shaken up.

“Ignorance is not bliss,” he said. “I really wanted to know where we are, even if it was jarring.”

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