Clean tech entrepreneurs vie for funds, fame

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An unusual contest for clean tech startups - the California Clean Tech Open - began its fourth annual challenge on Thursday, with more than $1 million in prizes and a challenge to create 100,000 new green jobs over the next five years.

An unusual contest for clean tech startups - the California Clean Tech Open - began its fourth annual challenge on Thursday, with more than $1 million in prizes and a challenge to create 100,000 new green jobs over the next five years.

The contest is rare because anybody with an idea, no matter how wacky or unproven, can enter and try for a chance at the next phase - training on how to start and run a business.

This year the Clean Tech Open is expanding beyond California to cultivate startups in the Rocky Mountain area and the Pacific Northwest. To date, 125 startups that have participated in the contest have raised more than $120 million in outside funding.

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"I don't know of anything quite like it," said Jeff Grabow of Ernst & Young, which provides coaches and helps sponsor the contest.

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