Silvia de Vaan is the founder of SweepSmart, a Dutch-Indian start-up offering a better way to sort and dispose of trash. SweepSmart’s waste management model works to create smaller landfills but also jobs to be proud of. We discuss the challenges and opportunities of working in cross-cultural contexts as well as when to know it’s time to start your own company. (Hint – you will never feel ready!) Silvia has a background in systems engineering and management consulting in the Netherlands and East Africa.
Tangible's mission is to decarbonize buildings. Their software tool helps identify, manage, and track sustainable building materials. Co-founder, Anneli Tostar, walks us through her unexpected journey from Harvard, to Sao Paolo, Sweden, London, and finally to San Francisco.
Matt Plante is the president and co-founder of Voltus, a distributed energy resources platform whose mission is to fulfill the promise of the energy transition. Voltus’s technology platform, VoltApp, connects any distributed energy resource, from energy efficiency to demand response, to any wholesale market in North America. In this episode, we discuss the electric grid of the future, the DER technology and policy to get us there, lessons learned from the Texas and California blackouts, and what makes Voltus special.
Sy Bohy is the co-founder of Seam, a startup offering a device- and brand-agnostic API for developers to control homes and buildings. Seam’s IoT platform enables organizations to control building devices, like opening door locks, controlling thermostats, turning off lights, and more. Sy and his co-founder Dawn bring years of expertise from Nest and Sonder to progress the burgeoning building management industry.
SteamaCo enables utilities to sell energy anywhere on the planet. Their data-efficient energy management system helps overcome cost and infrastructure barriers to underserved energy customers in 10 African countries. This episode covers why last-mile connectivity is such a challenge, how SteamaCo augments and automates preexisting smart metering and cloud technology, and three frameworks around limiting beliefs, procrastination, and motivation to succeed as an entrepreneur.
Angelo Campus is the founder of BoxPower, a startup offering small scale renewable microgrids in 20-ft shipping containers. They are expanding energy access to rural, often-low income, communities that are off-grid or recovering from a natural disaster. They also provide back-up power to critical infrastructures like hospitals in California that are experiencing more blackouts than ever before. Angelo started learning about solar PVs and battery systems as a kid when homeschooled and never looked back. This episode dives into microgrid technology, entrepreneurship, and how to carve your own path when none of the visible paths are what you want.
Wendy Owens is the founder and CEO of Hexas, a clean-tech startup producing and distributing sustainable, plant-based biomass. Their giant grass, called Xanograss, replaces wood biomass and is an exceptional climate-change fighting species because of its low-cost sustainable building material, energy fuel, and carbon sequestration properties. Wendy brings over a decade of materials and biotech experience to Hexas and in this episode shares insights on the future of sustainable construction and renewable energy sectors, her experience as a founder, and her general philosophy for success.
Books mentioned:
An Introduction to Mathematics by Alfred North Whitehead
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Bettina Grab, founder and President of Impact B2B, helps climate tech start-ups have a bigger, impact faster through growth and effective sales & marketing strategies. She is also a Zero Waste blogger, speaker & activist. The first part of the episode focuses on Bettina’s shift from corporate marketing to climate-focused marketing and why there is such a need for it today. She offers many great tips for current and aspiring founders, so take a listen if that applies to you! The second part focused on zero waste living, what she has learned from living a plastic-free life, and some surprising facts about why recycling is really the last resort.
Did you know that Bamboo Engineered Lumber is stronger, more fire-resistant, and more sustainable than wood, steel, and concrete?
Troy Carter co-founded Rizome, a startup working to make bamboo a primary global construction material. In this episode, we discuss the future of regenerative, climate-positive cities, bamboo forests for carbon sequestration, and the unique elements of bamboo as a construction material.
Books mentioned:
Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander
https://medium.com/rizome/the-cities-of-the-future-will-be-made-of-bamboo-894e86055b3f
Sean Kidney is the CEO of the Climate Bonds Initiative, an international NGO working to mobilize debt capital markets for climate solutions. The Climate Bonds Initiative works to create standards and transparency in the green bond market such as by creating a certification scheme, advising the EU, and working with China's central bank to grow green bonds. Sean discusses the climate crises from a holistic perspective, framing the role of finance in a broad picture of the urgency but also hope that exists, especially as relating to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Take a listen to learn about green bonds and more, and enjoy!
Deb Kemper is an impact investor and experienced advisor with cross-cultural leadership. She is an angel investor in Golden Seeds Venture Group and the Clean Energy Venture Group and supports innovation in clean-tech, med-tech, and women’s empowerment. Prior to joining Golden Seeds Ventures, she built a portfolio of over two dozen early-stage investments via Libra Global Partners, LLC, and worked in management consulting at McKinsey & Co. Deb has served on non-profit Boards of Directors in the United States, Peru, and China and was the founding organizer for TEDxShanghaiWomen in 2012. This wonderful conversation covers much more than Deb’s work experiences, as she comments on living internationally, balancing work and life, and how to make career decisions.
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