Winds are changing in renewable technology | Interview w/ Jonathan Knight | CEO of Uprise Energy
Summary
40% of the world population does not have access to reliable electricity. Founder Jonathan Knight tells the story of how Uprise Energy is changing that with the world’s first commercial portable wind turbines.
Description
We take our outlets for granted, but 3 billion people live in energy poverty worldwide. Uprise Energy’s portable wind turbines provide a solution and open up a whole world of opportunities for their users. Founder Jonathan Knight makes a financial and an environmental case for their revolutionary product.
Harnessing the wind and building with composites was familiar for Jonathan, as his father had a yacht refitting business. When he realized the growing importance of renewable energy, he started to look for a solution that could extend to areas that will never be covered by the grid. Wind was a natural choice, as it is available everywhere, day and night. Instead of costly and complex wind farm projects, however, his company developed a 10kW turbine that can fit in a 20 ft container and, at full tilt, could power 10 average American homes.
The possible applications are endless. The first pilot projects are on organic farms in the US, but the Military and the Australian government is also interested in getting involved. The turbines can be set up by 1 person in less than an hour, and they can power construction sites and replace diesel generators. But those who will see the biggest difference are islanders and people in remote villages, where human creativity will be unlocked by sudden access to reliable power.
Key takeaways:
- Why there are 1 billion diesel generators running in the world at any given moment
- How replacing diesel with wind energy saves cost, CO2 emissions, and human lives
- Why innovation often comes from the third world instead of Silicon Valley
Mentions
Check out Uprise Energy’s website: http://upriseenergy.com/
Find them on social media:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/UpriseEnergy
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/upriseenergy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UpriseEnergy
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uprise-energy/
- YouTube video: https://youtu.be/1bVoYizxA4I) about installing, running, and taking down a turbine in 3 hours.
Is “purpose-driven and profitable” the new norm? | Interview w/ George Weiner | CEO of Whole Whale
Summary:
Hiring the right people, attracting the right clients and giving them the results they really want, leaving no data to go to waste. George Weiner, founder and chief whaler at Whole Whale shared how he built a social impact digital agency that is doing well by doing good.
Description:
We live in an age where data is abundant. It would be a shame if any of it went to waste, just like it was a shame that whalers in the 1850’s left large parts of the whale to rot. This is where the name Whole Whale comes from. The analogy with whaling stops there, as this digital agency only works with social impact organizations, and only if the majority of employees agree to take the new client on.
Founder George Weiner used to think like many companies still do: the ends justifies the means. Later he realized that this approach fails to take into account the unintended consequences of every decision, and he built them into his way of looking at the world and running Whole Whale. However, it remains to be seen whether the general public will subscribe to the idea of purpose-driven companies, and make more of them profitable than the few exceptions we see today.
It is not always clear even within an organization what the end goal really is. Whole Whale does a sort of “business therapy” to find out what their client wants, and once they defined the goal, they use aggregated data to measure what is working. They produce data packaged with a narrative that’s just as compelling as the story of Whole Whale.
Key takeaways:
- what it takes to be a B-Corp, and what it isn’t
- how to cultivate a unique company culture from hiring to exit interviews
- how you know you are “doing good” in the digital marketing world
- how society is dealing with negative externalities
Mentions:
Whole Whale’s Website: https://www.wholewhale.com/
Digital fundraising course: https://www.wholewhale.com/university/online-fundraising-essentials/
Connect with George on: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgeweiner/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/wholewhale
Rethinking the modern workday | Interview w/ Peter Jackson | CEO of Bluescape
Working remotely can be just as immersive as being in the office physically, and much more productive. Bluescape has developed a tool that looks straight out of Minority Report but will not use AI to exploit your data. This kind of collaboration will require a mindset shift in how we look at teams and leadership.
Summary
Remote work and distributed teams have become the new norm, and it is working so well that several companies are never going to go back to the office. There are countless communication and collaboration tools on the market, but not a lot of them can manage the entire workflow and, especially, collaboration on shared content. Bluescape is a comprehensive tool that can replace the entire tech stack of any company, from a startup to a billion-dollar film studio.
With clients like that, security and privacy are paramount. Founder Peter Jackson hopes that people understand that free tools are free because customer data is fed into AI systems, putting this privacy at risk. The decision to move away from these and into Bluescape is one that has to come from the top.
Transitioning an entire organization into remote collaboration requires a cultural shift as well. Managers need to trust their teams and, instead of checking if everybody clocks enough hours, set milestones, which can then be monitored through the system itself. But beyond getting the job done, great leaders also facilitate human connections and strengthen team spirit, in the virtual space as well as the physical.
Mentions
Peter Jackson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterhjackson
Bluescape on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bluescaper
Bluescape’s Website: https://www.bluescape.com/
Daniel H. Pink: Drive on: https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805
Key takeaways
- Bluespace allows every participant to contribute, which is not the case in traditional meetings
- Tool sprawl is real, and it is hurting productivity and the onboarding of new employees
- Technologies are still chosen based on knee-jerk reactions instead of informed decisions
- People are motivated by autonomy more than constant supervision
- In business, there is no individual success, and systems need to promote teamwork
AI, the light bulb of the 21st century | Interview w/ Sandeep Pandya | Founder of Everguard
AI will cause a paradigm shift in several areas of human life in the next decade. Everguard is already using it to improve industry workers’ safety and to provide real-time data about large, complex and dangerous environments. Founder Sandeep Pandya explains the profound impact of AI and how far we have come since the 70’s – even if it doesn’t look like that.
Sandeep Pandya likes to live at the edge. That is where the activity is happening and where machines interact with humans. His company, Everguard, has built a complex system using edge computing in order to monitor industrial environments. This technology has a double purpose of providing real-time alerts and collecting valuable data that management can use to streamline and optimize the workflow.
Dangerous work environments are still responsible for more than 5,000 deaths every year. While it is not feasible to install cameras and sensors everywhere in a coil yard or steel factory, covering the incident hotspots and giving workers wearables that both track their movement and warn them in a fraction of a second already goes a long way towards better safety at the workplace. From a business point of view, caring about safety not only reduces liability, it also facilitates recruiting and retention, and earns points with business partners.
AI as a concept has been around for several decades, but until recently, the hardware could not keep up with the computing needs of such a system. With the advent of smartphones and the booming gaming industry, the processing power of computers has increased to a point where it is easy and cheap to get the computing power needed for machine learning. The quality of the data input is still a limiting factor, as is people’s reluctance to be constantly monitored, but AI is a tool for society that will naturally grow on the breeding ground that today’s virtual world is.
Mentions
Everguard’s website: www.everguard.ai
Sandeep on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandeeppandyasd/
Key takeaways
- why using generally available components is a better choice than building custom hardware
- how collected data can help remap the flow at an industrial site to make it more efficient and safer at the same time
- how safety can impact recruitment and retention and increase bottom line
- why the government should just enable and support innovation instead of trying to be at the forefront
No more FUQs (Frequently Unanswered Questions) | Interview w/ Bharath Gaddam | CEO & Founder of DataPoem
In a 2020 survey, 75% of marketers said their biggest challenge is measuring the effect of media spending. Data Poem reimagined this process and offers data presented in a compelling way, with actionable insights, all automatically.
Summary:
Planning, Execution, Optimization, Measurement – the steps of an effective marketing campaign. Bharath Gaddam rearranged the letters and created Data Poem, a data management and visualization platform like no other.
One of the biggest challenges in marketing is that it is very difficult to measure the success of a campaign. There is a reason why marketing résumés often boast the size of the budget managed instead of the results achieved. Even when data is available, it tends to live in silos, and anyone who has tried to collect everything was easily overwhelmed by the amount of information.
Data Poem’s system collects data from online and offline sources, then applies deep learning to find connections and causal relations between them. The results are displayed in the minimal amount of graphs carrying the maximum amount of meaningful information – just like poetry.
When a business is this unique, there usually is some bigger purpose behind it. Bharath is no exception. He is hoping that the 20-25% of those budgets his company is able to save for marketers will be invested in big, impactful ideas.
Key takeaways:
- Even in the digital world, attribution is not certain, as offline elements are also in the mix
- Market Mix Modelling has been around since the 70’s, but isn’t actually backed by data
- Machine learning is used in an optimal way when we can answer questions that weren’t even asked
Mentions:
Data Poem: www.datapoem.com
Bharath Gaddam
- on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bharath-gaddam-3355a821/
- on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CuriousBharath
- on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bharath.gaddam.52