Social Innovation Podcast

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Impact at Scale chatted with Lauren Eatwell, Head of Windwings at BAR Technologies. BAR Technologies was founded on the technology from the prestigious America's Cup Yacht Race and now focuses on maritime innovation and technology, particularly in the area of sustainability. TIME Magazine also recognized Lauren as one of The 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders in 2023.

With shipping being such an essential part of the global economy, it is vital that the industry becomes more sustainable. Lauren delves into the potential of Windwings to revolutionize the maritime industry. Windwings, large adjustable sails that can be installed on dry bulk carriers, have the power to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions significantly. The potential savings from Windwings are substantial, with an average of 1.5 tons of fuel and 4.5 tons of carbon emissions per day per wing. However, the industry faces challenges in convincing stakeholders of the technology's benefits and navigating the complex regulations and classification societies.

Some Topics That Lauren Covered

Development and Design Process
Dealing with such a legacy industry
Challenges in implementing new technology
Fuel and Carbon Emission Savings

Other Titles We Considered

4.5 tonnes per day less carbon emissions per wing
Anything that reduces fuel is reducing carbon dioxide
People want to be associated with positive action
Pushing the boundaries within the rules of safety

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Impact At Scale had an insightful conversation with Lester Leong, CEO and co-founder of Gush. Gush develops a range of advanced material solutions for the built environment, all of which focus on sustainability and wellness. Gush has developed 16 SKUs, including paints and films, that aim to improve indoor air quality, reduce energy consumption, and tackle the urban heat island effect.

Lester talks about their innovation process, which involves working with research talent and existing technologies to bring products to market. Gush's sales strategy is deeply rooted in understanding and meeting customer needs, and building strong relationships with enterprise customers. The company prioritizes sustainability and aims to embed it into the entire life cycle of its products.

Topics that Lester Covered

Leveraging Walls for Impact
Navigating Innovation and Commercial Departments
Persuading Non-Passionate Stakeholders
Opportunities for Innovation in the Paint Industry

Other Titles We Considered

The biggest surface area around us are walls
Prioritizing Sustainability in the Built Environment
Understanding what the customer really wants
We chose an industry with little innovation

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Impact at Scale connected with Pranav Rastogi, the Head of Communications for Grow Asia. Grow Asia was established by the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to convene, facilitate, and help scale action-focused partnerships and broker market-driven solutions that cultivate inclusive, resilient and sustainable food systems in Southeast Asia.

Pranav discusses the organisation's work in sustainable agriculture and food systems transformation. He shares his background in economics and development economics and his interest in solving climate change through behavioural economics.

Pranav explains how Grow Asia brings together the public and private sectors to align incentives, deliver positive climate outcomes, and increase smallholder farmers' incomes. He highlights specific programs, such as GrowHer Cacao, which focuses on women's economic empowerment, and GrowBeyond, which addresses access to finance and technology for small farmers. Pranav also discusses the challenges of working across diverse countries and the vision for the future of Grow Asia.

Some Topics Pranav Covered

Behavioral Economics in Climate Change
Personal Motivation for Joining Grow Asia
Challenges of Working Across Multiple Countries
Vision for the Future of Grow Asia

Other Titles We Considered

Politicians discount the future for the present
Farmers that produce most of the food with no access to funding
Food system transformation is so vital for climate

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Impact at Scale had a conversation with Nora Sophie Griefahn, co-founder and executive director of Cradle to Cradle. This C2C NGO is dedicated to education and networking on the topic of Cradle to Cradle. The NGO works with businesses, science, education, politics, and civil society.

Nora discusses the concept of Cradle to Cradle and its goal of creating a positive and beneficial footprint. She explains how Cradle to Cradle aims to transition from a linear economy to a circular economy, starting at the design phase to eliminate waste and create endless cycles of materials. Nora emphasizes the importance of shifting mindsets and values to create a better life for people and the planet.

Some Topics Nora Covered

Inspiration behind Cradle to Cradle
Showcasing What is Possible
Shifting Mindsets and Values

Other Titles We Considered

Keeping what makes us human
There is so much possible already
We want to create faster impact
We can have a better life

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Impact at Scale interviews Mairu Gupta, the CEO and founder of Antkind Collective. Antkind is a digital marketing & growth-hacking company focused on climate startups and conscious brands.

In this conversation, we discuss the importance of narratives and marketing strategies for sustainability companies. Mairu shares the genesis of Antkind and its unique approach as a mix of an agency and an accelerator. He also highlights some exciting projects with clients, such as Pyse.

Mairu emphasizes the need for sustainability and climate companies to build a narrative and brand, as well as focus on business development. He provides practical tips for companies to develop their brand and engage with consumers.

Some Topics Mairu Covered

Need for Narrative in Advertising
Unique Approach of AntKind Collective
Building a Marketing Strategy
Practical Tips for Building a Brand

Other Titles We Considered

The recipe for creating a movement
60% of consumers consider sustainability important in brands

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In our final installment of speaking to companies in the APAC Cleantech 25, Impact at Scale sat down with Tulika Raj, CEO and co-founder of SunGreenH2. SunGreenH2 is transforming green hydrogen with proprietary technology to produce high-performance, low-cost electrolyzers components using advanced nanostructured materials.

Tulika delves into the crucial role of electrolyzers in creating green hydrogen, a versatile resource that finds application in many industries. From ammonia production to petrochemical refining and chemicals production, hydrogen is a key player. She also explores the potential of hydrogen in the automotive sector, underlining the necessity of a diverse range of renewable energy solutions to achieve net zero emissions. Tulika sheds light on the advantages of Singapore as an innovation hub and the challenges the electrolyzer industry is grappling with. She underscores the significance of regulation and localization of manufacturing in driving the widespread adoption of electrolyzers.

Some Of The Topics Tulika Covered

Use cases for Hydrogen
Potential of Hydrogen in the Automotive Industry
Leapfrogging Technology in Remote Areas
Increasing Adoption of Electrolyzers in Industry

Other Titles We Considered

Opportunity for an energy leapfrog
Supercharging electrolyzers so more hydrogen can be made
Hydrogen has more energy content per unit compared with anything

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This week, I am releasing The Impact at Scale Podcast with Zal Dastur early because I wanted this episode with Richard Youngman, CEO of Cleantech Group, to be out before the CleanTech Asia Forum taking place this week in Singapore.

In our conversation, Richard and I discuss his organization's role in supporting global Cleantech innovation. They provide research, data, and consulting services to help corporates, investors, and the public sector engage with startups addressing climate and environmental challenges.

Richard explains that the Cleantech industry has evolved significantly over the years, with a broader range of companies now focused on diverse areas such as alternative proteins, green steel, carbon capture, and more. He emphasizes the importance of both mitigation and adaptation in addressing climate change and optimistically highlights the economic opportunities that come with transitioning to a sustainable industrial system. He hopes the Cleantech Forum Asia event in Singapore will continue to catalyze regional collaboration and innovation.

Some of the topics Richard covered

Role of VCs in the Cleantech Industry
Importance of Government and Corporate Action
Rise of entrepurnism
Adaptation vs mitigation

Other Titles We Considered

Money follows money
We need to get in a different mode
Everybody can contribute
The benefits that can accrue from this are massive.
Everybody who gets involved is always surprised at how collaborative it is

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Impact at Scale had an engaging conversation with Charlie McGill, the CEO of ElectraLith, a company specializing in sustainable lithium extraction. ElectraLith's membrane technology offers a cleaner and more cost-efficient method of lithium extraction, reducing the environmental footprint. This is vitally important as the demand for lithium is expected to grow significantly in the coming years, driven by the transition to electric vehicles and renewable energy storage.

We discuss the challenges of current lithium extraction methods and the need for more environmentally friendly solutions. Charlie explains the unique membrane technology developed by ElectraLith and its potential to revolutionize the lithium extraction process. They also explore the growing demand for lithium and its applications in batteries. The conversation delves into the process of productizing academic ideas and the importance of embracing failure and experimentation in startup culture.

ElectraLith's groundbreaking work has earned them a spot in the prestigious 2024 APAC Cleantech 25 List. They are set to participate in the CleanTech Forum Asia, a significant event in Singapore scheduled for the 7th and 8th of May 2024.

Some of the Topics Charlie Covered

Membrane Technology and Lithium Extraction
Importance of Sustainable Lithium Extraction
Challenges of Productizing Academic Ideas
Embracing Failure and Experimentation

Other Titles We Considered

Just because you have a solution does not mean there is a problem
Teaching academics that it's okay to fail.
If we don't push hard enough, we won't know when we've pushed too far.

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Impact at Scale had the privilege of speaking with the remarkable Sharona Shnayder, founder of Tuesdays for Trash and recipient of the National Geographic Young Explorer Award. Sharona shared her inspiring journey and the remarkable expansion of her grassroots environmental movement.

Tuesdays for Trash, born out of the COVID-19 lockdowns, became a beacon of hope for Sharona and her friend to make a difference in the world. What began as a local initiative swiftly transformed into a global force, spanning an impressive 40 countries.

Sharona's narrative is a testament to the belief that each of us holds the power to address environmental challenges. She candidly shares the obstacles and victories she's encountered in her activism, underscoring the urgent need for policy shifts and educational campaigns to effectively manage waste.

Some of the topics Sharona covered

Starting Tuesdays for Trash
Manifesting the Movement
Using Social Media to Spread Awareness
Unexpected Growth and Becoming a Movement
Some Incredible Moments

Other Titles We Considered

How to start a movement
It's an act of respect
We're making it seen and visible so people don't feel like they're alone in this fight
It's so simple and easy it makes it accessible to anyone

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This episode of Impact at Scale features Hannah Jones, CEO of The Earthshot Prize, fresh off the heels of the recent awards ceremony in Singapore. Founded by Prince William, the Earthshot Prize draws inspiration from President John F. Kennedy's moonshot challenge, aiming to tackle seemingly impossible environmental goals within a decade.

Hannah's conviction and passion during the conversation is infectious, and you can feel her enthusiasm for what the future holds and how we will get there.

Our discussion with Hannah shed light on the Earthshot Prize's global impact, instilling a sense of hope for a sustainable future. Hannah's extensive experience at Nike, where she championed sustainability and innovation, prepared her well for her current role as CEO of Earthshot.

We explored the prize's function as a platform for a worldwide movement of optimism and action on sustainability, the meticulous search and selection process that uncovers countless potential solutions, and her aspiration to create a World Cup moment for environmental solutions, sparking global action. We even talk about what it is like to work with Prince William and his passion for the prize.

Some of the topics Hannah covered

Earthshot Prize's Mission
Search and Selection Process
Journey to the Earthshot Prize
Social Tipping Points
Green Growth in Singapore:

Other Titles We Considered

We have to turn anger into action and a sense of agency.
We are the Google search engine for all environmental solutions."
Climate change is going to make COVID look easy.
It always seems hard until it isn't

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Impact at Scale got to have an insightful conversation with Dale Rickert, Global Head of Product, GREENTECH FESTIVAL and Jan Willem Bolderdijk, Professor of Sustainability & Marketing at the University of Amsterdam.

This was a wide-ranging conversation that covered many different topics. We examined cultural tipping points and their importance in the fight against climate change. There was also a lively discussion on the ethical and cultural aspects of marketing and consumption in a sustainable future.

This conversation was a fantastic melding of theory and practical application of behavioral change as they see it in the real world. It was an insightful discussion for anyone interested in how we change the global mindset on sustainability.

Some of the topics Dale and Jan covered:

Social Tipping Points
Storytelling and Marketing
Intention-Behavior Gap
Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Change

Some other titles we considered for this episode

Culture eats strategy for breakfast
Change instigated by those who don’t have a lot of power
People will speak out when they feel there’s institutional support

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Impact at Scale had the opportunity to meet and discuss all things food with Vikas Garg, founder of abillion. abillion serves as a social media platform, consumer review platform, and marketplace focused on sustainability. Vikas discusses the platform's mission to inspire a billion people to make sustainable choices. The platform focuses on food, injecting purpose and values into consumer choices.

Vikas explains that the inspiration behind abillion stemmed from his observation of the misinformation and data misuse on social media platforms, leading him to create a platform where every action creates a positive impact. He highlights the platform's community-driven approach and efforts to ensure accurate and reliable information. Garg emphasizes the importance of sustainability in food choices, noting meat production's inefficiencies and environmental impact.

Some of the topics that Vikas covered

Being Mission Driven
Sustainability in Food Choices
Power of Community and User-Generated Content
Educating Users on Impactful Choices

Other Titles We Considered

Inspire a billion for the planet
Help people make responsible decisions
I'm a big believer in movements
Red meat is a type one carcinogen right up there with tobacco

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Impact at Scale sat down for a coffee with Matthew Howe, Founder of Grobrix. Grobrix offers an innovative urban farming service for businesses. Grobrix is a Lego-inspired, modular growing system that seamlessly integrates into any office environment. The company takes care of everything, from installation and maintenance to harvesting the crops, allowing employees to enjoy the benefits of fresh, local produce without the hassle.

Matthew, a former banker who turned his passion for sustainability into a thriving business, sees that Grobrix is more than just a convenient source of greens. It's a powerful tool for promoting sustainability, health, and employee engagement. In a world increasingly disconnected from our food source, Grobrix fosters a sense of connection with where our food comes from.

Some of the topics that Mathew Covered:

From Finance to Farming
Design inspiration from Lego
Beyond Convenience: Sustainability and Impact
The Future of Urban Farming

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

A cross between a gardener and a personal trainer
Making everyone an urban farmer

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I had an insightful conversation with Helena Wasserman, CEO of Unstoppable, on the Impact at Scale Podcast. We delved into her journey from the tech world to the climate space and discussed Unstoppable's mission to support climate founders. She felt hopeful about the talent joining the climate movement and the importance of having a clear vision for positive change.

Helena also suggested books that make people feel empowered to create a change.

Saving the Planet Without the Bullshit by Assaad Razzouk and

The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres

Some of the Topics Helena Covered:

Climate Investment Trends
Changing Definitions of Growth
Unstoppable's Mission
Vision for Change

Other Titles We Considered for this Episode:

Investing in the Future: Climate Solutions & Scaling Change
From Deforestation to Regeneration
The Talent Shift: Why Climate is Attracting the Best Minds
Vision & Action: Fueling the Fight Against Climate Change

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In this episode of Impact at Scale, Zal Dastur, your host, dives deep into the sobering reality of climate change with Ben Horton, Director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore. We confront the stark truth of science's struggle to communicate the urgency of the crisis to policymakers and the public. Ben unpacks the daunting challenges of prioritizing carbon reduction in decision-making, emphasizing the critical need for a swift transition to renewable energy.

Beyond technical solutions, the conversation delves into the psychological dimension, exploring the role of behavioral change in addressing the crisis. Ben emphasizes the importance of education, political will, and long-term thinking as essential weapons in this existential battle.

This episode is a stark call to action, urging us to move beyond despair and embrace the power of collective action in the face of climate change.

Some of the topics that Ben covered

Science's Failure on Climate Change
The Challenges of Behavioral Change
Short-Term Thinking and Lack of Political Will
The Importance of Choice and Making Sustainable Decisions
Every decision we make needs to take carbon into account

Some other titles we considered for this episode

When an ice sheet melts, it doesn't have a conscious
There is no vaccine for climate change
2023 is the best year we will get for decades

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In our latest episode, Impact at Scale delves into a transformative conversation with Erik Haug, the Founder and Chief Vision Officer of Light CoCreative. This global innovation and impact collective is on a mission—dedicated to pioneering sustainable solutions that address the fundamental needs of humanity.

Erik's passion for sustainability and climate action is palpable. With an extensive background, he collaborates with some of the world's titans to reshape their business models into forces for positive change, harmonizing profitability with planetary health.

At the heart of Erik's vision is a profound belief: true human potential can only be realized when basic needs—food, water, and healthcare—are met. His commitment shines through in LIGHT CoCreative, a company exclusively aligned with organizations sharing the same path toward meaningful impact.

Some of the Topics Erik covered:

Looking long-term vs short-term
The power of purpose-driven talent
Changing consumer preferences
Solving basic needs first

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

We need visionary leadership
It is easy to get off course when our compass isn't aligned
The next generation of consumers is leading the way
In a cooperative way, we need to be competitive

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Impact at Scale sits down with Sebastian Mueller, co-founder of Ming Labs, a design and tech consultancy passionate about empowering businesses to drive positive change for the planet.

Sebastian believes businesses are a powerful force for good and seeks to help companies understand how to utilize their influence for a more significant impact within their industries. He dives into the intersection of design, technology, and sustainability, sharing insights for businesses to become powerful catalysts for a more sustainable future.

Some of the topics Sebastian covered

Turning a business toward sustainability
How do you own change?
The impact of tech on the planet
Changing business models in sustainability

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

The internet has been built with speed, not with energy efficiency
You cannot have sustainability without the digital side
Every single industry is going to look different in 20 years

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Impact at Scale had an energetic and lively chat with Milena Nikolova, a Partner and Board Member of AeraVC an early-growth VC focusing on investing in the next generation of start-ups that will transform the world.

Milena shared with us how a trip to the hottest place on the planet in the name of philanthropy changed her life and she gave up a very promising banking career.

Some of the topics that Milena covered:

Finding fulfillment through philanthropy
What climate change will feel like
Myths of Climate Investment
Climatetech 2.0

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

Even if there is a 2% chance the scientists are right, the choice is in your hands
Most of us are already feeling the impacts of climate change
If we do not take action today, it is going to be immeasurably harder tomorrow
We need 7 trillion a year

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Have you ever wondered what it's like to work closely with Bill Gates for over a decade? Or what the future of energy looks like? In this week's episode of The Impact at Scale Podcast, we go deep with Jonah Goldman, the ex-Managing Director at Breakthrough Energy, One of Bill Gates's investment companies to discuss all of this and more.

Jonah shares his insights on the current state of venture investing, the technologies that are exciting him at the moment, and the changes he would like to see in order to solve the climate crisis. He also provides a unique perspective on global climate events and the levers that move power.

Some of the topics that Jonah covered:

From political advocacy to planet advocacy

Taking the leap with the Gates Foundation
lessons from working with Bill Gates
Changing capital structures to adapt to climate needs
Building the engines to reinvent the entirety of our physical economy
The relationship between government and fossil fuels

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

Venture isn't designed to build hard things
We need to innovate the world's capital structures
It is not climate it is the entirety of our physical economy
Making energy cheaper for the end consumer is always a good policy goal
The progress we have made has been pretty significant

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Impact at Scale had a great conversation with Steve Hoy and Grant McDowell the founders of Enosi.

Enosi is an energy traceability solution enabling households and businesses to buy energy directly from solar and wind farms. Technology that will become more important as consumers start to demand their energy comes from renewable sources.

Steve and Grant are both at the forefront of the energy transition and we talk about how that is progressing and how much longer we have on the journey to 100% clean and renewable energy.

They are strong advocates for giving the consumer the option to choose where their energy comes from and their PowerTracer software gives customers that ability.

Some of the topics that Steve and Grant covered:

Their paths to solar
The complexities around selling electricity
Giving green energy at a cheaper costs
Getting to 100% clean energy in a market
Turning Australia into a clean energy exporter
The benefits for consumers

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

Make sure everybody can get access to renewable energy
Customers want to buy energy from a place they can trust
Provenance of energy is going to be more important

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Impact at Scale had a chat with Simon JD Schillebeeckx the Co-Founder of Global Mangrove Trust and Handprint. Both of these organizations work towards preserving the natural ecosystems around the world.

Simon is in a unique position of being both an academic at Singapore Management University and an entrepreneur which gives him an interesting perspective on sustainability. His combination of science-backed research along with business practicality allows him to contribute positively to both aspects of his life.

Some of the topics that Simon covered:

What an academic entrepreneur is
The contradiction between being an academic and an entrepreneur
The power of mangroves
Operating within the capitalist system
How to nudge people to change
The importance of regulation

Some other titles we considered for this episode

Design is the first signal of human intention
We have built wealth by stealing the future from the next generations
You cannot throw anything away, you can get it out of sight
Nature doesn't waste anything

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The Impact At Scale Podcast had the opportunity to chat with Dr. Darian McBain, CEO of Outsourced Chief Sustainability Officer Asia and a Visiting Professor in Practice with LSE.

Darian has a wide range of experience covering sustainability in companies as diverse as healthcare, agriculture and even a central bank. This gives her a magnificent perspective on the way sustainability impacts the economy from various angles.

Her insights into what companies can do to improve their sustainability processes have led her to start her latest business and this conversation covers a wide range of topics about how the world of sustainability has changed since she started her career.

Some of the topics that Daria covered:

What is the role of a Fractional CSO
Carbon Myopia
How companies view sustainability
Struggling to get the talent companies need
Working to make change from the inside
Power of following your interests
Setting Singapore up as a green finance hub

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

CO2 emissions are the same as dollars
I will create a new version of myself with AI
The tools being used most for sustainability are Google and Excel
One thing to advocate from the outside, is totally different from going inside the industry
Starting to get the attention of governments

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The Impact at Scale Podcast had a lively and exciting conversation with Sonia Weymuller Co-Founder and General Partner at VentureSouq.

VentureSouq is a Dubai-based venture capital fund with a global portfolio. They manage thematic funds, with a current focus on FinTech and ClimateTech.

Sonia got her start in investing by organizing what would become one of the largest private investment syndicates in the Middle East. She talks to us about her usual journey to being a VC and how she feels about

Some of the topics that Sonia covered:
Starting as a syndicate
Unconvential approach to VC
Knowing when to make the jump
How you start a fund
The difference between impact, ESG and climate
Climate investing in the Middle East

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

Enough talk, lets act
Energy companies are the ones with money to make change happen
Everyone now understands that climate change is happening

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Impact at Scale got to discuss the world of sustainable cleaning products with Jeremy Lee, CEO & Founder of SimplyGood. SimplyGood is a cleaning product supplier that has developed an innovative new way to package a traditional product.

Jeremy started the company during covid when cleanliness and hygiene came into sharp focus. He realized we were wasting so much space and energy in the transportation of cleaning products when most of the product was actually water. He felt there could be a better way.

Some of the topics that Jeremy covered:

Inefficiencies in current cleaning solutions
Lack of innovation
Changing human behavior
Opening a business during covid
Difference between regular and impact businesses

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

Punching upwards against the big boys
Creating value outside of sustainability

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Impact at Scale got the chance to sit down with Konstantin Popovic the founder of Impact3P a consultancy that helps businesses turn their sustainability journey into a competitive advantage by aligning people, planet, and profit. KP believes that all companies need to be sustainable businesses and that doing so will be good for their business. Increasingly stakeholders such as customers and employees want.

Some of the topics KP talked about

Midlife awakening
How we can make marketing part of the solution
Approaching Sustainability from a business standpoint
Employees want to work for companies with shared values
The importance of those in the middle
How loving the planet is like loving your wife

Other titles we considered for this episode:

Carbon cannot be the only issue we focus on
Looking at sustainability as an opportunity
We have to all be in on sustainability
"Let's save humanity"

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Impact at scale caught up with Barak Ekshtein the Founder of TONTOTON. TOTOTON is a plastic credit solution for non-recycled plastic. Choosing to focus on the hard-to-recycle plastic that typically gets left behind in the current recycling system. So far they have collected and treated more than 2,513 tons of orphan plastic and are growing every day.

Barak was inspired to start this business when he noticed the growing amount of plastic that we could not recycle and wanted to do something about it—developing an economy around cleaning up orphan plastic and creating jobs for those that collect this plastic.

Some of the topics that Barak discussed:

The $10 billion recycled plastic market
Recyclable vs non-recyclable
The problem with orphan plastic
Taxing the producers of plastic
Plastic credit system
Transparency in the recycling system

Other titles we considered for this episode:

It is a problem that keeps growing and growing
It's everyone's fault, so there is no one to blame
Move from selective collection to inclusive collection
It is a mix of business opportunity and strong impact
Impact businesses must be profitable

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The Impact At Scale Podcast enjoyed talking about the recycling industry with Nishchay Chadha the CEO of ACE Green Recycling. ACE is a green battery recycling technology company that has sustainable solutions for both lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries and is developing clean technology solutions for other metallic waste streams.

Nishchay started his career in the mining industry where he experienced firsthand the impact that it had on the planet. This was where he first got a view of the recycling space and saw that there was an opportunity in this fast-growing market to develop solutions that would meet the needs of the planet. Battery recycling is an industry that will continue to grow as the production of all sorts of batteries continues to increase significantly.

Some of the topics that Nishchay covered

The complexity of the recycling process
Moving from mining to recycling
Incentivizing the right sort of behavior
Size of the recycling market

Some other titles we considered for this episode

Unless you are commercially successful it's not going to be a sustainable business
More recycling will lead to less mining
Companies sitting with billions in cash will need to part with it

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Impact at Scale got the chance to talk to Renat Heuberger the CEO and Co-Founder of South Pole. South Pole develops and implements comprehensive emission reduction projects and strategies that turn climate action into long-term business opportunities for companies, governments and organisations around the world.

Renat has been in the sustainability space for a long time and we talk about some of the stories from the early days of South Pole and how he feels the world needs to change it's perspective on what success is. Renat is a firm believer that people should be successful by saving the planet and not by digging it up and destroying it. This is a great conversation with someone who is on the front lines of helping organizations decarbonize and be more planet positive.

Some of the topics Renat Covered:

Creating a business case out of the protection of the environment
Holding people accountable to the promises they make
Importance of science based targets
What the price of carbon should be
How regulation is created
The role of activists in the movement
The most impactful way to reduce carbon in this country

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

How much does it cost the whole world for the emission of 1 tonne of CO2
Will environmental accounting soon be as robust as commercial accounting
When all the actors act in concert you create a wave that is unstoppable
We need all people in their capacity to make a difference together
The richest people on the planet should be the most successful environmentalists
Offsetting only works with a robust reduction strategy

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Impact at scale spoke with George Wade the Co-Founder of Zevero which was conceptualized when the founders struggled to get accurate data for their emissions and thought about building a tool they could use for themselves. So that was the genesis of Zevero, a platform that helps businesses measure, report and reduce their carbon.

We talked about George's early fascination with sustainability and some of the contradictions he saw in the space. His hope is that getting companies to report on carbon emissions will make them take their reduction goals seriously.

To read George's blog check out The Grumpy Optimists

Some of the topics Geroge covered:

Starting a business by finding a problem
What are the drivers for change
Working with unique customers
Climate change in culture

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

Change is possible
You don't know if you have achieved success in climate change

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Impact at Scale was joined by Manish Sethi, a Founder of Rescued Glass and currently employed at Thrust Carbon. Rescued Glass upcycles glass bottles from landfills into decorative and usable household items, endeavoring to make a meaningful difference, one bottle at a time.

Some of the topics that Manish discussed:

Attending NIST International School in Bangkok and the concept of Service Learning
Graduating from Kings College in London and working at Thrust Carbon
The importance of education in creating awareness and impact for sustainability
The challenges of building a remote team and the role of mentorship
Bringing learnings from his current job back to Rescued Glass

Other titles we considered for this episode:

Taking Glass Waste and Transforming It Into Something Beautiful
Having a Long-Term View Helps
I’ve Drowned a Few Times
Continuous and Constant Feedback
People Love to Sell Dreams
It Will Take Me Ten More Years

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Impact at Scale connected with Alex Laplaza to discuss early-stage impact investing and what technologies are currently exciting him.

Alex is a Partner at Lower Carbon Capital, a venture firm that "back kickass companies that make real money slashing CO2 emissions, sucking carbon out of the sky and buying us time to unf**k the planet." Lower Carbon's investments in leading-edge technologies include sustainable lithium mining, plasma-taming fusion magnets and electric passenger planes.

Some of the topics that Alex covered:

The relationship between technology and policy
A single volcano cooling the earth
Producing better products not just climate products
Obligations of countries
How seeing the impacts motivated him
Scaling impact globally

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

VC Is a Tool to Scale Solutions With a Remarkable Track Record
What to Do in the “Break Glass in Case of Emergency” Situation
The Risk of Inaction
We Don't Care if Our Customers Care About the Planet
What to Do to Get the Attention of a VC

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Impact at Scale could not have enjoyed its conversation with Aparna Bhatnagar Saxena more. You can hear in our voices how much fun we were having.

Aparna is the CEO of Torajamelo, a slow, ethical, sustainable, lifestyle brand that is working towards alleviating the cycle of systemic poverty in rural excluded communities, preserving the cultural heritage of “backstrap loom weaving” in Indonesia, preventing the breakdown of rural communities due to outward migration, and environmental sustainability of natural habitats.

Some of the topics that Aparna covered:

Being raised by two feminists, a scientist father, and a banker mother
Growing up in a household where there was no discrimination based on gender
Her very traditional career arc prior to joining Torajamelo
Torajamelo's Founder's life-changing experience with the weaving community in Toraja
How telling the Torajamelo story led to her becoming its CEO
The importance of having agency and a sense of ownership over your work

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

You Should Carry Only Enough Luggage that You Can Manage
Don’t Let My Gender Decide That I Need Help
I Owned the Responsibility
How Do You Navigate Through Ambiguity?
I Didn’t Do It to Prove a Point

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Impact at Scale learned a lot about building communities with Alya Annabi the founder of GreenPush. GreenPush runs various programs that empower people with knowledge, resources, and support to encourage sustainable behaviors in every part of their business and personal lives. Alya is passionate about growing communities from the ground up, which really shows in this conversation.

Some of the topics Alya covered:

Creating a vibrant community
Finding purpose and value in communities
The power of individuals to impact change
How to help those that want to make a difference
The importance of small actions

Some of the other titles we considered for this episode:

Taking a Positive Approach to Sustainability
As Individuals, You Have So Much Influence
Long-term Change Through Building Communities
Helping Change Through Building Communities
People Are Influenced by What Other People Are Doing

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Impact at Scale chatted with Paul Bevan, Founder and CEO of Magic Valley. Magic Valley is an Australian food company developing healthy and delicious cultivated meat products.

Some of the topics Paul covered:

The growing market of businesses supporting an impact
The effectiveness of replicating the taste and texture of meat and letting people move towards the no meat direction themselves
Paul’s hypothesis on why even after the 4 main factors the percentage of Vegans did not increase
Understanding the process behind cultivated meat and where it comes from
Magic Valley’s future plans

Some of the other titles we considered for this episode:

Speak Up for People and for Animals
Driving Lasting Behavioural Change
Stop Dressing Up Plants as a Meat Product
Transparency Is Key for the Consumer

This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.

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Impact at Scale went on the road to talk to Mathias Boissonot, a co-Founder of Handprint, a sustainable software company that helps businesses be involved in regenerative projects. Mathias is passionate about the power of mangroves and other natural resources to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and created Handprint as a way to connect businesses with these projects.

Some of the topics Mathias covered:

Getting small NGOs access to institutional money
The power of mangroves for decarbonization
What is regenerative software?
How large companies are incorporating regeneration
Man-made carbon reduction systems and carbon P/Ls

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

Mangroves Are a Miracle Technology
We Did the Opposite of What Should Be Done in a Normal Startup
The World Is Moving Towards a New Paradigm
Do We Live in a World With a Carbon Tunnel
Carbon Is Not the Only Currency of Sustainability

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Impact at Scale chatted with Tom Peacock-Nazil, the Founder and CEO of Seven Clean Seas. Seven Clean Seas is an organization that has commercialized ocean plastic cleanup. What started as a passion project for Tom and his wife has now turned into a full-fledged business, employing people to help with waste management.

Plastic is a major problem in our world and Tom and his team want to do everything they can to help stop as much of it as possible from getting into the oceans. Tom tells us about how they lucked into their business model and how that eventually led to him working for the World Cup in Qatar. Tom also talks to us about how cleaning up the waste is not good enough and how they are working with communities to help educate them on how to manage plastic and their waste in general.

Some of the topics Tom covered:

Turning a passion into a business
How a condom company changed everything
Working with the World Cup
Impacting local communities
What happens to the plastic once it is collected
The importance of waste management
Setting audacious goals

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

You Are Not Going To Fix This Problem With Philanthropy
Creating a Product With Permanence
People Do Not Understand the Damage to Their Health That Plastic Can Cause
People Don’t Even Have Bins
There Is No Magic Bullet for This, We Can’t Clean Our Way Out
Start Slow and Take Little Steps

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In the latest episode of Impact at Scale, we are talking to Lauren Blasco who is a Principal for ESG at AC Ventures and Neels Steyn Venture Architect Director at BCG Digital Ventures. They are the authors of Scaling Impact With Technology. Accelerating ESG Adoption in Indonesia's Digital Economy, a report that aims to be the baseline for how Indonesian tech companies measure their impact. The report looks at a wider range of issues than just one's carbon footprint when allocating a score to a company.

In a region where many companies see little value in ESG reporting, this is meant to be used as a guide for the future as sentiments and requirements change. AC Ventures applied this methodology to all of its invested startups, none of which were sustainability-focused companies, to see what their impact as a business was. The hope is that this will become as regular as reviewing financial accounts in the future as businesses are being held to higher standards by both the public and investors.

Some of the topics covered:

Passions kindled at young ages
Net impact ratios
The outcome of their report on Indonesia
What corporates can learn from startups
Where the responsibility for ESG should lay
Corporate greenwashing
How to affect big changes

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

Create a Framework That Would Guide the Way
Looking at Impact as a Whole
We Need a Baseline to Work From
Change Requires Multiple Iterations and Cycles

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The Social Innovation Podcast got to sit down and talk to Andre Menezes, the founder of Tindle Foods and Nex Gen Foods. Andre is a man clearly passionate about food and in this case specifically chicken. Singapore-based Tindle Foods produces plant-based chicken and has recently started working in the US and European markets.

In this discussion, Andre talks to us about alternative protein and the changes we are seeing in our society in terms of approaching animal products. We got to ask Andre all the questions we had about alternate protein and got a deeper understanding of the industry and where it is going.

Some of the topics Andre discussed:

Reaching the pinnacle of food experiences
The importance of team culture
The United States as a key market
Designing alternative meats that are healthy
Comparing the price of plant-based vs natural meat
How much protein do we actually need

Other titles we considered for this episode:

An Unforgettable Plant-Based Experience
Plant-Based Meat Is Not Here to Replace Broccoli
A Chicken Is 70% Water
We Are the Only Species That Drinks Milk From Another Species
How Many Parents Would Take Their Kids to See How Meat Is Made?

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The Social Innovation Podcast had an in-depth conversation with Sonalie Figueiras the founder of Green Queen Media and the founder and CEO of Source Green a platform that helps businesses reduce the plastic in their packaging.

Sonalie is an award-winning social entrepreneur, building Asia's first impact and sustainability media platform. In this episode, we discussed several issues related to sustainability including plastic, carbon tax, and impact investing as well as what people can do to have a positive impact.

Some of the topics Sonalie covered in detail:

Quantifying the cost of plastic to the planet
How plastic can impact one's health
Who should pay for the waste
How to deal with the lazy consumer
How can we factor the environmental cost into the end products?
Everyone agrees plastic pollution is a bad thing

Other titles we considered for this episode:

We Are Addicted to Convenience
We Are Doing the Math Wrong
I’ve Seen Behind the Wizard of These Big Companies
The Cost of Not Doing Has to Be Greater Than the Cost of Doing
Plastic Waste Serves No One
When People See Information Clearly They Change Their Behavior

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The Social Innovation Podcast had a great chat with Brice Degeytar the founder of Bizsu which has set an impressive goal of reducing 1 million tons of CO2 by 2027. They intend to do this by helping businesses reduce the energy required to cool buildings and offices.

We discussed everything related to air-con and cooling and just how big an impact this has especially in Asia. Brice has a tool that any building can easily deploy on existing systems to reduce the energy requirements to cool any property.

Some of the topics Brice covered:

Bizsu's goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 1 million tonnes
Opening his eyes to the waste around the world
Building and implementing easy-to-deploy solutions
The change in global heating and cooling needs
Learning lessons from the past and from nature
The power of an idea to push a company

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

We Have to Show the Positive Effects
Bring the Message in a Positive Way
I Will Help Companies Consume Less Energy

This episode was guest-hosted again by Zal Dastur. Zal, has been an entrepreneur for the last 14 years and has turned his attention to helping solve the climate crisis in the best way he knows, helping for-planet businesses develop and grow. As an active advisor and investor, Zal has impacted dozens of companies in the climate space helping them to reach their potential to do the maximum good for the planet.

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The Social Innovation Podcast sat down with Matt Ward a Partner and Syndicate Investment Lead at 4Ward VC. 4Ward.VC is a sustainability-focused investing syndicate.

In this episode, we asked Matt all the questions that early-stage companies would want to ask about raising money from investors. If you have recently started a company or are thinking about doing so, this is a show you don't want to miss. Matt gives great advice for companies that are looking to raise their Seed or Series A funding.

Some of the details that Matt discussed:

Team, TAM, and Time
The power of an amazing team
How to value your startup
How to properly assess investors
How to get the attention of investors
Syndicate investing versus more traditional venture capital investing

Other titles we considered for this episode:

The Valuation Doesn’t Matter Just Get the Round Done
Great Product, Great Traction Trumps Everything Else
The Only Way We Are Successful Is by Helping Our Startups Succeed
Venture Investing Is a Hits Driven Business
If You Can Survive the Next 3-5 Years There Will Be Unlimited Funding
We Are All on Team Planet Together
Everything Else Came Second

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The Social Innovation Podcast sat down with Dharsono Hartono, the CEO of Rimba Makmur Utama. Rimba Makmur Utama manages the world's largest nature-based solution generating more than 7 million tonnes of carbon credits annually.

Dharsono is an EY Entrepreneur of the year, a World Economic Forum Sustainability Pioneer, a Schwab foundation social entrepreneur of the year, and in 2022 won the YPO Global impact award. Dharsono has been working on this project for more than 15 years and he talks to us about the power of nature-based solutions, the importance of working with local communities as well as the challenges of being an entrepreneur in a new space.

Some of the major topics that Dharsono covered:

Transitioning from banker to conservationist
The power of who we surround ourselves with
Empowering the local community
The importance of nature-based solutions
How climate solutions can be good for businesses as well
The principles of carbon credits
Changing the lives of the villagers in the projec

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

We Are Caretakers for Mother Earth
Give Me Another Year
Doing Things for the Right Reason
A New Way of Doing Business
Changing the Behavior of People on the Ground

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The Social Innovation Podcast spoke to Alex Budak, a University of California, Berkeley faculty member and the author of Becoming A Changemaker. "Becoming a Changemaker is a radically inclusive playbook for leading positive change...Budak is driven by the belief that anyone—regardless of title, personality, race, gender, age, or class—can be a changemaker"

Some of the topics Alex and I discussed:

Alex’s Ah-Ha moment
The importance of change at the grassroots level
Community and changemaking VS heropreneurship
Alex’s path to teaching changemaking at UC Berkeley
What is flow?
Sneak peek of findings from studies in the book

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

Letting Your Curiosity Guide You
One Person Teaches, Two Learn
Failure Isn’t Fatal
A Sense of Agency Over Our Lives

This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.

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The Social Innovation Podcast spoke to Marc Allen and Grace Sai, the co-Founders of Unravel Carbon. Unravel Carbon is enterprise software that helps companies track and reduce their carbon emissions, focusing on Asia's supply chains.

Some of the topics that Marc and Grace covered:

The existing 92 different carbon accounting software solutions
How competing regulatory environments complicate the problem
Unravel Carbon's goal to reduce 5% of global carbon emissions
SaaS plus Service business model
The necessity for Asia to be the leader in emissions reduction
Why all countries have to go net zero

Other titles we considered for this episode:

Bringing All That I Can Bring
Reduce First, Offset Last
People Don’t Want to Be Left Alone With a Carbon Report
Changing Behavior at Scale
Given a Choice, No One Wants to Care About Climate Change

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The Social Innovation Podcast spoke to Erika Balzarelli the Founder of The Sustainable Smallholder, an innovation studio that focuses on helping smallholder farmers become sustainable, commercial suppliers.

From her years in the field, Erika shares with us an understanding of the needs of farmers on the ground. Her passion for what she does shines brightly in this conversation along with her inspiration to contribute to making a change, "The woman effect" and the power behind co-creation.

Some of the topics Erika covered:

The challenge of reaching more than 525 million farmers
Her unique B2B2F approach
Starting her own NGO in India
The work Erika did on the ground
Rice is more than just food
What the priorities should be in rice

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

Rice Is a Huge Opportunity for Innovation
The Transformative Lever of Co-creation
The Women Effect
Shut Up and Start Doing It

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The Social Innovation Podcast thoroughly enjoyed its conversation with Dr. Farshad Shishehchian, the Founder and CEO of Blue Aqua International. Blue Aqua combines the art and science of farming to build a sustainable, new world.

Some of the topics that Dr. Farshad covered:

Born in Iran/Azerbaijan
Obtaining a Ph.D. in shrimp farming
Fishing versus farming and the importance of replacing what is caught
If we want to tackle food security, we need to eat Tilapia
Why salmon and shrimp dominate the finance of fishing
Ecosystems below 10,000 meters

Other titles we considered for this episode:

I Always Introduce Myself as a Farmer
Your Lobster and My Lobster Are Different
We Know More About Our Solar System Compared to the Ocean
Human Being Is a Very Confused Species
I Had a Lot of Chicken at Home
There Are a Lot of Unknowns

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The Social Innovation Podcast was recently introduced to Tiffany Tong and after a quick chat, we knew we had to have her on the show. Tiffany is a co-Founder and the CEO of Aloi, a tokenized, digital-loan platform that powers affordable finance for micro-entrepreneurs.

Some of the topics that Tiffany covered:

Studying Development and Agriculture at University
How small-holder farmers manage a large part of natural resources globally
Aloi's mission and reason for being
Farmer success stories and what it actually feels like to the farmers that benefit
Proving the platform with Standard Chartered and getting other banks onboard
How tokenization minimizes fraud and enables trust

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

Data Is My Forte
I Just Kept Learning and Learning and Didn’t Want to Leave
Tokenization Is the Future
We’re Making Impact, and That Is So Important to Me
It’s Growing the Trust

This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.

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The Social Innovation Podcast spoke to Carolin Barr K., the Founder of susGain. susGain is a social enterprise on a mission to connect better the different eco and socially-conscious stakeholders in Singapore to accelerate the change towards a more sustainable nation. susGain's rewards app nudges and incentivizes consumers in Singapore to adopt more sustainable lifestyle habits.

Some of the topics we covered with Carolin:

How her work in behavioral science helps her understand how to drive behavioral change
The importance of cultural norms and social influence
Culture is an important part of her identity
What influences habit formation
How to convince people that the small actions we do make a difference
susGain helps local charities benefit from your sustainable habits

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

Relearning the Way We Do Things
1. The Intention-Action Gap
2. I Didn’t See That Change Happening

This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.

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The Social Innovation Podcast was fortunate to have Evelyn Tay, VP, Communications and Public Affairs, Sustainability - APAC, at foodpanda on the show. What made this even better was recording in the foodpanda offices in Singapore.

Some of the topics Evelyn discussed:

Her father’s immigrant story from China to Singapore
Multilingualism as a competitive advantage
Saving 900 million pieces of plastic cutlery as a result of one decision
The importance of building a community around what you do
The need to have continuous dialogue with the drivers and riders
Internal feedback sessions as an integral part of foodpanda
Why and how electric vehicles matter

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

You Couldn’t Do the Job Without Empathy
We’re Not Just Status Quo
Post COVID, Everything Changed
I’m So Proud That Our Leaders Do It

This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.

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The Social Innovation Podcast was joined by Marina Tran-Vu, the Founder of EQUO. Derived from the words ECO, meaning not harmful to the environment and STATUS QUO, meaning an existing state or condition, EQUO stands for the ideal of creating products with minimal impact to the environment.

Some of the topics that Marina and I discussed:

Leaving a high-paying job and going 'back' to Vietnam
Living quite an unsustainable life prior to founding EQUO
The grass straw and deciding to commercialize them globally
Starting a business during a recession
Building a sustainable AND fun brand
European expansion

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

To Be Honest, I Was Completely Not Sustainable
I Wanted Bright and Loud and Colorful
I Did Everything by Trial and Error
The Biggest Currency in Life Is Time
People Said This Was Crazy and Stupid

This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.

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The Social Innovation Podcast welcomed Lily Dempster, the Founder & CEO at One Small Step. One Small Step is a mobile app with tailored programs to help you cut your carbon footprint. It employs behavioural science to make green living simple, easy and fun.

Lily started her career working in the Prime Minister's office before realizing she could have a bigger impact by helping people make changes on an individual basis. She has always viewed success in terms of the positive impact she is having on the planet. It is clear from the way she speaks that she is passionate about what she sees as the biggest issue of our lifetime.

Some of the topics Lily discussed:

The movie that woke her up to climate change
Climate change as a threat multiplier
Insights into government policymaking
Government regulation versus individual action
The influence of mining, oil and gas on Australian politics
Climate change as progressive vs conservative issue
Our ability to influence those around us
Socially contagious behaviors
Helping people take the first step
The difficulty of getting large organizations to change

Other titles we considered for this episode:

Success Looks Like Making a Contribution to Society
Climate Change Is the Biggest Social Justice Issue Facing Our Generation
Climate Change Is a Network Problem
Where Do You Have In Your Life the Biggest Points of Influence
We Have a Lot More Power Than Is Currently Acknowledged

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The Social Innovation Podcast spoke to Max Nelen the CEO and Founder of Agros about all things farming and agriculture. Max moved from being a management consultant to talking to smallholder farmers all over Southeast Asia to try and find a solution that works for them to lower their carbon footprint. He takes a farmer-first view for his business, ensuring that all of his solutions are driving value for the farmer, first and foremost.

Some of the topics covered in this episode:

Feeding the world
The requirements of smallholder farmers in Asia
Convincing farmers to change
The power of soil as carbon capture tool
The impact of rice on the planet
Helping farmers manage their soil and fertilizer
VCs and proving traction over time
The iterative process of product development
A financial model that works for farmers

Other titles we considered for this episode:

Agriculture Is 24% Of Global Greenhouse Gas Emission
By 2050 90% Of the World's Soil Will Be Degraded
Take an Outside View, Ask the Difficult Questions
Double the Income of 100,000 Farmers in Southeast Asia
The Feedback Is Smiling Faces
Constant Questioning of the Status Quo
Farmers Don’t Really Care About Climate Change

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The Social Innovation Podcast had a great discussion with Samridh Goyal, the Founder & CEO of Solar Horizon. Solar Horizon is a full service solar project consultancy operating in South East Asia and India with a mission to help companies unlock the full value of their rooftops by harnessing the power of the sun. Sam comes with a wealth of experience having been in the solar industry for more than a decade. In this conversation we talk about the future of solar in South East Asia and we cover the next big thing in solar, decentralized energy creation.

This week's episode is guest hosted by Zal Dastur. Zal, has been an entrepreneur for the last 14 years and has turned his attention to helping solve the climate crisis in the best way he knows, helping for-planet businesses develop and grow. As an active advisor and investor Zal has impacted dozens of companies in the climate space helping them to reach their potential to do the maximum good for the planet.

Some of the topics covered in this episode:

Why solar is perfect for the urbanized world
The Singapore solar market boom
The challenge of net zero
What Singapore got right in its model
Floating solar
Using the energy grid like a battery
Decentralized energy creation
Deregulating energy markets
Blockchain enabled solar systems and energy distribution tracking
An integrated energy market for ASEAN

Other titles we considered for this episode:

The Grids in the Region Must Start to Deregulate
Finally the Banks in Singapore Offering Green Loans
Peer to Peer Energy Trading
Power to the People
A Virtual Power Grid
Power the Entire Planet With Renewables
The Revolution Will Happen at the Distributed Energy Level
We All Have to Play Our Part

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The Social Innovation Podcast was joined by Mayur Singh, a co-Founder at Green Collective and a Founding Partner at IxSA.

Mayur truly embodies the title of this week's episode. From a young age, he has chosen his own route both in what he wanted to study and in his career. Coming from a background in investment banking, Mayur has combined his love of sustainability and a for profit mindset to develop a retail as a service concept in Singapore.

Some of the topics covered in this episode:

Going against the family tradition
Being a doctor or an engineer
Finding Ikigai
How frustration leads to a business
Taking a step into the unknown
The growth of Earth Day
Government's power to push awareness
Sustainability as a way of doing business
The changing face of consumer products
How to make sustainability more inclusive
Consumers buying into sustainable products

Other titles we considered for this episode:

Find My Own Ikigai
Maths or Biology
Never Scared of Thinking Against the Tide
A For-Profit Mindset
When Will your Home Be Uninsurable?
We Need Consumer Demand for Large-Scale Change
I Would Love a Carbon Tax

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The Social Innovation Podcast had the chance to talk to Mick Liubinskas, a co-Founder of Climate Salad, an online community dedicated to fostering and developing the climate and sustainability industry in Australia. Mick shares with us what made him leave the tech world and commit to climate and how we can all look around and ask, "What more can I be doing?".

This episode is hosted again by Zal Dastur. Zal, has been an entrepreneur for the last 14 years and has turned his attention to helping solve the climate crisis in the best way he knows how, helping for-planet businesses develop and grow. As an active advisor and investor, Zal has impacted dozens of companies in the climate space, helping them to reach their potential to do the maximum good for the planet.

Some of the topics that Zal and Mick discussed:

Being a private environmentalist
How an individual message changed Mick's life
What good entrepreneurship looks like
The genesis of Climate Salad
The Climate Tech 100
Comparing carbon to dollars (starting to sound familiar!)
The role of consumers in solving the climate problem
What should a burger REALLY cost?
When do we realize this is a crisis?

Other titles we considered for this episode:

Maybe It's Time You Get In This Game
Startup Helping Startups
A Massive Sense of Urgency
People Are Dying Right Now
More Opportunities Than You Think

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The Social Innovation Podcast sat down with Marie Cheong and Quentin Vaquette, two of the founding partners of Wavemaker Impact, to talk about solving the climate crisis through impactful businesses. Wavemaker Impact is a fund and a venture builder looking to grow companies that can earn $100 million in revenue and abate 100 megatonnes of carbon per year.

This week's episode is guest-hosted by Zal Dastur. Zal, has been an entrepreneur for the past 14 years and has turned his attention to solving the climate crisis in the best way he knows, helping for-planet businesses develop and grow. As an active advisor and investor, Zal has impacted dozens of companies in the climate space, helping them reach their potential to do the maximum good for the planet.

Some of the topics that we discussed:

What does 100x100 companies mean?
How a trip to the Maldives helped to inspire change
How to create a new molecule
Adoption can be the biggest challenge in decarbonization
Approaching change from the lower point of friction
The $2BN opportunity in carbon
How to analyze companies by their ability to draw down carbon
How to go after the big game in carbon
What is the carbon TAM?
Creating a carbon emissions map
The impact rice growing has on emissions

Other titles we considered for this episode:

Carbon Can Be the New Natural Resource for Asia
Sustainability Is a Team Game
Value Pockets Are Like Hot Pockets, But Full of Dollars
Climate Is the New Tech
You Don't Need to Be a Scientist to Build a Climate Tech Company
The Next Thousand Unicorns Are Going to Be in Climate

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The Social Innovation Podcast had such a wonderful conversation with Shamini Dhana, the Founder and CEO of Dhana, Inc. and the CEO at D/Sphere. Dhana Inc. is a fashion tech company, transforming customer experience from zero-waste designs to social and environmental impact through Circular Fashion. D/Sphere is the creative fashion platform for people to create clothing using second-life materials, share stories while doing good in the world.

Some of the topics that Shamini covered:

Recording on an auspicious day and naming her company after her father
Growing up in Singapore
How working for the government of California was a pivotal point in her career
Moving to Silicon Valley Bank and establishing it in India
Taking 25 VCs on a trip to India that was fascinating on so many levels
Seeing something first-hand has to touch you
Businesses are getting more value-aligned
The what, why, and how of D/Sphere
The circular economy and second-life materials
The fashion industry's contribution to the world's pollution
Driving social and environmental impact
Fashion as a mechanism for telling stories

Other titles we considered for this episode:

Came With Two Suitcases and Not Knowing a Person
Entrepreneurship Is About Being Able To Navigate In the Chaos
A Trajectory of Your Whole Journey
I Need To Show You Something
We Fundamentally Believe In the Human Expression
Empowering People To Create Impact
Repair, Resale, Rental and Recycle
The Store, the Studio, and the Story

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The Social Innovation Podcast was joined by Edward Booty, the CEO at reach52. reach52 delivers health services in markets others don't reach.

Some of the topics Ed discussed:

Encouraged by his father to travel after graduation from university
Traveled to India among other countries
Worked at a pharmaceutical company in Bombay creating new business models for emerging markets
How even some of the people that join reach52 just assume that basic services exist everywhere
According to a WHO report, half the world lacks access to essential health services
The chronic shortage of healthcare workers
Rural areas suffer most from these shortages
The sheer amount of medicine that gets thrown away
Some of the roadblocks to solving healthcare access problems
The impact of the lack of payment systems in the markets that reach52 serves
Is healthcare a human right?

Other titles we considered for this episode:

Big, Crazy, Loud, and Exciting
Seeing It For Real Is Definitely Most Important
That’s What It Says On the Tin
We Don’t Need Bleeding-edge Innovation
People Are Pretty Bad at Taking Their Medicine
Cash, Cash, and More Cash…

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The Social Innovation Podcast enjoyed the opportunity to talk to Chaitali Patel, the Chief Impact Officer at 100 Women in Finance and the CEO of EverGood. EverGood seeks to help the world’s most innovative, resourceful, and mission-driven organizations plan, measure, and communicate their impact.

Some of the topics that Chaitali discussed:

Immigrating from India to the United States as a 17-year-old
Falling in love with finance because it was part art and part science
The difference between her computer classes and finance classes
Transitioning from FinTech and finance into impact and sustainability
Having a short-lived desire to work for a think tank in Washington D.C.
The state of Utah and female empowerment
Success happens slowly and then fast
Seeing ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) through a risk-management lens
The potentially large alpha opportunity for ESG investments
The food industry and reading about ancient civilizations

Other titles we considered for this episode:

We Never Left Glam
The Constant Change Becomes Your Normal
How Do We Fix It?
How Big of a Client Can You Take?
How Fast Can You Scale?
The Purpose Is Building Something Bigger Than Yourself
The Initial Seed Funding Has To Be Tied to Sustainability

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Brandon Ng, a co-Founder and the CEO of AMPD Energy, was kind enough to join the Social Innovation Podcast. AMPD Energy is committed to making the construction industry emission-free and sees electrification and connectivity as a key part of this transformation.

Some of the topics Brandon discussed:

His parents were both accountants and encouraged him to be one as well
Was born in Brunei
While interning at an accounting firm, realized he was wired to be an engineer
Started AMPD in 2015 and started focusing on the construction industry in 2018
The cost of batteries kept going down
The electricity grid was rapidly changing and getting upgraded
The mix of energy sources on the grid was changing substantially due to the introduction of renewables
Hyper-urbanization and the pressure it puts on communities and their infrastructure
The construction industry accounts for ~11% of global carbon emissions
How big problems also create big economic opportunities
Finding first adopters that are willing to take a risk
Partnering with Gammon Construction to co-develop AMPD Entertainer
Using AMPD Entertainer's gathered data to analyze energy use patterns and determine equipment productivity

Other titles we also considered for this episode:

Life Takes You On a Different Trajectory
I Think We've Hit That Tipping Point
There Was Not Necessarily a Huge Impetus To Change
Moving From a Competitive Edge To a Basic Requirement
The Question Is, “Do We Care?”
Someone Thought They Were Being Funny
It’s a Gateway Into Exactly What’s Going On
We Knew That Energy Storage Was Going To Be Transformative

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The Social Innovation Podcast thoroughly enjoyed its conversation with ShuFen Lin, an ex-startup founder deeply interested in artificial intelligence and climate change.

Some of the topics that ShuFen discussed:

Working from home and work/life integration
A work-life that encompassed corporate, startups, and back to corporate
Worked in the telco business for 15 years
Left corporate life to start Gluu - a marketplace for trading mobile data
How she got interested in artificial intelligence
The implications of AI and our own awareness of its implementation
The importance of AI literacy and personal responsibility
The International Energy Agency reported that carbon emissions dropped 5% to 6% during full lockdown
Seeing the clear, blue sky
Suppliers, the supply chain, and one's carbon footprint
FinTech startups and sustainability
Consumer demand driving product supply

Other titles we considered for this episode:

It's More About Work-Life Integration
It Has Given Me a Lot of Flexibility
We've Seen Businesses That Thrive on Lack of Literacy
Commercial Production Is Driven By Consumer Demand
I Feel Like I Am Starting from Zero Again
The common Denominator I Found Was the Mindset

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The Social Innovation Podcast was joined by Fengru Lin, the Founder, and CEO of TurtleTree. TurtleTree believes that "Food should nourish and delight." They envision "a world where people, animals, and the planet no longer have to pay the price for the meals on our table..."

Some of the topics that Fengru covered included:

Working at Salesforce and Google prior to starting TurtleTree
Learning how to make cheese
Listening to a speech her co-Founder Max gave at Google
Filed for patents in 2019 and then founded TurtleTree
How the cow population has remained constant but milk output rose by almost 50%
How the health of your gut impacts the health of your whole body
In the novel food space, 50 to 60% of COGS goes to energy
The process for painlessly extracting mammary cells from cows and then creating milk
Singapore as a launchpad for the rest of Asia
Launching products with FMCG companies
TurtleTree's funding status and talking to investors

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We were joined by Nabeel Ismeer, a co-Founder of MPWRNRGY (I think it needs more vowels.) and the author of "The Hunters Walk." MPWRNRGY develops, installs, and operates green technologies like solar power on rooftops of commercial and residential properties and electric vehicle charging stations at carparks and other locations.

Some of the topics that Nabeel discussed:

The story of how his Sri Lankan father got a job in Saudi Arabia
Why being early matters
The Hunter's Walk - his first book
The IPCC and what its mission is
Climate change
Where we get pre-satellite era historical weather data
It's not just electric vehicles and transportation
The drastic drop in the price for solar installations and operations
Renewable energy is already cheaper than conventional sources
Electricity generation by energy source

Some other titles we considered for this episode:

Grasp Whatever Opportunity You Get
Watalappan Is a Pudding In Sri Lanka
What Would Climate Change Do To Us?
Mitigation and Adaption
That Was Where I Was Doing the Most Good

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Social Innovation Podcast was super happy to be joined by Steve Melhuish, Founder PropertyGuru, Sustainability Advocate & Investor, and a co-Founder of Planet Rise. Planet Rise believes that climate and social inequality are the biggest challenges facing humanity today. It supports companies solving these issues, using tech to achieve impact at scale.

Some of the topics Steve and I covered:

Hiring a CEO at PropertyGuru in 2018 and remaining on its Board
Packing for a flight for the first time in 2 years
The beginnings of his climate and social impact journey
The critical role that corporates play in combatting climate change
Helping some of Wavemaker Partners' portfolio companies think more about sustainability
Building a fund around decarbonization
Wavemaker Impact
Building their own carbon map
About a third of all the carbon sinks in the world are in Southeast Asia
The opportunity to build 100 x 100 companies
A few of Planet Rise's portfolio companies

Other titles we considered for this episode:

A Monumental Effort from Everybody
Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 50%
You Can Very Quickly Get Overwhelmed
We See Ourselves as co-Founders

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Aliza Napartivaumnuay joined me on the Social Innovation Podcast to talk about Socialgiver, of which she is the CEO. Socialgiver is a platform that is pioneering new ways to connect and use the spending power of consumers to create positive change in the world.

Some of the topics that Aliza and I discussed:

How growing up all around the world helped shape her
Her membership in the Obama Foundation
Working in logistics and supply at a Thai corporate and what it taught her
What is Socialgiver, why it was founded, and what it is trying to accomplish
There are approximately $39 BN of spare services a year in Thailand alone
The importance of transparency in social projects
Pivoting through the pandemic
Solving problems for the long term
Spare capacity and people that need help exist everywhere

Other titles we considered for this episode:

Really Stand True
Wanting To Create a Better Future for Everyone
I Am Not a Born Entrepreneur
Create a Way for People to Do Good More Often
They Were Willing to Give Stuff, Rather Than Cash

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The Social Innovation Podcast was happy to have a conversation with Jan Ivar Czaplicki, a co-Founder of CarbonClick.com and an Edmund Hillary Fellow. CarbonClick has built the world's simplest and most trustworthy carbon offsetting system to accelerate the fight against climate change. CarbonClick has built innovative, new ways for businesses and individuals to neutralize their impact on the planet as part of their everyday lives, aiming to have a significant and measurable impact in the fight against climate change.

Some of the topics that Jan and I covered:

How and why he became an Edmund Hillary Fellow
Seeing the environmental impact of humans while traveling around Southeast Asia
Noticing the difficulty of solving the carbon footprint problem
How working at an airline encouraged Jan to build CarbonClick
The importance of measuring climate change and its impact
Businesses reducing emissions
Doing extensive carbon reduction project due diligence
Transparency matters
CarbonClick's business model

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The Social Innovation Podcast learned a lot from its discussion with Sushil Vaishnav, the Founder of KNP Arises. KNP Arises is a revolutionary startup that is at the forefront of building a green world. KNP Arises collects used cooking oils and fats from restaurants and then converts those oils into bio-diesel.

Some of the topics we covered with Sushil:

When he returned from 8 years in Dubai, was worried about eating out in India
Something just felt wrong with the food
Realized that one of the issues was with the reuse of cooking oil
Some of the food vendors even considered overused oil as their secret flavor ingredient
Food vendors worried if they did not reuse the cooking oil, customers would not return
Visited and interviewed over 100 street food vendors
The health issues that reused cooking oil creates
Creating awareness for the vendors and their customers
Logistics and costing
Potential FinTech opportunities
Side hustles do not really succeed at scale

Other titles we considered for this episode:

Key to Nature's Protection
Demand Is Never an Issue for Bio-Diesel

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The Social Innovation Podcast enjoyed talking to Sylvia Yu Friedman. Sylvia is a renowned Author, Award-Winning Filmmaker, and Serial Entrepreneur. Sylvia has devoted her life to exposing the world to the horrors of sex trafficking and human slavery and inspiring others to join in fighting against them.

Some of the topics that we discussed:

Sylvia's involvement in media since 1997 and her perspective on omnichannel
How she first learned about sex slavery and comfort women from a newspaper article in 1991
The genesis of her first book, "Silenced No More: Voices of ‘Comfort Women’"
The intensity that is necessary to write her books
The challenge of getting people to open up and tell their stories
"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader" and why empathy matters
The sheer difficulty of filming on location in Asia and the real dangerous situations that Sylvia encountered
The importance of healing and reconciliation
Struggling with her Korean heritage and later embraced it

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The Social Innovation Podcast was excited to welcome Matthew Friedman, the CEO of The Mekong Club, back to the show. The Mekong Club is a catalyst for change, inspiring and engaging the private sector to lead in the fight against modern slavery.

Some of the topics we discussed this time around:

How Corporate Social Responsibility led to ESG
Why institutions now must include Purpose along with Profit, Growth, and Prestige
ESG offers an objective way of measurement
For ESG measurement to become as effective as possible, there has to be more standardization
Investment companies are also taking notice as ESG investment significantly outperforms
Paul Ark and Gobi Partners
Pollution, access to clean water, forced labor, human slavery, and NGOs
Understanding invisibility
Velleity
The Starfish on the Beach
Read Matthew Friedman's book - Be the Hero: Be the Change

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The Social Innovation Podcast was honored to have Sandeep Aneja and Jetu Lalvani, Managing Partners at Kaizenvest on the show. Kaizenvest is an emerging markets asset manager focused on the future of learning and work, managing private equity and private debt funds in South & Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Kaizenvest believes that the future of learning and work is being redefined through technological, pedagogical, and learning-engagement model innovations.

Some of the topics Sandeep and Jetu discussed:

After a successful career in Silicon Valley Sandeep returned to India
Sandeep ran into Jetu who was already running the German School in Bombay
Why Sandeep wanted to buy a school and why people thought he was crazy
Both men had teaching and schools as a throughline for their entire lives
When Sandeep was at university, he put together an education program for the railway factory's families
Kaizenvest is meant to provide smart capital to education entrepreneurs in emerging markets
How education is an extension of culture and the economy in which it operates
Education and EdTech investing is not just about schools
Building a business and having an impact
Can learning opportunities be personalized?
The example of a company in the Philippines called PhinMa
Access, Quality, and Relevance
Core, Parallel, and Ancillary
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Doughnut Economics

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Social Innovation Podcast welcomed Gautam Godhwani, a Managing Partner of Good Startup, to the show. Good Startup is a venture firm focused on the alternative protein sector. It invests in entrepreneurs creating the next generation of food and materials companies.

Gautam moved to the United States with his family when he was 10 years old and settled in Silicon Valley. Surrounded by technological innovation, Gautam studied Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and went on to found three startups prior to building Good Startup. His first startup was sold to Netscape while his third company (Simply Hired) was acquired by Japan's Recruit Holdings.

Some of the topics covered in our discussion:

After Simply Hired was sold, Gautam started to explore his interest in sustainability
Narrowing his focus to animal welfare and alternative proteins
Launching Good Startup
Good Startup exists to remove animals from the food system (read the manifesto here)
The move from ingredients and food science to molecules and biotechnology
Will technology personalize food?
What is a flexitarian?
The importance of food security
An increased focus on zoonotic diseases

You can see some of Good Startup's portfolio companies here.

You can see some statistics on how many animals are killed for food every year here, here, and here.

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The Social Innovation Podcast sat down (virtually) with Paul Ark (Polapat Arkkrapridi), an Advisor at Gobi Partners. Paul has had an incredible and incredibly varied career, spanning investment banking, retail, venture capital, and philanthropy. Suffice it to say that Paul and I had a great conversation filled with thoughtful insights and ideas.

Some of the topics Paul and I discussed included:

Beginning his career as an investment banker helped him build skills he could use for the rest of his career
Being responsible for Central Group's China market entry and M&A
Building out a retail presence for Apple and Microsoft in China
The Apple experience and understanding the customer journey
The complexity behind simplicity
Taking periodic career breaks to recalibrate
Transitioning to venture capital and building a fund from scratch
The importance of diversity across the board
Digital Ventures as a training ground for the VC space in Thailand
The reason for the Book Club
The move to Gobi Partners and Impact Investing
Female empowerment and educating girls
Building frameworks in the VC context to be more ESG focused and working with startups to do the same

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The Social Innovation Podcast was joined by Regina Larko, the Founder, Host, and Producer of #impact Podcast. #impact is a "podcasting community built for and by visionaries making positive impacts by sharing stories that deserve to be heard."

Some of the topics Regina discussed included:

Being very much attuned to her 8-year-old self
Why Regina was always interested in #impact
Regina's unbridled optimism for making the world a better place
Growing a community and interacting with listeners
Making early mistakes and learning from them
Why Regina thinks podcast seasons are good (Can I still release weekly? is that OK?)
Connecting podcasts guests with each other
People say things but their voices may say something different
Wanting people to pay attention to the message, not the package
Remote recording versus in-person recording
Why we are not great listeners and why we should really get better at it
A normal person can speak 125 words per minute, but our brains can handle 800

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The Social Innovation Podcast was recently joined by Andre Menezes a co-Founder and the COO of NextGen Foods. NextGen Foods is passionate about using plants to create food experiences so delicious and satisfying, it will make you forget why animals were used for food.

Some of the topics we discussed:

Starting his first company as a 12-year-old and building a web presence for a car dealership
Living in Germany for a month as a teenager and building a global worldview
How he studied engineering but learned he did not want to be an engineer
Working as a venture capitalist and getting seconded to one of the VC's portfolio companies
Moving to Singapore and learning about supply chains and logistics
Building a sustainable company culture in which 'fear' is not a driver, but 'shared purpose' is
NextGen Foods' recently announced a $10MM seed round and how this will let them 'run as fast as possible'
The origin of the ‘Chicken Made from Plants’ brand, Tindle
The three pillars of NextGen Foods - Crafting Global Brands, Pioneering R&D, and Networks With Scale

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The Social Innovation Podcast was recently joined by Annette Werth and Jeffrey Char, co-founders of SOGO Energy, and the CTO and CEO respectively. SOGO Energy believes that energy ventures in emerging markets have the power to create valuable, scalable businesses. However, despite solid business models and fast-growing customer acquisition, they struggle to raise the money they need to sustain such growth. SOGO Energy was birthed to invest in these local ventures and partner with them on management, technology, and funding.

Some of the topics we discussed:

Annette's introduction to the energy sector and building a solar fridge in Burkina Faso
Jeffrey's extensive career as an entrepreneur and how he got into the energy sector
How, ultimately, everything is linked to energy
How Annette and Jeffrey met serendipitously at a blockchain conference on energy in Vienna
Annette's work on a micro-grid project for Sony in Okinawa
To scale, you have to go where the customers are
The importance of getting customers first
There are 789 MM people globally without electricity
The social benefits of energy for all and the UNDP's 17 Sustainable Development Goals

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The Social Innovation Podcast was honored to have Matthew Friedman, the CEO of The Mekong Club on the show. The Mekong Club is a catalyst for change, inspiring and engaging the private sector to lead in the fight against modern slavery.

If you listen to this episode and are not moved, I do not know what WILL move you.

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The Social Innovation Podcast had an inspiring conversation with Neha Mehta, the Founder of FemTech Partners.

Neha is a Lawyer and Fintech professional, specializing in Digital Financial Services, financial inclusion, payment systems, anti-money laundering, and terrorist financing (AML/CFT). She has worked with financial regulators across key Asian markets and assisted in developing effective policies to support diversity and inclusion.

Some of the topics we covered were:

Neha's work for VSO and financial inclusion for female farmers in Bangladesh
bKash and the financial inclusion it represents
The impact of COVID on women and how it is necessarily different from a man's experience
The use of FinTech as a force of good
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals - Poverty Elevation and Gender Equality
How SuperApps can potentially help with financial literacy and financial inclusion
The book Neha is writing on SuperApps

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The Social Innovation Podcast had the honor of speaking with Peetachai (Neil) Dejkraisak, the CEO of Jasberry.

Neil and Palmmy were MBA students in 2011 when they learned that Thai farmers were among the poorest in the world, earning just $0.40/day, as a result of poor yield, rising costs, and inefficient agricultural systems. This problem affects 17 million farmers in Thailand alone and it is getting worse as farmers’ debts have tripled in the last decade resulting in a multitude of social problems.

Wanting to create a sustainable, scalable, and irreversible solution to such a problem, they founded Siam Organic, a social enterprise that solves the problem of farmer poverty through innovative organic products with global appeal, starting with Jasberry® rice. Beginning with just 25 farmers in the first year, Siam Organic is now working with over 2,500 farmers, helping them out of poverty, one grain at a time.

Some of the topics that Neil and I discussed:

Why Neil is an Unreasonable Fellow and why that is not what you think it is
Some of the people that inspired Neil - Muhammad Yunus and Seub Nakhasathien
His experiences in Australia and how an impactful conversation with his high school friend Duncan changed his life
It is possible to do well and do good at the same time
How his investment banking experience helped him meet the best rice scientist in the world
How he spent a year living with farmers in Issan to gain trust and learn about the real lives of farmers
Neil never mentioned the awards and recognition that Siam Organic has received, but I am putting it here anyway

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The Social Innovation Podcast spoke to Louis-Alban Batard-Dupre, the founder and Food Waste Fighter at Yindii. Yindii is a marketplace connecting Bangkok restaurants and cafes’ surplus to consumers at discounted prices. It reduces Thailand's food waste and its carbon footprint, one meal at a time. The team at Yindii believes that food consumption can have a positive impact on the planet if managed properly.

Clearly, Food Waste and concerns about it are not merely a passing trend.

Some of the topics that Louis and I discussed include:

Louis' introduction to the startup world in France with ConnectThings which was founded by Laetitia Gazel Anthoine
Leaving ConnecThings after 7 years and traveling with his wife for a year
Bartered digital marketing services for hotel and hostel stays while traveling
How his travels and meditation introduced him to social innovation and local impact
Working at Scholars of Sustenance and learning about Food Waste
Founding Yindii and managing its rapid growth while bootstrapping
Tips for starting a company as a foreigner in Thailand
Time to get Yindii funded

Louis-Alban Batard-Dupre can be reached here ---> louiis@yindii.co

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The Social Innovation Podcast had the pleasure of speaking with Lin Hwang, a co-Founder and the CEO of DamoGo, a platform that helps reduce food waste by helping retailers and farms sell their unsold food and produce at a discount before it gets thrown away. Lin is an extremely experienced food-tech entrepreneur dedicated to making a positive impact through reducing food waste.

Lin and I discussed the following topics:

How he thought he wanted to be an Investment Banker until he visited his father's newly purchased seafood processing plant and saw a massive opportunity to digitize the operation and grew the business 700%
His move to Korea to grow the international side of that business
Seeing a market for U.S. restaurant to expand to Korea and helping 'The Halal Guys' do just that
Mentoring one of his student interns and his friend on their food waste project to participate in an Impact Investment competition and then deciding to work with the team full-time
Building DamoGo in Korea first and then moving to Indonesia and innovating the business model with both retail outlets and farmers
His and the DamoGo team's commitment to solving the problem of food waste globally
How everyone wins, including the planet

See the full transcript below.

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The Social Innovation Podcast had the pleasure of speaking with Yuha Jin, the CEO and co-Founder of Tella.

According to Yuha, "Tella is short for "TellAfreeca"; a team that started out with the social mission of creating knowledge-based jobs in East African countries for university-educated youth. When my co-founder and I visited some East African countries, we experienced a totally different Africa than what the media portrayed (hunger, illiteracy, unskilled, etc).

We saw that hundreds of thousands of university graduates could speak at least 2-3 languages fluently. Yet most of them were jobless (83% of graduates unemployed in Uganda) or were underemployed. I believe creating knowledge-based jobs is not only important for giving people the means of a livelihood, but these individuals can eventually be the backbone of national economic development in their countries through the pragmatic application of the knowledge garnered on the job."

Suffice it to say that we had a fascinating discussion...

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The Social Innovation Podcast had an incredible conversation with Chris Fong, a co-Founder, and Chief Innovation and Strategic Growth Officer at FeFiFo. At FeFiFo, Chris is spearheading co-farming as a new model to disrupt and democratize the US$159b contract farming industry with a mission to make sustainable, profitable, smallholder farming commonplace.

Chris is passionate about affecting change for the better through process and technology innovation. He has strong business acumen and is also familiar with a wide spectrum of technologies both mainstream and emerging. In particular, he is interested in technology-driven innovation that decentralizes and disintermediates existing business models to improve inclusion, reduce costs, and increase efficiency and transparency.

Chris and I talked about:

Digital Distributed Farms Network
The Struggles of Small-holder Farmers and Modernization
co-Farming
Ready-To-Farm Spaces
Farming As an Attractive and Rewarding Venture
Farming in Ready-To-Farm Spaces

You have to listen to this episode. It will change the way you think about farming and the produce that you eat.

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I had the pleasure of speaking with R. Scott Salandy-Defour, a co-Founder of Liquidstar.

Liquidstar offers a new category of energy distribution, utilizing Waypoint charge stations to deploy smart batteries for beyond-the-grid electrical power distribution. Liquidstar’s vision is to leapfrog off-grid markets to the ‘wireless’ battery-powered sustainable ecosystems of the future - solving energy access challenges for the powerless 1.1 billion and providing electricity for essential services during grid destroying disasters.

The core Liquidstar Decentralized Autonomous Utility (DAU) platform strings together various innovation layers provided by expert partners to manage the charging and distribution of source-agnostic electricity through batteries delivered by Power Ranger operators.

To understand the significance and importance of having affordable and sustainable energy in emerging and frontier markets, read a recent post from the Liquidstar blog that starts with this:

"Imagine being in lockdown, forced to sit home alone, unable to charge your phone or laptop. No Netflix, no Zoom - but it gets much worse. In cities across Africa, such as Lagos, Nigeria, people are facing starvation, violence, and riots."

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The Social Innovation Podcast spoke to Hannah Thinyane, a Principal Research Fellow at the United Nations University Institute in Macau. Hannah leads the Migrant Tech Research Project. Since 2016 she has led a multi-disciplinary team, innovating and inventing ICTs to support proactive and consistent screening of workers in situations of labour exploitation and human trafficking.

She has over 15 years of academic and practical experience in the area of mobile computing, ICT for development, and human-computer interaction. During this time, she has undertaken applied computing research, conceptualizing, designing, developing and rolling out systems for underserved areas in Africa and Southeast Asia. Through this work, she has made strong connections with mobile operators, local and national governments, inter-governmental organizations, industry and civil society organizations.

She has authored more than 90 peer-reviewed publications based on her research, publishing in both academic and policy circles. Hannah’s work has been presented at / showcased by: UN Special Rapporteur on Human Trafficking (2019); UN Business and Human Rights Forum (2019); World Justice Forum (2019); and at INTERPOL’s 2018 Global Conference on Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling. In 2019 she was invited to speak to the Police Advisers to UN Member States (Nov 2019. Australian Mission to the UN, NY) on using technology to support human trafficking victim identification by law enforcement. She has also served as a panelist at the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery’s webinar on using tech to assess working conditions in supply chains (June 2020); Code 8.7: Using Computational Science and AI to End Modern Slavery (Feb 2019. UN Headquarters, NY); and the Thomson Reuters Anti-Slavery Summit (Aug 2017. Hong Kong).

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The Social Innovation Podcast had a fabulous conversation with Bethany Jinks, the Founder of Zoobie. Bethany was raised in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, Australia in the state of Victoria. In her own words, she has always been obsessed with animals which she says comes straight from her parents. You can hear the passion in her voice when she talks and when she says her love for animals is "in her blood", you know she means it. Bethany tells a great story about how her father once saved a young pig named 'Oinkle' from greyhound racing.

"Zoobie is an online platform connecting animals that are looking for a home with their perfect family, a safe and ethical pet sales, and adoption platform. Zoobie provides a secure, comprehensive, and easy-to-navigate way for Australian animals to find their perfect home.

Zoobie integrates listings from individuals, shelters, and breeders on one platform so that buyers can navigate the pet marketplace with ease. By tailoring search results to the requirements of the buyer and the unique characteristics and traits of each animal, Zoobie aims to reduce the number of pets who require rehoming because they are unsuited to their first owner’s lifestyle."

While the conversation was serious, I felt like we had a lot of fun. After the recording, I shared a picture of the best dog in the world with her (full disclosure, my daughter Kyla's dog) Jazz.

Listen to the entire episode and help support Zoobie...

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In this episode of the Social Innovation Podcast, Michael Waitze was joined by the esteemed Anne-Marie Brook, a co-Founder of the Human Rights Measurement Initiative. Anne-Marie is a trained economist and holds a Masters Degree in Economics from Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs. She spent the better part of 20 years working as an economist including almost 6 years at the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and almost a decade between the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the New Zealand Treasury. Anne-Marie knows her stuff.

It was while she was in Paris working at the OECD that Anne-Marie had what she describes as her first "light-bulb moment" that led her to the founding of HRMI with Susan Randolph and K. Chad Clay. At the OECD, Anne-Marie was giving economic advice to governments across the globe and noticed that Human Rights were quite a big issue. She began looking for ways to include these Human Rights issues into her economic advice and she found that she was not able to do so because she could not find the proper data sets.

As an economist, Anne-Marie notes, her recommendations have to be based on empirical data and it was this lack of data on human rights that led her and her co-Founders to begin to build HRMI. HRMI is a global collaboration between human rights academics and human rights practitioners that is producing a comprehensive human-rights-focused database. This data is used to measure how countries score on multiple human rights according to those set out by international law. The idea is to produce data that can be used both by academics to write journal articles and human rights practitioners to really understand what is happening on the ground in the countries in which they operate.

You can support HRMI by participating in their crowdfunding as they continue to expand their business in East and Southeast Asia. for more general inquiries, you can contact them here.

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The Social Innovation Podcast had a fabulous conversation with Azalea Ayuningtyas, the co-Founder and CEO of Du Anyam. Du Anyam is the leading ethical craft brand in Indonesia with a vision is "to empower women, promote culture, and improve livelihood." Azalea originally intended to be an academic after receiving a BS in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Michigan and a Masters Degree in Epidemiology from Harvard University's School of Public Health.

However, during a field study in India, she had an experience that changed her career perspective. While interviewing a young woman in her home in the slums of Mumbai, the elder woman of the house came into the interview and yelled at Azalea and told her to leave. After leaving the house, during a conversation with the translator, Azalea learned why she was asked to leave. The older woman was upset because many researchers have come into her house to ask questions and learn about her life and yet nothing has changed.

This inspired Azalea and helped her realize that as potentially impactful as academia and its resulting research can be, it is necessary to wait for someone to act on that research and implement solutions based on its findings, conclusions, and resulting policy recommendations. Remembering her parents running their family business and being able to see the impact of their own decisions began to make Azalea a bit impatient. It was also around this time that she started to learn about Social Enterprises. This was very intriguing to her because Azalea figured out that she could use business principles to solve social problems.

Listen to this episode to find out more about Du Anyam and its newest vertical, Krealogi, created to solve craft supply chain bottlenecks and empower all craft SMEs. You can reach the Du Anyam team here and follow them on Instagram here.

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Quote: "Being In This Skin Is the Only Way to Really Experience It"

You simply have to listen to the conversation I had with Troy Prince. Troy is the Founder of Wall Street Bound, an education and training organization focused on the recruitment, exposure, licensing, and placement of inner-city youth into front office intern positions on Wall Street. Troy is also a graduate of the prestigious Bronx High School of Science and the NYU Stern School of Business.

Troy and I talked about what it was like growing up in a strong, close-knit, education-focused family in the Bronx. The southern-most section of the Bronx is a mere 10.2 miles away from Wall Street according to Google Maps, and yet it may as well be on a different planet. Most kids that grow up in the Bronx have little to no exposure to the world of global finance nor the employment opportunities it presents. Troy is committed to changing this and believes that while IQ and Talent are equally distributed, opportunity is not.

Troy and I have known each other for more than 20 years. We met when he was a buy-side trader at Barclays Global Investors in Tokyo and I was a sell-side portfolio trader at Goldman Sachs. We talked about our experiences in Tokyo and how it was the first time I experience being a 'visual minority', something that Troy has to deal with every day of his life. We also noted that it was the first time a lot of the foreign traders in Tokyo felt somehow out of their comfort zones.

Troy also spent almost five years living and investing in Vietnam as an angel investor, but could not get the idea of 'Wall Street Bound' and the positive impact it would have on under-served communities out of his mind. He decided to stop thinking about it and start doing it, like a true entrepreneur.

Wall Street Bound currently runs three impactful programs with more on the way. Most recently, WSB has created a program in partnership with Maverick Trading that trains urban youth to trade and manage real money in live markets.

Listen to this episode and the rest of the Social Innovation Podcast to learn about how business principles can be applied to create profit and real social impact at the same time.

If you would like to contact the team, e-mail them at info@wallstreetbound.org.

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I was joined by the esteemed Michelle Jamieson, Communications and Change Consultant at Green Door Solutions. Michelle has traveled the world and is currently based in Toronto, Canada. Apparently, Canadians love to talk about the weather, which I did not know. Hockey, I knew...but the weather was new to me.

Although born in Calgary, Michelle is definitely a third-culture kid...OK, not SO much a kid anymore, but you know what I mean. Her father is Canadia and her mother is from India. When Michelle was going into the 8th grade, her father (Walter Jamieson) got a job in Bangkok, Thailand, and moved the family there with him. Michelle attended the International School of Bangkok (ISB) and was excited by the inherently diverse population. As a multi-cultural family, they were always interested in travel, but living in Bangkok "opened the door to these incredible adventures", Michelle explained. Travel to Southeast Asia, China, and India became much easier and she was quickly bitten by the travel bug.

The experience at ISB was such a departure from her life in Calgary and it opened Michelle's eyes to an entirely new world. Through traveling, she also became involved in her father's work, which was community-based tourism, and looking for ways to incorporate socially responsible economic development. As Michelle matured and graduated from university, there was a clear confluence of interests between her and her father. It was from this shared experience and interest that Green Door Solutions was born.

Michelle and I had a great discussion about over-tourism, the impact of COVID-19 on traveling in general, and how responsible and thoughtful tourism can forge economic development without destroying the places that people want to go see and experience. We also went through some strategies that locations can employ to create robust tourist economies that are not solely based on the number of arrivals. Clearly, these topics are complex and nuanced and Michelle's perspective was based on years of experience and research.

I learned a lot and you will too as you listen to this deeply insightful episode.

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The Social Innovation Podcast had the pleasure of speaking with Jessica Camus and Mark Blick of Diginex Solutions. Mark and I had a conversation about a year ago. Jessica also has an incredibly strong background and a deep interest in development issues. Jessica is originally from Haiti and grew up in Switzerland where she studied International Relations. She has advised International Organizations and Corporates primarily in emerging markets on Social Impact Strategies, Impact Investing, and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance Issues). One of the issues that Jessica observed was that it was difficult for these institutions to scale their impact and measure it. This piqued her interest in how blockchain technology could potentially help to solve that with new and innovative solutions.

While there are not only technological issues to solve, we also discussed how creating the right partnerships and encouraging collaboration across domains can also be very important. One of the ways to accomplish this is to have a common set of agreed-upon data so that all of the collaborators can be on the same page. Jessica's time at Thompson Reuters and at the World Economic Forum taught her how important public-private partnerships can be in enabling effective change.

Since we last spoke, a lot has changed at Diginex Solutions. While Mark notes that he likes to focus tightly and go deep on a particular topic, Diginex has been busy expanding its offerings and rapidly developing and deploying its software. With an initial focus on forced labor and modern slavery, Diginex has now expanded to the full remit of ESG. The idea is to expand the platform to drive meaningful change.

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I had a great conversation with Adrian Tan and Greg Tan Tze Kai to start SG Assist. These are two guys that quit good-paying jobs to build SG Assist in response to a family medical problem that Adian Tan experienced. Greg comes from an Oil and Gas background while Adrian is a supply chain expert. Although neither of them had any medical experience, after long chats in the canteen while they were performing reserve military service in Singapore, they realized that the problems that Adrian was experiencing were likely pervasive.

If you listen to Adrian and Greg talk, they are passionate about helping people help each other, their families, and their communities…and by employing technology to do so. SG Assist’s vision “is to help save lives and build a culture of “kampong spirit" like the good ol’ days, when everyone in the community looked out for one another.

Via our mobile app, we aim to provide you with peace of mind through our swift assistance with community volunteers. Without prompt and proper medical aid, your loved ones may be at greater risk during a medical emergency. With our mobile app, we will help you locate a trained Kampong Hero to attend to your loved ones in your absence."

This is a worthwhile vision, indeed.

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Anthony Moorhouse, a co-Founder of EarthTech Ventures, started his career in the Special Forces of the Australian Army as a counter-terrorism commando. A frequent traveler, Anthony found himself at an airport and picked up a book by Richard Branson that talked about entrepreneurship...a word with which Anthony was unfamiliar at the time.

Anthony became obsessed with the idea that you could literally build something from scratch, from a blank sheet of paper. He realized that a 'blank sheet of paper' was literally the most exciting thing in the world for him. This was literally the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey. The idea that anyone, from anywhere from any background can have an idea and turn that idea into reality.

This obsession pushed Anthony to come up with at least 20 business concepts, only one of which made sense for him to execute based on his military background. Dynamiq, a company focused on crisis management, risk management, and international emergency evacuations, was born out of this process.

Twelve years later, Dynamiq was sold to a large insurance company and Anthony moved to Colorado to grow its US business. Ending up in Boulder, Colorado, Anthony became more deeply involved in the startup scene. He also built a social enterprise, did some lecturing, and decided after a time that with two small children, it was time to head back to Australia.

On the way home, he decided to take his children to a place that he and his then-new wife had visited 18 years earlier, the Great Barrier Reef. While the reef was still amazing, something drastic had changed and this was a 'gut punch', epiphany moment for Anthony. He wondered, 'With the resources and skills that I have if I am not making the world a better place for my kids, what will they think of me on my death bed?'Two or three months later he met his co-Founder Brian Keayes and the two started building out the infrastructure and vision for EarthTech Ventures. The core philosophy is that we are in a global crisis around sustainability and that with the proper use of technology, entrepreneurs can have an exponential impact attacking the United Nations' 17 sustainability goals.

Their most ambitious (with more to come, for sure) accomplishment to date has been the EarthTech Challenge, a global competition that inspired 849 teams and almost 1,500 entrepreneurs from over 70 countries "to make discoveries, create the technologies and build the companies" to solve the world's biggest environmental and social issues.

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I had the opportunity to speak with Nick Kengmana in the studio at True Digital Park. Nick is a co-Founder of Go Beyond and is committed to building a community of purpose-driven entrepreneurs and helping them change the world. We had a pretty amazing conversation ranging from the impact of mechanized farming on society to the evolution of capitalism, with a bit of religion sprinkled in.

We also discussed how technology companies employ strategies to encourage dopamine hits and the differences between them and serotonin, which is sometimes called the ‘happy chemical’. We touched on the topic of the ‘scarcity mindset’ and how Nick believes that this is part of the root of many of society’s problems. Nick believes that “Humanity, as a species, now has the capability to provide all the resources necessary for every human on earth to have a high quality of life. Scarcity has been a key driver of progress for the human species, but we’ve reached a point where there is no longer is true scarcity in our ability to provide enough for every human to have food, shelter, education, healthcare, opportunity, safety, etc.

Now scarcity and a scarcity mindset are no longer necessary and detrimental to the species, holding us collectively back and causing suffering around the world.

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Often the best articulation of the future is presented as a continuation of the past…

I had a great conversation with Mark Blick, the Head of Government, Blockchain Technology at Diginex. Diginex is a global blockchain solutions company based in Hong Kong. They really focus on two broad themes, Financial Services and a Solutions and Advisory Business. Mark focuses on the intersection of where regulatory change and policy frameworks meet with private sector implementation.

Mark and I spent a lot of time talking about a project he and the team have been working on for the past year, modern slavery and forced labor…hence the title of this episode. We start with the fact that modern slavery is not new, but regulation seems to be catching up with this issue. The statistics around modern slavery will actually shock you…I know they surprised me. In terms of money size, it is second only to the illicit drug trade and only a minuscule fraction of the people impacted here are actually getting any kind of help.

Secondly, there are changing consumer behaviors…with consumers becoming much more cognizant of ethically how the companies whose products they buy actually operate. More specifically, modern slavery affects the products that consumers most commonly purchase and this awareness is forcing companies to take notice along with the changes in the global regulatory environment. These are not obscure companies…

To help combat the problem of modern slavery, Diginex worked on a project with the Mekong Club to pilot eMin in Thailand. eMin is a blockchain-based application designed to take a significant step towards improving the lives of migrant workers and to reduce the chances of exploitation, by engaging both the private and public sectors.

eMin was developed by Diginex, in partnership with the Mekong Club, and is designed to protect migrant workers and increase supply chain transparency. eMin enhances trust, transparency, and security in the worker recruitment process by storing an immutable copy of employment contracts and employment terms on the Ethereum blockchain.

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Jeppe Mariager-Lam is originally from Denmark. He is currently the Technology and Innovations Manager at People in Need in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He first came to Cambodia after his wife got her Master's degree in International Development and got an internship with an NGO in Phnom Penh. This was actually Jeppe’s first time out of Europe.

His first job in Cambodia was working in a project management role for a software agency called Golden Gecko that was developing websites and apps for European clients. Work went well and Jeep got promoted to a senior position pretty quickly. More interesting was his and his wife’s experience adapting to the differences of living in Cambodia. In particular, they landed in Cambodia a day or two prior to the 2013 elections, which had its own, unique crisis. This election was quite contentious and the security officer at his wife’s NGO did not allow them to leave the hotel where they were staying for a week after the election. It was more surreal than scary…It was kind of like living in two different worlds.

After a couple of years of working in Cambodia, and a bit of burn-out, Jeppe and his wife decided to travel the world a bit before they took on the responsibility of dogs and children…in no particular order. While they were sitting and chatting on the Galapagos Islands, they both decided that they missed Cambodia and wanted to go back. It just felt like home to them…So they came home and Jeppe worked as a CTO for a bit before finding himself at People in Need.

People in Need is “a non-governmental, non-profit organization founded on the ideals of humanism, freedom, equality, and solidarity.” Find out more here…Essentially, People in Need is a Czech-based, global NGO with activities in over 25 countries, including the Philippines, Myanmar, Mongolia, Nepal, and Cambodia in Asia.

The project that Jeppe was most excited about was a disaster management project, focused specifically on floods and disaster risk reduction in terms of getting people out of harm's way before the floods become dangerous. This is quite a significant problem in Cambodia. Flood monitoring in Cambodia is not new. However, the methodology used prior to Jeppe and People in Need applying their technical solution was concrete poles on the banks of rivers measuring water height. Clearly, this was a suboptimal solution. The solution put in place by People in Need employs state-of-the-art IoT technology to enable flood measurement, management, and disaster prevention remotely. Listen to the full episode to learn more about their innovative solution to a real-world problem in Cambodia.

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Sovan Srun and Maes Sak Pheng join the series on social innovation in Cambodia to discuss Edemy, their award-winning social enterprise. The Tesdopi learning app developed by Edemy recently won the Cambodia Total Startupper of the Year award and Sovan Srun won the Top Female Entrepreneur Award.

After returning from the USA where they were Fullbright scholars, they turned to develop Edemy, which has the mission of equalizing “access to quality learning for everyone everywhere." To achieve this mission they combine their expertise in "education and technology to create a holistic learning experience".

They launched Edemy in early 2017 and joined the EPIC Incubation Program by Development Innovations, a USAID-funded project. The EPIC Incubation program provided funding, mentorship, and business training for Edemy to grow. Since then, they have gone on to create a range of projects that are transforming the experience of education for thousands of young Cambodians. These projects have included a Blended English Program and Learning Labs for rural schools.

Their latest creation is the Tesdopi app, which Sovan describes as a Fitbit for learning. Having lived through the trauma of preparing for university entrance exams in Cambodia, Sovan and Meas Sak were well aware of many of the problems faced by students. But they dived deeper and sought to understand why so many students were failing to achieve their goals. Among multiple challenges, they found that one critical but addressable problem was that students had no means of monitoring their exam preparation progress. So, they developed the Tesdopi app which diagnoses the strengths and weaknesses of students. It then provides learning videos for students to work on their weaknesses and generates a report which students can share with their teachers to optimize support.

The conversation with Sovan and Meas Sak covers a range of other topics including their experience studying in the USA, leveraging technology to deliver education in rural Cambodia, and their efforts to inspire and expand the world of young Cambodians.

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As part of our series on social innovation in Cambodia, we talk to Channé Suy Lan the Managing Director of InSTEDD's Southeast Asia iLab in Phnom Penh. InSTEDD stands for Innovative Support to Emergency Diseases and Disasters. It was founded by Larry Brilliant, who while working with a team to eliminate smallpox in India envisioned how technology could play a vital role in early disease detection and response. In 2006 he presented his vision in a TedTalk, which won the year's TED Prize and he used the prize money to launch InSTEDD. In 2008 they opened InSTEDD’s first iLab in Phnom Penh to spearhead innovations in Southeast Asia with the support of Google.Org and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Channé Suy Lan joined the iLab when it was launched and has since experienced first-hand the evolution in digital technologies. According to Channé, SMS was central to many of the technological solutions they developed in the early years of iLab but now the internet is widespread and also cheaper. However, she emphasizes the importance of recognizing how many new internet users are not exposed to the internet beyond Facebook.

During its 10 years, InSTEDD's iLab in Cambodia has been involved in many projects from creating a malaria surveillance system to supporting remote printing for HIV lab results. One of the latest and most impactful projects is the 115 Hotzone Disease Reporting and Information Hotline. Working closely with Skoll Global Threats Fund and the CDC (The Council for the Development of Cambodia), they launched the automated hotline in January 2016. The hotline is designed as a medium to report infectious diseases before they spread and is used by 1000 health centers around the country.

Channe goes on to discuss iLab's ICT4D Solution Incubator Initiative, which is supported by SPIDER. It aims to empower Cambodia-based development actors to integrate ICTs in their programs for maximum social impact. One project Channe illustrates is with the KAPE, an NGO that focuses on improving education outcomes in Cambodia. Together with the KAPE, they are developing interactive Khmer reading and writing learning apps for use on tablet computers that are shared in school libraries.

The conversation concludes with Channe discussing the importance of projects and solutions being owned by government service providers. “In every place that we do our projects, we are trying to engage the government and the ministry because the goal is to have them own it.”

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In this episode, we are joined by Thavry Thon for an inspiring talk about education, literature, and social change in Cambodia. Thavry is the author of several children's books and a Proper Woman. She is also the co-Founder of the Seavphovjivet, a publishing house dedicated to supporting Cambodian authors and inspiring young people through literature. Thavry also tours the country speaking to young people about the value of education and taking control of their destiny.

The conversation begins with Thavry discussing the influence of her parents. She explains, “my parents believed in education, and told us it was the ticket to a better life." Other friends would quit school in grade 9 or 8 and go to work at garment factories to earn $80 to $100 per month but Thavry's parents had a different strategy. “They invested in the long-term education of their children in the hope that their children would have a better life than they have”. Thavry reflects on the sacrifices her parents made. "People talked about her [Thary's mother] behind her back for being foolish." But after seeing Thavry and her brother's success, the perspective of education and towards her parents changed. Now they see them as "successful parents who raised their children well."

Empowered by her parents, she started the journey towards becoming an author and founding a publishing house. Along the way, she was granted a scholarship to study in the Czech Republic and wrote two children's books through the Room to Read program. Eventually, she turned to writing books for young adults, including A Proper Woman, which is an autobiographical account of challenging her country's social and cultural norms about being a woman.

When she went to publish a Proper Woman, she "found it difficult and frustrating dealing with many of the publishing firms and book shops, and felt there had to be a better way." So, she decided to learn how to publish herself and joined forces with other writers to create a Seavphovjivet Publishing.

Together they hope to reinvigorate the publishing industry in Cambodia and support the love of reading across the country. There is a perception that people don't like to read in but according to Thavry “readers don’t want to read because they cannot find good books to read.” Part of the problem is publishing firms don’t give enough support to authors. Seavphovjivet is on a mission to change that. "We know what writers feel like because we are writers too. We want to treat them fairly”, Thavry explains. Based on their approach, they were able to entice one of Cambodia's favorite authors, Mao Samnang, back to writing novels after nearly a decade-long hiatus.

Thavry’s mission is to inspire young Cambodians so she regularly travels the country speaking at schools and shares her story and the message that "it doesn’t matter where you are from, your destiny is your own. You design your own destiny."

Photo Credit: Eldon Lee JinHu

A Proper Woman: The story of one woman's struggle to live her dreams

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Michael Waitze spoke to Tara Dermott about how IOM X is using media to support safe migration experiences and stop trafficking and the exploitation of the vulnerable.

Originally from the USA, Tara Dermott moved to Thailand as a Peace Corps volunteer 14 years ago. Stationed in the Northeast of Thailand near the Cambodian border, Tara learned about issues related to migration, leading her to work at IOM X as the program leader.

IOMX is an off-shoot IOM (International Organisation for Migration), which is the UN’s migration agency dedicated to humane and orderly migration, providing services and advice to both governments and migrants. In partnership with USAID, IOM X creates innovative campaigns to encourage safe migration and public action to stop exploitation and human trafficking.

One of the problems is, according to Tara, people tend to deny the existence of such migrant exploitation where they live. It's treated as someone else’s problem, so IOM X works to demonstrate what human trafficking and exploitation actually look like.

She explains the approach of IOM X and how it uses Communication for Development (C4D), which draws on the fields of sociology, psychology, communication, and marketing to impact attitudes and behaviors.

Young people are moving away from traditional media yet are the main targets of trafficking and the most likely to engage in migration, so IOM X studies how their target audience is engaging with new media and then develops campaigns aligned with their online behavior.

The organization has made a vast range of short videos related to exploitation, trafficking, the fair treatment of migrant workers, and safe migration that are circulated across social media platforms such as Youtube and Facebook. Storytelling and drama, Tara explains, is a powerful medium to engage, inspire, and influence the attitudes and behavior of their target audience. One video went viral and raked in over 170 million views.

Target countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines are in the top 10 countries of most time spent online - often on sites like YouTube, but cutting through the noise on the internet and social media noise is a challenge, so IOMX partnered with Google Thailand to identify and work with Youtube stars to empower young Thais to understand exploitation in the manufacturing sector and make more informed consumer decisions.

Based on IOMX’s immense experiences in deploying communication for behavioral and social change, they have developed a resource portal for educators, students, and practitioners seeking to use C4D to support migrants and address other pressing social issues.

You can access IOM X’s resources here: https://iomx.iom.int/resources

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In this episode, Michael Waitze and Daniel McFarlane talk to Aung Thura about Myanmar’s rapidly changing mobile media landscape. Aung is the Chief Strategist at Ignite Marketing Communications and, with a team of researchers around the country, he is in an ideal position to provide insight into the rapidly changing media landscape.

The pivotal year was 2013 when the telecommunications market was liberalized. In the past, SIM cards could cost a staggering $2000-$3000 USD, but with the liberalization of the market, SIM card prices dropped and mobile phone ownership rose. In 2014, Ooredoo from Qatar arrived and their sim cards were a mere $1.50. Soon after, Telenor from Norway joined the market and KDDI of Japan signed a joint venture with MPT (Myanmar Posts and Telecommunication), the incumbent local operator.

According to Aung, the new arrivals faced tough competition as MPT had the majority of the towers and an established audience, while Ooredoo and Telenor had to start from scratch. Myanmar now has 54 million sim cards for a population of 52 million people. When it comes to market share, MPT is still the market leader with 22-23 million subscribers and is followed closely by Telenor with around 20 million and then Ooredoo with 9 or 10 million.

Six months ago Mytel arrived on the scene. It is a joint venture between the Myanmar military and Viettel, a telecommunications company owned and operated by the Vietnamese military that has a strong market position in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos and has expanded globally. They claim to already have 2 to 3 million subscribers. Mytel, Aung suggests, is somewhat aggressive, “They are in your face. They stand out.” Their growth is accelerated by offering services the others don’t, such as streaming the English Premier League to the football-mad people of Myanmar.

Aung estimates that 80% of phones in the market are smartphones, primarily Android devices thanks to affordable handsets from Chinese brands. These devices are providing many people with their first experience of the internet and that experience is often dominated by Facebook. “Some people even think that Facebook is the internet,” Aung explains. After Facebook, messaging apps rule with the most popular being Viber, owned by Rakuten.

Even with the rapid developments in infrastructure and mobile adoption, many challenges remain. The geographic makeup of Myanmar consists of numerous mountain ranges, causing considerable network coverage difficulties. Around 135 languages or dialects are spoken around the country and it is taking time to develop enough local language content. Another challenge is the use of fonts.

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Michael Waitze and Daniel McFarlane visited FHI 360’s regional Bangkok office to talk with Josh Woodard, who is the organization’s Regional ICT & Digital Finance Advisor. In an insightful discussion covering many issues, Josh highlights the role of technology in creating resilient communities and the value of thoughtful planning.

Josh’s first experience with Thailand came as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Northeast of Thailand. He explains how it gave him “a sense of the world of international development” and insight into how technology can transform people’s lives. His experience in the Northeast led to a career focus on digital development which he explains as “using digital technology in ways that are appropriate and can effectively help us to achieve development objectives.”

In recent years, Josh has led a grant focused on Technologies for Resilience in Asia-Pacific funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Resilience, according to Josh, is a framing of development that focuses on the “capacity of individual, communities, and systems to survive, adapt and grow in the face of stress and shocks and even transform when conditions require it.” Technology for resilience, he explains, is about how we can utilize technology to “make individuals, communities, countries, and the whole world stronger.”

In deploying technologies for resilience, Josh stresses the importance of alignment with the needs of actual users and their capacity. He also emphasizes how organizations need to ensure resilience is designed into the technologies they develop and deploy. Josh asks, “if the technology that we are using to try and help people to be more resilient is not resilient in itself, not sustainable, then how can it help with long-term resilience?” Josh encourages organizations that are developing technological solutions to anticipate the future, especially regarding how the technology will be sustained into the future.

To support organizations that develop and deploy impactful yet sustainable technologies, Josh developed a Digital Technology for Resilience Planning and Due Diligence Tool, which is an Excel-based tool that helps organizations plan the development of technology and provides a framework for identifying potential development partners.

The conversation concludes with Josh giving his personal perspective on the need for more thoughtfulness in the commercial tech world. “There are unintended consequences we are already aware of that are still not being addressed.” Then, there are a lot of things that “we can realistically anticipate that it's gonna be an issue”, which require a lot more consideration and dialogue between the tech sector and the public.

Technology developed for the good of people can often be used for evil and harm, intentionally and unintentionally. So, rather than dealing with the consequences after the fact, he hopes that it becomes the responsibility of tech developers to anticipate the harmful uses of their technology. While we can not protect against everything, “we need to at least be vigilant” and anticipate what can happen.

Correction: During the podcast, the Pulse Lab’s Haze Gazer innovation is discussed. It was described as a response to forest fires when in fact it primarily deals with peatland fires.

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In this episode, Michael Waitze talks with Allison Sanders, the Director of Strategy and Partnerships at Baan Dek Foundation (BDF) about the Foundation’s work supporting the lives of vulnerable migrant children growing up in construction workers' campsites in Thailand.

The Baan Dek Foundation (BDF) was established in 2002 in Chiang Mai by Nicola Crosta, Magali du Parc, and Acha Sripaurya. After surveying vulnerable communities around Chiang Mai, they realized many of the most vulnerable in Chiang Mai were the children of migrant workers living at construction campsites around the city. They are at risk of neglect, abuse, exploitation, and missing out on basic childhood development needs.

In response, they developed a multilingual team that engages in a social work-based approach to supporting children from Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos living at these campsites. A core part of their support is building a bridge between migrant communities and existing education and health and safety services available to migrants and where there is a gap BDF tries to find a solution to ensure the needs of children are met.

BDF has been supporting more than 1,000 children per year in Chiang Mai, but the challenge is large and can not be handled by the BDF team in Chiang Mai alone. They estimate there are 60,000 children living at construction worker campsites around the country, particularly in Bangkok where migrants provide the bulk of labor for the booming construction industry. As a result, BDF has recently expanded to Bangkok and has been developing sustainable and scalable solutions to meet the challenge.

Among many of the programs BDF engages in, Allison points out, there Migrant Empowerment Project has been one of the most impactful. It trains migrants in each community with the skills to access health, education, and safety services and become peer educators who can take over the role of Baan Dek’s staff.

BDF also recognizes the importance of scalability. For example, they took their successful Superheroes Academy program which has been teaching about 500 migrant children a year in life skills, and turned it into an application that enables children to digitally access the academy activities through tablets and low-cost smartphones. In recognition of their innovation, BDF won the MIT Solve Award.

Beyond making a direct impact, the Baan Dek Foundation’s strategy is to drive systemic change and “improve the dynamics of the entire construction industry” by working with institutional and corporate partners. A key partner is Sansiri, one of the leading property developers in the country. It works with UNICEF and Baan Dek to improve conditions in construction worker campsites and provide safe spaces and education for children.

To drive more systemic change, BDF worked with UNICEF to produce the Building Futures in Thailand report on support for children living in construction worker campsites and how private sector companies can more appropriately support the children of construction workers.

Learn more about the Baan Dek Foundation here.

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What can a picture of eggs reveal about Indonesian beauty? What can an image of megaphone diplomacy tell you about family relationships?

In this episode, Michael Waitze and Daniel McFarlane talk with Neil Gains, who is the owner of TapestryWorks and helps clients decode people and culture to help them better connect with the emotions that drive behavior. He brings a breadth and depth of experience to the conversation after decades of work in research across the world including almost 20 years in Asia. He makes a valuable contribution to the podcast by providing an innovative visual approach to understanding people and the emotional drivers of social and behavioral change.

In a playful conversation, Neil gets Michael to reveal his own motivations and character using pictures. Neil explains how visual approaches help reveal unconscious motivations by tapping into our brain’s powerful visual memory. They discuss how familiarity and recognition give a simpler and more intuitive way to understand people than asking direct questions and relying on memory recall.

The discussion covers the role of cultural values and self-identity and why people are often unaware of what drives their behavior. Visual approaches help hack our rational brain to reveal hidden feelings. These feelings may also be difficult to articulate because they are socially unacceptable or difficult to translate into the local language when a large part of communication is contextual.

Although visual approaches can appear very subjective, in the digital age they can also be used to quantify motivations and emotions across large samples of people. This can allow a detailed comparison of cultural drivers across countries and cultures and life stages. Humanizing research in this way can help you understand beneficiaries, stakeholders, customers, employees, innovators, leaders, and entrepreneurs.

Neil's intuitive visual approach captures honest and authentic responses to difficult questions, providing a roadmap of personal and cultural values that drive how people see themselves as individuals and how they relate to their communities.

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'Inspirational' is a good way to describe Rithy Thul, but it also captures what he wants Koompi to be for young Cambodians. Koompi is Cambodia's first locally designed laptop and Rithy Thul's latest venture. He discusses it, his company SmallWorld Cambodia and his dream for education in Cambodia with Michael Waitze on our first podcast on innovation in Cambodia.

An important part of Rithy's journey towards launching Koompi has been Bitcoin. He explains how it kept coming back to him, leading him to try to understand more about it by investing in Fortunately, he got in early and was able to experience years of growth, which funded his recent ventures over the past couple of years.

One of Rithy's ongoing ventures is Smallworld Cambodia. It started as a coworking space but soon became a platform for start-up ventures in Cambodia by providing office space, mentorship, and in some cases, capital to support new and interesting Cambodian businesses. Smallworld Cambodia also engages in internal projects and for these Rithy follows a simple principle. If it is meaningful but people think is it too difficult, then Smallworld should do it.

It's this principle that led him and his team to develop Koompi and their pursuit of changing how laptops are designed. Rather than hardware being designed for the latest software and dropping off in performance as the software is updated, Rithy believes software should be designed to work for the hardware and get faster over time. So, Rithy and his team designed an operating system they call KramaOS based on Linux. After just launching in just November, they are on track to sell 1,000 units by the end of the year. But they won’t stop with just designing the laptop and operating system. Next year they plan to start manufacturing motherboards in Cambodia.

Koompi is not just an affordable and practical laptop. Rithy wants young Cambodian's to see Koompi and what his team is doing and "look up to the sky". Young people in Cambodia are brave. If you lead them and give them the right tools they have so much potential, Rithy believes.

Rithy's bigger dream is to change education and the opportunities available to young Cambodians. He points out that Mark Zuckerberg was using a computer by the age of six, and Rithy wants to close the gap by giving more young Cambodians the chance to use computers and learn to code at a young age. He has a vision of bringing Koompi computers to every high school in Cambodia and training university graduates to go back to their hometowns for one year to give computer training to the next generation of young Cambodians.

If it seems too difficult, Rithy and his team will give it a go. In Rithy's Cambodia, the only boundary is the sky.

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Just before Pinnapa Satitpatanapan headed to Manila to take up a position at the Asia Development Bank, Michael Waitze caught up with her to discuss her experience studying at Yale, her passion for impact investing, and how to support the growth of impact investing in Thailand.

Pinnapa did a Bachelor of Business Administration at Thammasat Univesity before gaining experience in the investment banking unit of Bangkok Bank and as a Thai real estate developer. She then headed to the US for an MBA at the Yale School of Management.

While her BBA at Thammasat prepared her well, Yale posed new challenges, particularly the dynamic classroom discussions and the mountains of readings for each class. The most valuable lesson she gained at Yale, she says, was how to prioritize and manage time effectively.

A pivotal experience during her MBA was taking the School of Management's Global Social Entrepreneurship course, which has students team up with mission-driven social enterprises in India. She found herself supporting an enterprise called Onergy which delivers solar energy solutions to farmers, helping them engage in organic farming practices and linking them to buyers through an e-commerce platform. Inspired by the passion, hard work, and can-do attitude of the people at Onergy in India, Pinnapa asked herself how she could use her skills to make a difference in the world. She turned to social impact investing, which was unfamiliar to her before arriving at Yale.

After graduating from Yale, she landed an internship and then a full-time position at Calvert Impact Capital. Then, on returning to Thailand she discovered a dearth of knowledge on impact investing. While impact investing has gone mainstream in the USA, very few people in Thailand are aware of it as an investment option.

But awareness is not the only challenge the sector faces, Pinnapa points out. In the US, impact investors utilize standardized metrics to report on the impact of investments and funds. At Calvert Impact Capital they use IRIS metrics managed by the Global Impact Investing Network. However, social enterprises in Thailand have been reluctant to adopt measurement practices due to a number of reasons. They are either too focused on getting up and running or lack the resources and capabilities to measure their impact. So, Pinnapa recommends that supporting institutions like the UNDP and universities should be focusing on improving the capacity of SEs to use existing metrics and frameworks to measure impact. After all, investors need to see impact goals and measurements that track progress to those goals.

Pinnapa is now settling into life in Manila at the Asian Development Bank where she is excited to learn how infrastructure projects impact people's lives on a large scale. We look forward to connecting to Pinnapa again and hearing more about her work at the ADB.

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In this episode, Michael Waitze and Daniel McFarlane, are fortunate to converse with Stéphane Rousseau, who is the Director of International Field Immersion Courses at the School of Global Studies at Thammasat University. He brings an enormous wealth of experience to the conversation after decades of humanitarian, human rights, and civil society work across Asia and the Pacific.

Over the years, his work has presented many ethical and moral challenges. It is not the uplifting work many people think it is, Stephane suggests. The people you could not help or the people left behind are the ones that stay in your memory.

Without referencing social innovation specifically, Stephane provides multiple examples of how people and organizations have subverted structures of power and created innovative approaches to address pressing social problems. Listening to Stephane, it is evident social innovation is nothing new. It just has a new label and a fresh look.

Stephane discusses how in the early 1970s, French doctors, frustrated by the political and religious boundaries that were impeding their capacity to support the welfare victims of war set up Médecins Sans Frontières. They continue today as an organization of impartiality, independence, and neutrality.

In his work for The Global Fund in Geneva, he has observed the power of involving those who are afflicted by HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria, in programs to end these epidemics and revitalize the communities impacted by them. They work harder than anyone to stop these epidemics and relieve the people's impact on them. Stephane points out it often requires a power shift and cultural change to give voice and power to the people that are best positioned to enact change.

In humanitarian work, Stephane highlights that it is usually soft skills and emotional intelligence that enable someone to make a sustainable impact. In his work as the Director of International Immersion Programs, he is supporting young people to develop the skills and intelligence to make a positive difference in the world. Every summer he welcomes public health students from the University of California to experience life on the Myanmar-Thai border at Mae Sot and examines how health and well-being can be improved in refugee and border communities. It is through these experiences his students gain the emotional skills that will support them for years to come.

Stephane is developing new immersion programs in the region to incorporate students from multiple disciplines so they can experience boundary spanning, which Stephane describes as the power of bringing together the skills and perspectives of different fields. Boundary spanning also sums up his unique skills and expertise developed over 25 years of working across the region.

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In this episode of the Social Innovation podcast is an energizing conversation between Courtney Savie Lawrence and Michael Waitze. Courtney, originally from Nashville, Tennessee, arrived in Asia seven years ago with the perspective "the world is so much bigger than our own bubble.” After co-founding a social enterprise in the US, she was recruited to develop a Global Studies program at a university in Hiroshima. After a few years in Japan, Courtney followed her now-husband to Bangkok, where she teaches at the School of Global Studies at Thammasat University in Bangkok and facilities workshops and training on design thinking and social innovation. She describes Bangkok as one of her favorite places and "a dynamic city of innovation and change in the region."

For Courtney, social innovation is about "thinking really creatively about in fresh ways that are going to be disruptive in terms of changing the status quo and meeting the global challenges that are unprecedented." To Courtney, it is much more than a step-by-step process. It should be seen as shifting and changing mindsets.

She reminds us that it's easy to surround yourself with people drinking the same kool-aid. In an indication of reflexive turn, Courtney argues that conscious capitalism and bottom-up market-based solutions might be too limiting. Policy-based and political solutions are also crucial to lasting change and addressing some of the most pressing issues such as the growing socioeconomic divides.

Reflecting on the happenings in her home country and the latest mid-term elections, Michael and Courtney discuss the role of anger as a catalyst for change. It's clear that Courtney doesn't have time for cynism. She explains, "I am going to consciously embrace all that is chaotic and crazy, and let it stir me intellectually and feed the fire of what is possible in a positive way."

It is an approach to life and problem-solving that Courtney brings to her teaching and the facilitation of the workshops. She is "blow away by the agency and creativity" of her students at Thammasat University. In the third iteration of her course on design thinking and social innovation, Courtney has her students acting as consultants for real-world clients and in the process of learning how to manage expectations and maintain motivation through long and arduous projects. One thing she wants them to learn is a failure is okay. More important is what you do with failure and how you learn from it.

Learn more about Courtney’s work or reach out to her through her website here.

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In this episode of the Social Innovation Podcast Dipendra KC talks with Michael Waitze about his experience founding and running a youth organization in Nepal, and a new master's degree program of Social Innovation and Sustainability at the School of Global Studies at Thammasat University.

When Dipendra and his friends were seeking our work experience as young college students, they kept being asked if they had any experience. They didn’t have any so they went about building an organization through which they could experience. Its called Yuwa, which simply means youth in Nepali and has the objective of giving young like-minded Nepalese a chance to explore and experiment with their ideas for social change.

It began as an organization of five unpaid young students with no external capital and has become an organization with 10 full-time staff, 100 active members, funding of four to five hundred thousand US dollars per year while reaching out to 5,000 young Nepalese around the county on an annual basis.

As for the impact of Yuwa, Didpendra reflected on the learnings and experience gained by what he calls the “graduates” of Yuwa. But it has done much more. Through Yuwa, Nepalese youth like himself have been able to impact government policy. Dipendra cites the case where members were active in changing the national education curriculum to include topics such as sexual reproduction rights and alternate gender identities.

In his life after Yuwa, Dipendra is embracing his passion for innovations in development and his fascination with big data for his Doctorate degree. He recently published a paper based on a study of around 40,000 NGOs in Nepal, which examined what determines their location and whether they are positioned where they are really needed. In his role as a lecture, he is bringing his first-hand experience of analyzing big data to his student and opening their mind to insights they can gain by using statistical tools to understand economic, social, and political change at national and global levels.

Just as Yuwa was turned into a platform for young Nepalese, Dipendra has a vision that the Masters in Social Innovation and Sustainability will be a springboard for people creating careers as social innovators and sustainability experts. You can learn more about the program by clicking here.

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