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Impact at Scale
Impact at Scale episodes
- EP 49 - Brandon Ng - AMPD Energy - You Need Materials, You Need Labor and You Need Energy
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
36 min - EP 48 - ShuFen Lin - An ex-Startup Founder Deeply Interested in AI & Climate Change - It's Everybody's Responsibility
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
34 min - EP 47 – Fengru Lin – Founder and CEO of TurtleTree – It’s Just Because of the Cheese
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
35 min - EP 46 – Nabeel Ismeer – MPWRNRGY – It’s Gotta Be an Across-The-Board Approach
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
32 min - EP 45 - Steve Melhuish - Planet Rise - The Biggest Problems Are Where the Largest Emissions Are
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
33 min - EP 44 - Aliza Napartivaumnuay - CEO at SocialGiver - Always Be the One That Starts First
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
36 min - EP 43 - Jan Ivar Czaplicki - CarbonClick - I Think I Am Leaning Towards Optimistic
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
29 min - EP 42 - Sushil Vaishnav - Founder KNP Arises - We Are Trying to Break This Chain
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
27 min - EP 41 - Sylvia Yu Friedman - Author, Award-Winning Filmmaker and Serial Entrepreneur - A Long Road to Justice
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
36 min - EP 40 - Matthew Friedman - CEO of The Mekong Club - We Need to Leave It Better Than We Got It
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
32 min
About Impact at Scale
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