Tech and Trees

Tech and Trees

By Pascal MiesBusiness
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Tech and Trees episodes

  • #31 Shobhita Soor - Founder of Legendary Foods - Insect Farming in Ghana
    Sometimes you start an episode and you have a good feeling right away. When I started talking to Shobhita Soor I had this feeling. She gave off a great positive vibe during our conversation which I feel stemmed from her conviction regarding her mission: making protein insufficiency and inaccessibility in West Africa a thing of the past. She does so via her company Legendary Foods - one of the first large scale commercial insect farming companies in West Africa. Shobhita moved to Ghana to spin off a new venture from the first company she founded in the United States. Her first company turned out to be a success and she figured she should take her learnings to have an impact in Africa. She lets me in on her entrepreneurial journey in Ghana, what hurdles she had to take and where the weaknesses in her larvae farming business are. From there we move on to what its like to be a female founder in Africa. Turns out it is not that different from Europe or the US. Shobhita offers up a three-step guide for female founders to lay the foundation to success. From there we eventually move to the African miracle of achieving human development in a sustainable way. A wealth of different topics and maybe one of my personal favorites on the show so far, enjoy!

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    51 min
  • #30 Dr. Armand Bam - Leadership for Equality in South Africa

    The people I get to interview on Tech and Trees are different every time and all of them have different stories to share. Yet, I feel that this one turned out to be more personal than others. I talk to Armand Bam, the head of social impact at the Stellenbosch Business School. He oversees their efforts to make education more inclusive and labels himself to be an academic-activist whose opinions often are not welcome. We talk about his path into academia. To say the least: Opportunity was not handed to him easily. To get to school he spent four hours on a train every day, in university he was the only person of color to graduate in his class. He says that he was not the brightest but that he was taught good values as a child and that he learned to persevere through hardship early on. We go into the social aspect of sustainability and challenge how Western countries impose certain sustainability standards without ever having set foot into disadvantaged African communities. Africa is in need of responsible leadership to deal with the sprawling inequality and while Armand trains leaders at Stellenbosch Business School, he thinks that leadership qualities are built at an early age and can only be further developed later on. Our conversation was personal and philosophical at times but worth every minute. Unfortunately we were experiencing connection issues and had to cut our conversation short in the end. Nonetheless, I hope that you find a piece of wisdom in there that is useful to you. Enjoy

    Follow Armand on LinkedIn or Twitter

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-armand-bam-ab069253/

    https://twitter.com/ArmandBam

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    49 min
  • #29 Joost Boeles - Co-Founder of eBee - Bringing 100,000 e-Bicycles to Africa

    In this episode I am talking to Joost Boeles - A Dutchie turned start-up founder in Kenya. When I got introduced to Joost, I struggled a bit with the question of how does his business makes sense? Joost has co-founded the first e-Bike assembler in East Africa and sells them to businesses and individuals via subscription. So, Joost got told by a lot of people that this would not work - but he had a sense that it could work. His goal is to have 100,000 e-Bicycles or eBees as he calls them on African roads by 2030. We obviously talked about what got him into this adventure - or what he called “spreading his wings” but also about how much positive impact there actually is  to e-Bicycles in Kenya. After all, you could argue that there are bigger issues than bringing electric bicycles to the streets. Later on, I challenge Joost a bit on what he thinks about European entrepreneurs in Africa, how Africa can achieve the miracle of sustainable development without using too many resources and lastly, what Europeans and Africans can learn from each other. Enjoy!

    His book recommendation: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/30354426

    E-Bee: https://ebee.africa/about-us/

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    51 min
  • #28 Duval van Zijl - Accelerating Climate Tech in South Africa
    Building a start-up is hard. Building a start-up in South Africa is harder. To help ease the pain and assist founders in their journey accelerators are setting up shop all over the African continent. One of the most successful ones is the LaunchLab in Stellenbosch. What makes them unique is: They are not jumping on the bandwagon of investing in African FinTech. They say: we want to support founders solving real problems. Their impact Focus has also led to the creation of their climate cohorts. To find out more about how they help climate-tech start-ups I talked to their Director of Climate Duval van Zijl. He lets me in on how he changed from a career in finance to being an English teacher in Japan and subsequently turned into a climate enthusiast. We talk about what ventures are the hardest to build in climate-tech and he also makes some predictions about where climate-tech will go in the coming years.  Duval was in Cape Town when we recorded this interview. During our recording a fire broke out on the mountains surrounding the city and helicopters were flying in and out over the city. So you will hear the background noise but it should hopefully not be too bad. Enjoy!

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    49 min
  • #27 Michael Maas - E-Mobility in South Africa
    In Today’s episode I am talking to Michael Maas. This interview was recorded a while back but it was special for me: It was the first time I got to interview someone in person rather than via video call. While it made me a bit more nervous as I could not hide behind my screen it was also a fantastic experience. Remote does the job but being face-to-face is just so much more fun. Michael is an early-stage founder whom I met at a pitch event in Cape Town. His company Zimi Charge is building the first electric charging network in South Africa and thus a crucial part of the infrastructure needed for a functioning e-mobility sector. However, apart from joking around and diving into e-mobility we also talk about what is like to be a founder in South Africa, under which conditions you work and what problems you can find here that are worth tackling. Michael is a fantastic character and I hope that comes across during our conversation. So without further ado, let’s dive right in, enjoy!

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    52 min
  • #26 A Trip around South Africa - Jako Volschenk - Prof. for Sustainability at Stellenbosch Business School
    Hello and welcome to the tech and trees podcast. I paused the show for six months. I was living in South Africa. When live around you is loud and there is a lot to see, it is worth it to focus and decrease your own output. Now, that I am back in Europe, I want to share the impressions I gathered in South Africa. To that end, I am starting an Africa-focused Series of Entrepreneurs, Researchers and Activists who are united by one goal: Advance sustainable development on the African continent. My first guest is the Head of the MBA programme at Stellenbosch Business School - the best business school on the continent: Jako Vollschenk. Jako is a Professor for Sustainability and Strategy. He stands for a shift in business schools: sustainability is increasingly taking a spot centre-stage forcing business educators to rethink what they teach their students. I try to leverage Jako’s expertise to get an overview of the state of sustainability in South Africa, pick his brain on what actions the state should take and where he sees the future for the country. Apart from that we also touch on controversial topics such as why he thinks the world needs to shrink its population. Enjoy!

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    56 min
  • #25 - Melina Sánchez Montañés - Head of Impact at AENU - Refocusing Venture Capital on Impact
    Impact Tech has proven remarkably resilient to the latest developments in the world. Hence, it is not surprising that more and more impact venture funds are popping up. One of them is AENU, a VC firm started by the well-known Heilemann brothers. They raised 100M in their first closing to pump into climate-tech and social equality advancing firms. Such firms are always dependent on a rigorous impact measurement process that does not leave room for doubt. AENU’s impact due diligence has been described as refreshingly tough by one of their portfolio firms. So I spoke to their head of impact and principal Melina Sanchez Montanez to find out more. She had a great impact on the firm by designing the impact practice from the ground up. However, more so she has an extraordinary background that led her from growing up on a small farm in Spain to studying at places like Yale, Dartmouth and Harvard. So we spent a considerable amount of time just talking about how to make unlikely pathways like hers more normal and less extraordinary and how to bring more diversity and equality to the tech ecosystem. Then we dive into impact philosophy and how much impact venture capitalism can really change our world. Tons of gold here in this conversation, so listen closely, enjoy! AENU's website: https://www.aenu.com Reach out to Melina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melinasanchezmontanes/

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    1 hr
  • #24 Merit Valdsalu - Founder of Single.Earth - A Nature-Backed Economy
    A lot of buzz surrounds the world of ClimateTech and the question of how to draw down CO2 from the atmosphere. This carbon tunnel vision can make us easily forget that we have a biodiversity crisis to deal with. Biologists go as far as claiming that we live in a sixth great extinction. How do we stop that? To get an answer, I spoke to Merit Valdsalu, the founder of Estonian start-up Single.Earth. She believes one of the biggest hypes of the last months can be the answer: Web3. Her ultimate aim is to build a nature-backed economy using blockchain technology. One can be critical here. I asked Merit what she thinks is needed to make web3 an effective tool for impact. Personally, I am a big fan of her thinking. She constantly asks herself how to engineer systemic change towards an economy that adequately considers the value that nature provides. Her team builds technology that helps to quantify and evaluate biodiversity. They state that carbondioxide alone should and cannot be the holy grail. They aim to build a nature-backed economy that flourishes when nature flourishes and suffers if we fail to treat our environment the right way. The idea of a nature-backed economy is among the most thought-provoking I have heard lately and if Web3 is part of the way there, so be it. Listen in and enjoy!  Check out Single.Earthhttps://www.single.earth Follow Merit on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/merit-valdsalu/

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    56 min
  • #23 Ivo Degn - Mitgründer von Climate Farmers - Regenerative Farming
    Dieses Mal spreche ich mit Ivo Degn - dem Gründer von Climate Farmers. Technologien, die CO2 aus der Luft ziehen erfahren gerade einen extremen Hype. Dabei haben sie aber oft noch einen sehr langen Weg vor sich, um relevante Mengen an CO2 aufnehmen zu können. Da trifft es sich ganz gut, dass Natur-basierte Lösungen bereitstehen - unter anderem sogenanntes Carbon Farming. Dabei geht es um Farmmethoden, mit denen der Kohlenstoffgehalt unserer Böden schrittweise erhöht wird. Angenommen wir erhöhten den Kohlenstoffgehalt unserer Felder weltweit jährlich um 0.4%, dann würde das ausreichen, um alle anthropogenen Treibhausgase zu kompensieren. Um Carbon Farming zu verstehen, aber auch in Frage zu stellen, hab ich Ivo also gefragt: Welchen systemischen Hebel Carbon Farming darstelltWie die Climate Farmer Plattform Carbon Farming skaliert Welche Vor- und Nachteile Carbon Farming birgtDas Gespräch mit Ivo hat richtig Spaß gemacht. Vor allem, da er sich der Stärken und Schwächen seines Modells sehr bewusst ist, aber auch weil man merkt wie weit im voraus Ivo denkt. Er denkt strukturiert über mehrere gesellschaftliche Ebenen, über mehrere Zeitachsen hinweg. Da war es schwer manchmal mitzukommen. Also gibt es einiges zu lernen, viel Spaß!  climatefarmers.orghttps://www.linkedin.com/in/ivo-degn-50668658/

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    59 min
  • #22 Yair Reem - Partner at Extantia Capital - Time to hunt Gigacorns
    Today I talk to Yair Reem, founding Partner at Extantia Capital, a Berlin-based venture capital fund that invests exclusively in climate-tech. They do what they call carbon math for each of their investments. That is how they identify Gigacorns, companies that can sequester one Gigaton of CO2e-emissions. Therefore their portfolio covers technologies such as  green hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuel or geothermal heat. Yair has been an investor for a long time and has witnessed the rise and fall of clean-tech. We talk about what happened then and why the time for climate-tech has come. I also question him a little on how he sees the growth.-driven VC model and how sees movements like degrowth. Lastly, I also try to get his insights on his home country Israel and what makes this small country such a powerful force in tech. A last little note: unfortunately the recording was damaged and the first couple seconds are missing but from then on everything should be normal. Now that this is done, Enjoy!https://extantia.com

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    53 min

About Tech and Trees

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On Tech and Trees Pascal Mies talks to ClimateTech founders, investors and operators to answer two simple questions: How do we build better ClimateTech Start-Ups and how do we build more of them…