Energypreneurs

Jonathan Fievez, the CEO of Carnegie Clean Energy, explains why we may have waves all around us but it is hard to commercially extract energy from them. Sitting by the Indian Ocean in Perth, Australia, Jonathan explained how Carnegie as a technology developer in partnership with the project developers finding niche opportunities between the expensive remote gensets and solar and wind inland constr...

Xuefei Liu is now in Paris completing her EMBA. This is her third continent in search of a solution to development challenges. Having spent close to a decade in Sinohydro, one of the largest hydropower companies in China, and then in West and North Africa, and to Europe. She brought an extraordinary aura of energy into our conversation while talking about solving problems of others who can't help...

Bart Édes, the author of Learning from Tomorrow to prepare for the Next Big Disruption, shares his thoughts on how organizations and entrepreneurs can prepare for the future. How to guard ourselves against obsolescence of our skills and investments.    We both shared optimism about climate change and discussed the lessons from the Covid-19 experience—how that has fundamentally changed many busines...

You need to have a purpose as an entrepreneur and the purpose can't be making money. My today's guest Mr. Christie Fernandez, CEO of SOOORYA EV, Singapore shares his ambition for the purpose build a 4-wheel electric car for ride-sharing. His target to keep the costs low and develop a modular 4-wheeler for the mass market reaching a production capacity of about 100,000 units per year. To find out m...

Yvonne Power is one of three Co-Founders and the COO at Village Energy, and an advocate for microgrids and renewables, moved from a large state-government-owned power utility in Western Australia to a start to change people's lives. Village Energy operates in developing Asia —Indonesia and India. Yvonne shares her technology passion and her entrepreneurial journey, which is definitely not for the...

Yes, there is a positive momentum today. Let's listen to what Michael Grimm, Chief Executive Officer, of Carbon Negative Energy, has to say as he shares his passion for renewable energy and battery projects. In Michael's world, our addiction has reached its tipping point and we have many reasons to be excited about the post covid world. We discuss green hydrogen, seasonal storage, and large-scale...

Cameron Quin and Yuri Marshall are the co-founders of Mind You, who are committed to protecting the mental well-being of people for more fulfilled lives. We talk about Cameron's entrepreneurial journey from a rooftop solar startup in Australia to a startup for mental health in the Philippines. Their collective journey in lifting the stigma, lowering counseling costs, and many more. Please join in....

In this episode, we get a chance to the world through the eyes of Dr. Priyantha Wijayatunga, Director, South Asia Energy of the Asian Development Bank. We get to hear about his own transformation from the Director-General of a multi-sector regulator, to an academic to today, managing a multi-billion dollar energy portfolio covering all of South Asia.   We talk about the challenges the South Asia r...

While we all have moved our dinner table discussions gradually from Virus to Vaccine in 2021, I had the opportunity to tap into the thinking of a renowned serial entrepreneur, Norman Crowley, owner of Crowley Carbon on tackling climate change.   In this episode, we get a chance to see the world through Norman's optimistic eyes, where cheap solar, EV everywhere and revolutions in modern agriculture...

Today I had a lively discussion with Mr. Rabindra Kumar Satpathy, a Professional in Solar Energy, who has experience of 30+ years and is the author of the book- ' Solar PV Power - Design, Manufacturing, and Applications- Sands to Systems'. He has a long journey since 1984 starting small projects of solar-powered electric fences for elephant sanctuary to GWP on-grid solar. We touched upon the futur...

Nilofar Ghazanfar, the Head of Project Coordination Unit of the Ghazanfar Group in Afghanistan, shares her enthusiasm about the future of Afghanistan, especially its path to decarbonizing using solar power. We explore her passion and vision for women entrepreneurship and solar power, electric vehicles, and batteries in Afghanistan. Born in Afghanistan, raised in Dubai, studied in London, now worki...

Gayam Raja, the founder and CEO of Gayam Motor Works (GMW), from India, traces back his successful transition from manufacturing gasoline power 3-wheeler to manufacturing the complete ecosystem of electric 3-wheelers or e-trikes. We explore his inspiration and vision to reach a 1500 unit per unit production capacity exporting to about countries. He believes in a future where most of the last-mile...

Congratulating myself to have competed this 50th episode of Energypreneurs on 31 December 2020. In this episode, I summarize episodes 4-49: what they are about and how they fit together. If you are new to my channel this will be a very good start and if you have been listening regularly, this will be a good recap. Please keep a pen and paper handy while listening, as I do refer to the episodes by...

If you are planning to start a podcast this will be useful for you. This episode is a recording of my presentation to an internal audience at the Asian Development Bank, on the software, hardware, and strategy behind my podcast. Some found it technical, but if you are interested to understand the various equipment, software, and system choices, this will save a lot of time. Please connect with me...

Jayantha Perera, an author of 12 books, talks about his lifestyle in the first decade of retirement. He and his wife Shyamala sheds light on how longevity and technology are impacting retirement planning. We explore the importance of technology adaptation on top of remaining healthy and stay connected.  While "retirement" or rather "not 9 to 5" as Jayantha defines it, could be fun and enjoyable pl...

Carlos Santamaria and Reah Sy are good friends and social media gurus. They both managed multiple facets of the Asian Development Bank's social media content and the strategy behind the activities. Together, they are not only fun to be with — they bring an infectious enthusiasm to the table. Since I met them in 2015, my perspectives about social media have changed dramatically, and a lot of my ide...

Carmela (Candy) and Arnel Sevilla explain how they turned their dream and love for diving into a boutique hotel—"Portulano"—with its extensive diving facilities. They explain how they morphed into this lifestyle business from their high-pressure corporate jobs. Today Arnel plans to go 100% solar with batteries one day, and I think hydroponics and electric boats will also be an amazing addition to...

Dan Milison, takes us through the journey of his professional life —innovative projects, the climate leadership he has seen in three countries, and the BIG ideas he has. We get into the hot topic of today —Hydrogen; although I may not agree with some of the positive lights he sees in the hydrogen way, he does have a clear vision. Please join in to explore more. Connect with Sohail Hasnie: Facebook...

Werner Liepach, Director-General, Asian Development Bank, discusses his fascinating, 28 year-long journey through different levels of ADB, and how the roles for a development bank have changed in the face of technological changes, the threat of climate change, and finally, Covid-19. With a Ph. D. in financial engineering and a love for seeing places around the world, Werner shares the ideas and ch...

Durreh Tabassum, from the Infrastructure Investment team of the International Finance Corporation, shares her inspiration to work in the climate space and discusses the various technologies that are available today to achieve SDG 7. Starting from her family-owned power company, to one of the largest wind power generators, to World Bank, and now to IFC, Durreh carries the professional experience of...

Agostinho Miguel Garcia from SunBD - Sun Business Development, analyzes the disruptions that low priced #solarpower is causing as the perception and attitude about solar power has changed over the years—30+ cents per kWh feed-in tariff in 2006 to 1.1 cents per kWh in the Portuguese auction of August 2020. Today, even the underlying math for rehabilitation of old hydropower is challenging as buildi...

Sunniya Durrani-Jamal, Country Direction, Cambodia of ADB, shares her passion for development work in this inspiring discussion today. We hear journey at the Asian Development from Afghanistan to Indonesia to Cambodia. We discuss our passion for development work and what keeps us motivated despite the hoops and red tapes that we face in our client countries and in our own organisation. Please join...

How does one discuss climate change in a country, where almost all of its installed power generation capacity is from fossil fuels. This week, Seung Duck Kim, Energy Specialist, of Asian Development Bank explains the ongoing power sector restructuring in Uzbekistan and how its government is slowly moving away from fossil fuel in the face of its depleting gas reserve. We also discuss the fate of re...

Today, I talked with Monroe Zhang, a fan of Tesla and an EV enthusiast, who is also building batteries. I learned many of her ideas in her easy to understand language. Monroe brought a supplier's perspective to the EV industry, vehicle to grid technology, consumer choices, and consumer security. Today she works and spends most of her time on all aspects of battery manufacturing from cell design, t...

Sarin Abado, Energy Specialist of Asian Development Bank shares her thoughts on the transition from fossil gas to green and renewable gas; why we need to discuss a scenario where gas may no longer be the gas as we know today. Sarin argues, if electricity can be renewable, why can't we look at renewable or green gas today technology allows to cross the strong barrier between a renewable energy asse...