Future Optimist

Carrie Chan is the Co-Founder & CEO of Avant Meats, the first cultivated fish company in Asia. What is cultivated fish? If you assumed it meant fish that’s refined and well-educated, you’re wrong, but hey that’s what I thought, too! Instead, it means that they are able to create real fish using the cells in a process that’s not dissimilar to brewing beer. They can take the fish cells and multiply...

Shiloh Johnson is the founder and CEO of ComplYant, a digital tax assistant platform that’s raised over 10 million in funding to date. Shiloh’s personal journey is incredible, which you’ll soon find out, but the upshot is this: in her time as CPA, she noticed that many—most?—small business owners were making the same mistakes.   She soon realized that there was a gap in the market and got to work...

Stefan Ytterborn is the CEO & Co-Founder of CAKE, a Swedish tech company making light and totally silent off-road and commuter electric motorcycles. They’ve raised over $70 million in funding so far, and their ambitious goal is to create the cleanest dirt bike ever—striving to approach that magical “completely fossil-free” goal. CAKE was listed to  Time Magazine’s 100 most important inventions awa...

Tessa Callaghan is the CEO and co-founder of Keel Labs, makers of a seaweed-based yarn they call Kelsun.   In case you didn’t know, the textile and fashion industries are a mess, and they contribute enormous amounts of waste to our planet. Tessa and her co-founders set out to create a fully functional yarn with a significantly lower environmental footprint than conventional fibers. They’re harness...

Susan Stone is CEO of Ubiquitous Energy, the world leader in transparent solar technology working towards a goal of helping solve climate change by creating truly transparent renewable energy for every surface across the globe. Ubiquitous Energy has developed transparent solar cells to create its ClearView Power windows, a kind of “solar glass” that can turn sunlight into energy without needing th...

Krishna Manda is the Co-founder and CEO of Etho Inc., a start-up building augmented reality hardware and software for motorcycle helmets, including a voice assistant, navigation, and riding information displayed right on the inside of the helmet   Soon you’ll be able to keep your eyes on the road as you ride and have access to more information than ever before. With 68% of daily commuters admittin...

Sahand Dilmaghani is the Founder & CEO at Terra Kaffe, a coffee tech company that’s raised over 14 million in funding so far.   Sahand has a remarkable story that led him down the path of entrepreneurship, and his company is making more eco-friendly coffee and espresso machines that look and taste incredible.   Sahand made Forbes Next 1000 in the consumer tech category, which is good for him but b...

Paul Gross is the Co-CEO & Co-founder of Remora, a start-up that captures carbon emissions directly from semi-trucks as they drive. This tech, called a “mobile carbon capture system”, is the first of its kind to be commercialized anywhere in the world.   Remora’s system can be retrofitted onto existing diesel trucks, capturing and storing their carbon. And this is a big deal, because there are ove...

Dinesh Tadepalli   is the Chief Spoon Seller & Co-Founder of Incredible Eats, a start-up that’s attempting to replace single-use plastic cutlery with edible alternatives.   How does that work? You might be asking. Well, they need both sweet and savory options (think ice cream vs. hot soup), and their products perform better than paper alternatives.   Edible cutlery is something that’s never before...

Kevin Martin is the CTO and Co-Founder of unspun, a company making bespoke “3D printed” jeans. Using scanning and robotics technology, unspun creates personalized jeans just for you, and way way way faster than the traditionally wasteful pipeline of today’s fashion. Unspun has raised over 10 million in funding so far, and Kevin himself has been named to Forbes 30 Under 30. The company was listed o...

Mark Herrema is the CEO and founder of Newlight Technologies, a company with an out of this world solution to climate change. By using nature as a guide, they’re able to pull carbon and greenhouse gasses straight from the air and create a physical, plastic-like material they call AirCarbon, which can be used to make everything from cutlery to straws to clothing and just about anything else plastic...

Ellen Windemuth is the Founder and CEO of WaterBear Network, a free environmental content streaming platform that Fast Company called “Netflix for the Planet”.   Ellen is well known for producing My Octopus Teacher, a documentary that one this year’s BAFTA and Oscar for best documentary feature.   WaterBear has impressive partners, with over 100 charities and NGOs taking part, including WWF, Green...

Jacob Flood is the founder and CEO of Eno, makers of Enophone headphones—headphones that can monitor your brain data just by wearing them. These headphones help you become more focused and productive, giving you a deeper understanding of how your mind actually works during the day.   If you’ve been working from home, you know how important productivity is, especially when there’s no one to keep yo...

Eduardo Del Signore is a 2020 Grammy-nominated and Award-winning Musician and the founder of the A Call 2Peace Foundation. He leverages technology, science, and music to spur climate action.   Through The ClimateMusic Project, Eduardo uses data visuals from climate scientists for his musical interpretation of the fight against climate change.   He just got back from a performance at the World Econ...

Taylor McCarten is the Co-Founder & CEO of BinBreeze, a Dragon’s Den success story start-up.   The idea is this: BinBreeze is the world's first all-natural and non-toxic indoor composting powder that is on a mission to reduce the impact of food waste. Their innovative and sustainable product reduces wood waste that’s currently burned for lack of a better alternative while improving customer compos...

Jacob Pechenik is the co-founder of Lettuce Grow, a company he co-founded with Zooey Deschanel.   The idea is profound: they’ve created a device that lets people grow a significant quantity of produce either inside their home or outside, with a self-contained hydroponics system that’s basically foolproof.   This system represents one of the easiest ways to dramatically improve the quality of home...

Raffael Jovine is the founder & chief scientist of Brilliant Planet, a company unlocking the power of algae as an affordable method of permanently and quantifiably sequestering carbon at the gigaton scale.   Brilliant Planet has raised tens of millions in funding from major partners like Toyota Ventures, and when you hear his innovative solution, you’ll understand why.   But beyond that, Raffael’s...

Tom Green is joining us today, and he’s the CEO of Project Vesta. Project Vesta is harnessing the natural power of the oceans to remove excess CO₂ from the atmosphere. The Earth has long sequestered carbon through the oceans, and Tom has found a way, based on decades of prior scientific research, to accelerate this process using a common mineral. Tom Green has a BA from Oxford and an MBA from Harv...

Erick Went is the CTO of Genesis Systems, and he’s together Dr. Venkat Kode, a research scientist on the team.   I’m not going to lie, Genesis Systems is one of the most exciting product ideas I’ve ever become aware of yet. Genesis Systems manufacture the world's first and only sustainable air-to-water systems that can carbon (CO2) capture. That’s right, they are generating fresh-water from air us...

Max Rye is the co-founder and chief strategist of TurtleTree, the world’s first sustainable lactoferrin made with precision fermentation.   Don’t know what any of that means? Great! Because I didn’t either! Essentially they’re able not just to emulate real milk but actually produce identical proteins—the ones that give cow and human milk its nutritional value.   We’ll learn how Max decided to embr...

Anthony DiMare is the CEO & Co-founder of Bedrock Ocean Exploration, a vertically-integrated ocean exploration company that’s built proprietary robotics and software to explore the oceans quickly and cheaply. Basically, none of the world’s seafloor is mapped, and this knowledge has far-reaching implications for weather predictions, global shipping, and many other things vital to our survival. Lear...

Phoebe Gardner is the co-founder and CEO of Bardee, a truly novel solution to climate change. Well have ya heard of composting? It’s a neat idea to take food waste that would otherwise generate methane gas in landfills and repurpose it for fertilizer. The trouble is, it takes a long time to do it. Bardee has taken that process one step further. They use Black Solder Fly larvae to turn food waste i...

Andre Menezes is the Co-Founder & CEO of Next Gen Foods.   Andre broke a record for plant-based meat companies when his company TiNDLE raised $100 million in Series A funding.   Tindle makes a plant-based chicken alternative that’s sold around the world and championed by world-class chefs and fast-food chains alike.   But more importantly, Andre’s personal journey took him from working directly in...

Kaylin Marcotte is the CEO and founder of JIGGY Puzzles—sustainable, artistic, bespoke jigsaw puzzles sweeping the world. Kaylin took her unlikely passion and turned it into a multi-million dollar business.   What was her brilliant idea, that got her 500k in funding from Mark Cuban on Shark Tank? If you guessed “boutique jigsaw puzzles”, you are correct!   We’ll learn how Kaylin made a series of s...

Paul Evers is the Co-Founder & CEO of RIFF, America's first certified carbon-neutral energy drink. Paul did some research and discovered a massive problem, 70% of the fruit that surrounds our beloved, sacred coffee beans goes to waste. And this fruit? It’s a superfruit (if such a term exists) that also happens to be caffeinated. Paul discovered a way to make a carbon-neutral energy drink from this...