 Hello, thank you for joining us today for the GIST Tech Connect on Empowering Clean Tech Startups. My name is Andrea Kors and I am a venture principal at Shell Ventures, the venture capital arm of Shell, where my job is to invest in innovative startup and scale up companies that can help us accelerate the energy transition. Today I will be the moderator of this discussion. Over the past few decades we have seen clean tech innovation grow from a small niche sector to one of the fastest growing sectors, with adoption of clean tech solutions spreading across the globe. Large corporations have taken notice, as have early stage innovators. Governments are also responding to the growing climate crisis by embracing and supporting clean tech solutions. All this makes for an exciting time to bring clean tech innovations to the market. On today's Tech Connect we are discussing how startups can thrive in the clean tech sector and why innovating in this space is of such critical importance to us all. Today's Tech Connect is co-hosted by GIST Innovation Hub, Barritech, an entrepreneurship ecosystem builder and accelerator based in Beirut, Lebanon. So let me begin by welcoming the rest of our panel of experts. First we have Elias Nikolas. He's a clean tech specialist at the GIST Innovation Hub, Barritech. We also have Katherine Lucy, who is the founder and CEO of Solar Sister, which works to address energy security and women's entrepreneurship in Africa. Last but not least we have Dipul Patel, who is the CTO of Saluna, which is addressing the energy needs of data centers through renewable energy sources. Thank you all for joining us today. I should also mention that you should stick around after the panel discussion to get additional questions answered via the chat space for an extra 30 minutes. But let's start with each of us explaining what drew us to clean tech. And also, if you could give me a quick introduction, that would be amazing. So Elias, I'm going to start with you. Thank you Andrea. Hello everyone. Thank you for inviting us to this panel discussion. Solar is a pleasure working with you guys. So I'm Elias Nikolas. I'm the clean tech specialist at Barritech and like growing up in a country where we have different challenges in the different clean tech sectors, energy, water, waste. So basically this has attracted me and kept me motivated to join and embrace this journey. Like I work across the region where the countries like have similar challenges and with Barritech we're having many programs funded by different donors from USAID, with the Netherlands Embassy to the EU, where we're helping startups and entrepreneurs basically to take their ideas into a sustainable clean tech business. And looking forward to have more discussion on that. Okay. Thank you so much. Catherine, do you want to go next? Hi. Thank you for having me today. It's a pleasure to be here and speaking to all of you. My name is Catherine Lucy and I'm the founder and CEO of Solar Sisters. Solar Sisters is an organization, a social enterprise that works across Sub-Saharan Africa, helping women build clean energy businesses, bringing solar energy, clean cook stoves, renewable power to their rural local communities in a way that is sustainable and scalable and really powering lives with clean energy. That's what we see every day, the impact of what we're doing, and that's what drives us forward. I think that, you know, for me, clean tech has a very broad broad definition and really the entire spectrum of that is including the technology itself, as well as all of the delivery and funding and systems that make it possible for people in their everyday lives, as well as people in their business lives to use clean energy to power up their lives. Very good. Thank you. Dipu. Yeah, thank you very much for your attention and for having me. It's an honor to be here. And the main reason that I got involved with clean tech back in 2012 is I feel that there's more than enough energy on the planet to give everybody more than they need and do it in a clean way. And it's one of the biggest threats, I think, to the long term survival of our planet is to sort out this energy problem. And it's just been an absolute pleasure being involved. And what Saluna does is the number one problem that we've seen that's holding back green energy from being a major player worldwide is supply and demand. When you make green energy, it's very hard to store it and to ship it like you would with oil. And so we're building a data center that can consume variable amounts of energy so that when there's extra the data center consumes it when there's no extra it shuts off. And that enables all green energy plants to make a lot more money. And it's really exciting to be here. Thank you again. And hopefully we get to hear more about that later. I would just add, for me, the reason why I love clean tech and why I think it's really important is because the world is facing an energy challenge. Like, you know, all of you have mentioned right this estimated that by 2050 the world population is going to increase to 9 billion. And the global energy demand will increase by more than 100%. So we need to find ways not only to transition into cleaner energies but also to provide more energy to the world. So I think that's one of the reasons that keeps me going every day. One of you who are just joining us, we are talking today about empowering clean tech startups. Our experts are sharing their perspectives on this critical sector and how startups are playing an important role in innovating in this space. Clean tech can be a big term though. And I think it might, it might really help to better define it. So let's fall into clean tech. How broad or how narrow is that term for each of you. So I'm going to start with Catherine this time. I'll put you on the spot. As I mentioned, clean tech is a very broad term in that it's not just the technology itself, but everything that comes around that to enable that technology to be used and powering our lives. So there's the clean technology using renewable energy to create renewable resources to create energy, as well as the distributions systems for getting that clean technology to people, as well as the financing systems for enabling people to invest in the clean energy technology, as well as the, you know, you can even expand to the marketing and the communications and the awareness around clean technology. Because if it doesn't all come together and it doesn't all work together, then we're not going to see the kind of uptake and impact that's possible with the specific technologies that are available. So the investment in clean energy technology is incredibly important in the research and the development and the innovation. But we also include looking back at very simple energy technologies that maybe have been around for years. So it's all not all about just innovation. It's also about application. Implementation for sure. And I see you shaking your head depot. Do you want to add something. Yeah, yeah, I love Catherine what you're doing a good friend of mine she started a company called we cyclers in Nigeria to help people create recycling and to me you're absolutely like cream tech is everywhere. You know it's incompostable food containers all the way to green energy data centers and I think that it enables anybody who wants to get involved, a way to get involved if they find a problem that they can kind of sink their teeth into and you're absolutely right as well. I'm just repeating everything you said is you know a big piece of that is in is bringing the capital right and the execution piece. And so that the whole ecosystem can enjoy it and oil is a is a big enemy and it's hard to get rid of it because it's so valuable. And it's so you know convenient for us to use and we're going to have to solve a lot of problems to make that happen. So we'll get into the challenges I don't know if you want to add anything Elias or if you want us to move to the next question. No basically I agree with Catherine and people on the points and definitely like with the clean tech it's not just about the technologies and like innovate innovating from the technology side but also like maybe creating new business models new operations model financial model for the businesses in order to make the like the clean tech applications more and more sustainable and scalable, which is needed on the market. Absolutely. So I think it brings us to the next question right, which most of the audience is probably thinking, or they might already know the answer but what do you think are some of the challenges that are unique to building a clean tech startup. Right so some of the things that we've mentioned right is not just about raising capital. I think when it comes to clean tech and not just clean tech, but heart tech right when you're talking about manufacturing when you're talking about high costs and how difficult it is to get pilots. I think that's what doesn't help and some of us are old enough here to remember what happened in the early 2000s when there was clean tech 1.0. There was a lot of money that was spent on these clean tech initiatives, but it didn't seem to go anywhere. So I do think that this time it feels different. I do feel like this time we have not only the capital but we have the right mentality and mindset by corporations and by people to use this new tech. But I would love to hear what you think are some of the unique challenges that clean tech has, especially when you're a startup. So Elias, I'll start with you this time. Yeah so like to build on what you have said Andrea so definitely like finding the investors who are willing to invest in clean tech startups is definitely a challenge and we've experienced that as you said earlier and now it's a bit different because also the investors they have like more experience I would say dealing with the clean tech companies and they definitely they have learned from the previous experiences that I would say like a lot of them were failure but now we're seeing lots of success and mainly like the investors when investing in clean tech companies they have and one of the challenges that they might find is basically like having some profit margins that are attractive to the investors so really having a solid business model and a financial model with like different revenue streams is very crucial and in order to do that as a startup it's not as easy for the clean tech startups to do it because the first thing that you need to do is basically to do some market study and believe it or not like for many countries, at least like in let's say in the MENA region and in the emerging markets you won't find like too much data for you to build your your analysis and your market study. So either you go and as a startup you cannot like go and invest a lot of money and doing like a very elaborate market study so you need to you start by guessing and estimating and like as much as you have an ecosystem that can help you like from experts and the mentors that can guide you through that you will have a better estimation and you will be able to attract the investor to build your business case. So really having access to the data is basically a big challenge. Another thing I would think of is basically the regular the issues with the regulations because in many countries there are they are missing regulations actually to enable that enables startups or private sector to do a big let's say to work in this sector and and give the impact that they can give. So also lots of let's say policies, changes and recommendations I believe is needed to enable the ecosystem. So if I give an example for example in Lebanon electricity you can if you're not the government you can sell electricity so anything any initiative from the private sector is if you can say illegal. So startups working in this field is basically are basically stuck. So, so we're lobbying for policy changes and I believe more countries and more governments are getting aware and more and more about the need of this shift and and the mentality regulations policies in order to better enable the ecosystem for for the startups. The clean tax. Okay, very good. Very informative. I did not know that about Lebanon. It could definitely make the life of a startup a lot harder. Anybody else wants to share their thoughts on this issue. Yes. Oh, go ahead Catherine. Okay, so I was just going to say, you know, being a startup is always a challenge you're you're creating something new out of nothing. But being a startup in a startup industry where all of your suppliers all of your partners all of your funders are themselves startups. You know, you're you're multiplying the uncertainties of being a startup by, you know, exponentially. In addition to that, you know, in clean tech industry we're really here to disrupt the status quo. And so we're trying to our success is to change how things are done. And our success breeds the very chaos and unpredictability that make it hard to work in. So, you know, the very fact that if we're successful as clean tech startups, we are going to completely change how the energy sector and how, you know, works, which means that all of those market studies that you just paid for that out are completely absolute and out of date by by our very being partly successful. And so I think being a startup in a startup industry being a disrupter means you have to come to this sector with this really willingness to step out into the void, you know, step out into the darkness and start making changes and be willing to learn as you go and be very agile be very responsive to what's changing. You know, specifically I can think about you talked about the clean energy sector in the early 2000s. And, you know, even as far back or as recently as you know in 2010 when solar sister started. You know the price of solar panels and the price of PV was, you know, for every $100 that something cost then it cost $5 now. Imagine if you invested in an enormous capital expenditures to build solar panels, and you built your pricing projections off of the fact that you'd be able to sell your solar panels for $100 each. Here we are 10 laders, and you can sell them for five. So there's, you know, there's no business model that stably, you know, accommodates that kind of market disruption. It's going to be really willing to think entrepreneurially, think creatively, think on your feet, and be willing to, you know, change and pivot and respond to the market as it's changed as you are changing it makes it super challenging and super fun. That's some great advice so it actually, it's a nice leeway to my next question. And if I can add one thing Andrea. No, no, I'm kidding. There's one piece that I think we don't talk about enough as entrepreneurs. And that is the mental challenge and how hard it can be when your hopes and dreams people just don't get it. Right. And what we're trying to do is we're trying to change industries that have made money by not having to change. Right. People who sell oil have sold oil forever and made a lot of money on. And so when you come in and you have a new idea, there's going to be a lot of time it's going to take years. It's going to take decades sometimes to prove to make these changes happen. And we as entrepreneurs have to find a way to weather the storm, and to not give up, and to not quit, and to find the partial credit on the way these little wins that keep you going because nobody else is going to do it. If we don't do it if we don't find a way to spend 10 years doing this without losing hope. Nobody else is so Luna has taken us five years to this day, and we're just now starting to get some real investment. Right, it's taken us five years to figure out where the money is going to come from, how it's going to work people don't get it people don't get it. I can't believe how many times we say people don't get it they don't quite understand. You're you're in the game right you're an investor you understand and and so you'd be surprised how many times I find people that don't get it and even though I get it I'm like we should really invest in this that they don't get it so I totally relate to that. So I encourage everybody on this call to when things are looking dark and looking bleak to reach out for help. We're here to help each other. Get together and you know Catherine you use the word chaos. That's the number one common factor if you're an entrepreneur. Everything is chaos, and if you don't love it and thrive in it. I recommend that you find a way to love it and thrive in it, or potentially join a larger company, you know, there's lots of ways you can get involved with clean tech without being a founder. You are going to be a founder. You're not alone. Reach out for help. We're here to help you companies like Barry tech are out there, building ecosystems to help and, you know, just just know that you're not alone. There's been a lot of times where we've looked at each other at saloon and said, is this going to go and we're like it has to go the world needs it, and you power through and so just don't don't lose hope. It's up to you to keep hope and to keep it going. And eventually you'll be proven right, like Tesla. All right, well you actually answered the question even though you didn't let me ask it. I wanted to make sure we got some of the mental stuff, you know, that's great because I was going to ask, you know, getting outside expertise is critical, right for for every startup in any sector. So what specifically should clean tech startups be seeking to benefit from with mentors or advisors or advocates who have a background in clean tech. So what, what specifically can clean tech mentors and advisors help with the most for these startups. So you mentioned, come and ask us for help. What can a clean tech startup ask you for help with. Let me say it's a Luna make original mistakes. If you're going to make a mistake and bet it should be new. And there's so many people that have been in clean tech for decades that have connections that have seen a lot of problems seen things happen and there's so many times at saloon we've we've just been connected with the right person who has seen the problem we're trying to solve and has some solutions and so I think the number one thing is recognize that even people who may not necessarily do exactly what you're trying to do. They'll be able to bring you help and they'll be able to identify your blind spots, you know, and, and if you can find people that can do that. So most of the time these people also have hundreds of connections that will help you, and they'll help you find the next person so anytime you're talking to somebody I recommend. Ask them who else can you introduce me to that might be able to help and trying to avoid unoriginal mistakes. Very good. Elias. What do you think that mentors and advisors can help with the most. And specifically for the for clean tech startups, I believe that for any idea or any project, usually it's it overlaps across multiple sectors. So you could be working on treating waste, but you you will be getting a source of an alternative source of energy or whatever so so you will need a broad range of experts for you to be able to really get a successful solution or to really tackle all the value propositions that you can bring to tackle the different challenges that you might face so and it's it's not it's a bit rare to have the co-founder teams having all the expertise needed for them to take it forward, especially at the beginning they don't have they cannot invest too much money they rely more on on people helping them and like small grants are all of that so really I think what every startup and clean tech startups should start with is basically defining really the the expertise that they have on board in the team and highlighting the different expertise that they need, okay to outsource at the beginning. Okay, and definitely as people said like there are lots of experts in the different sectors who are and usually people who are dealing with clean tech are really willing to help and they do that out of intention in order to make an impact and a difference so you will really be able to find many advisors and experts that can mentor you throughout the journey and fill in the gaps that you have in your expertise at the beginning and hopefully like try to to take you like a bit in a failsafe environment instead of like making a very big failure, which might like, let's say, stop the journey at the very very stage so. I would actually add that I think we shouldn't be so afraid of failure, because failure is just part of the process right I don't think any successful company didn't fail, right, they had to fail before they found a way to be successful. So I think we need to take a little bit of that stigma of failure being a bad thing I think it's failure is good as long as you learn from it. If you keep failing and doing the same thing then yes that's bad, but if you can learn from your mistakes and be better next time I have actually seen great entrepreneurs who have had, you know, one or two companies in the past where they failed but they learned so much that the third one was an incredible success. So I do think that we should always remember don't be afraid to fail just be afraid of not getting up quick enough and not learning and making those same mistakes again. So these are some great questions. These are some great answers. For those of you who are just joining us, you are watching the gist tech connect on empowering clean tech startups. So let's take a question now from the gist community. This one comes from one of the gist innovation hubs. And it goes like this. How is getting investment for clean tech startups, different from other startup sectors. We would like to answer that question. I'm happy to start with saloon as example, and ecovent my startup before with our with our specific company. We need a lot of money. Right. These are capital intensive products. And so what happens is when you're trying to seek a lot of money like to build wind turbines for example, those decisions are made more on a spreadsheet than they are on vision. And so what you're finding is that there's this big of this between the people who have vision for new ways of doing things, and the capital risk portfolio, or risk tolerance for the people who have the capital and as a result a bunch of niche kind of VCs are starting to form that do both a promise you the infrastructure money, but also give you a little bit of seed money to help you sort out what your business is going to be. We really need to find more investors that recognize that we need investment in the early stage, even though the project is going to need $50 million $100 million to build out long term. And unfortunately, a lot of those projects are very hard to get funded, you know, like new battery technology for example or new, new transportation right if you want to build a new train track. Right, something like that and so really understanding that the current investment climate is driven a lot through tables and projections that have very little risk. Whereas the very nature of what we're trying to do is high risk and high chaos and and getting those to match is very hard and so finding those early investors that value your vision and not wasting your time with the investors that don't is really, really hard, because you can investors will waste your time sorry to sorry to not call you out Andrew but I've seen investors 100% agree. I try not to do that to people but it's also rude to turn them down after two seconds. Yeah, and so you know you have to get very very good at reading the lines when you're meet when you're meeting with investors and make sure that you're not barking up the wrong tree. And these investors might be useful later, you just don't meet their mandate, if you don't meet an investor's mandate it doesn't matter if they love what you're doing. You can't get it past the committee. And so it's really really important that we understand that the rules that the investors have to follow, and that some investors like shell have to innovate there as well. I actually just recommend now that you mentioned that almost every single venture capital firm will have a list of their portfolio companies, the stuff that they've invested in, and links to their websites. If you're an entrepreneur, do your homework and make sure that you find yourself a VC that matches what you need. Right. So, if you look at a website and you see, well shall only invest. I'll give you just an example. In companies that have more than, you know, $5 million in revenue than in your pre revenue then probably that's not a good fit. Right. But also look at the, the themes that these companies are investing in. And I am 95% sure that most companies will show you exactly what they're looking for. I think, well, maybe mine can fit in there. No, like, it probably won't. We have to follow the rules, and the chances of your investment getting through just get slimmer. If you apply to one that is not a good fit. So that would be my advice. So here's another good question from the gist community. What are some of the challenges of working with government agencies, and how does a startup approach that process. Would you like to start with that one Elias. Yeah, as we, as I previously said, like, many of the clean tech startups will eventually have to plug into some governmental projects or or infrastructure. And like in many countries, especially like the emerging and emerging markets, it's, it's quite tough dealing with the, with the government for for multiple reasons. So if any startup, usually they go and try to get like the low hanging fruit. They cannot afford very long sales cycles, which is usually the case in the public sector. And from from another perspective as well like even if they might not have the shot to submit or to to bid to apply to some tenders that the government is releasing because usually it's for tenders, and there are like a list of qualifications they usually go with the with the with companies that are that have a very good reputation very long years of experience they are very well established. The technology is the technology is is known and trusty so normally the government is might be many cases hesitant and getting and like I'm a new technology or a new concept that is being done by the by the start up so what we usually do is basically we try to work with the startups to find them. Some early adopters, which are outside the public sector and we try to to help them like build their portfolio build their experience make their product ready. While having relatively short sales cycles easier, easier clients to penetrate like to get connections and to reach out to the decision makers and all of that so they usually this is how we're trying to guide the startups that you're helping in the public sector, trying to find to think a bit differently like okay the ultimate market for you is basically definitely doing big projects with with the government, but let's see first where you can start testing your product. Instead of doing it at the city level, why don't let's do it at the, let's say small compound level where you have more control on the infrastructure where you can have bring in some money. Scale your team roof the technology is working and surely this is not applicable in all cases and in some of the cases you'll still have to go through this route and if you need then like a very strong value proposition for the investors to jump in with you on this journey and maybe you having a. an IP that you can. protect or whatever. So, this might increase your chances, but usually, yeah, the government is, we try not to have the government as the first as a first client for for the startup, especially when they are early and the funding stages. Yeah, I'm going to ask you a very direct question, Elias. Do you think that having government funding as a as a very early stage startup helps or hurts a startup. It helps and like it helps from where they are getting some some funding to do their work, but it might be limiting if the case of you know if this country case is basically quite specific for the country or they are solving or if they got sucked in solving challenges that are just there for this country so this will limit their scalability. Okay, and this will limit a bit also the innovation so. I'm trying to build yourself a bit and having your, your startup. I would say personality or or focus direction before. Getting sucked in this kind of of projects that would be much useful. Of course, this is also depend on the cases and many other many countries share many of the challenges that the startups are trying to solve so this might be. Useful so it's a case by case. Just like trying to show the different sides of the point. Go ahead Catherine. Yeah, and I would just add that there are instances you know when we think of government with funding where we're often thinking of that sort of longer term stable off take funding, you know, in place. And I do think that as a startup it might be difficult to live up to the requirements of that type of funding that are in place. But I want to give a shout out that there are certainly government programs that are geared specifically to support innovations and startups and you know reaching out to find that kind of funding can be really helpful in the early stages of a startup. State Department funded solar sister early days through a program called W power that was created specifically to invest in a brand new idea that there's a really big impact at this next this of women's empowerment and energy access. And so that the funding was like tailor made for exactly what we were doing, and was delivered in a way that was incredibly supportive. I can also think of us aid the div program development innovation ventures, which is really their, their way of supporting startups and innovations as the name says you know acting much more like a venture capital kind of investment with all of the flexibilities and awareness and you know much less like reporting requirements than you would get in a typical, you know, government grant or something like that. So I do think that there are certain types of funding, and it's really, really important as you're doing and you're looking for your resources, whether it's government funding or venture capital, or a philanthropist or you know whoever you're getting your money from, you really want to make sure that there's a really strong match between what they want to be funding and what you're doing, and that you have really clear agreements about you know their tolerance for failure, your, your tolerance for reporting, you know all of that. You want a really, really good and the expectations that is extremely great advice and what I tell entrepreneurs that I know or mentor is taking money from an investor, it really is like getting married. Once you take money from someone, it's very difficult to get rid of them. So make sure that you vet your investors as much as we vet the companies that we invest in, you have the leverage you can choose who you go to, right. And make sure that you do know what the investor is expecting from that relationship but also make them know what you're expecting from that relationship don't take a check just because you're getting money make sure that you're getting a partner when you're taking money from someone. Can I ask a quick question. Catherine how do you find those types of opportunities, right because there's so many opportunities out there how are you able to find that program that that fit your needs so well nearly days. I think it comes down to always always relationships people networking, you know, reaching out to make what you're doing visible so people can find it. And at the same time, actively intentionally reaching out to, to everyone else to find out like well how did you get funded what programs are you doing, how did you get funded and understanding, you know, understanding the really being an opportunity hunter, you know, getting just looking for it all the time, because there there is there are a lot of potential partners funders out there that are looking exactly for what you're doing. And, you know, it's going to be a work on your part to find them, but also make it easy for them to find you. That's really good. And I, again, I agree with the networking piece. I think you cannot do enough networking. It doesn't hurt to know people. The more the merrier, as they say. Alright, I think we have time for a couple more questions. So here's another one. What exciting new technologies are you seeing coming out of the clean tech sectors and what specific sub sectors within clean tech are really growing right now. Who wants to go first I have one in mind. I would just say materials materials in general, you know, material science for batteries for transmissions for grids. There's a lot of a lot of research going into, you know, how to make way with biomaterials things like that. So, that's just what popped in mind quickly. I was saying for us the thing we're focusing on right now is really at that. You know, because we work at the grassroots level we're looking at individual households and individual entrepreneurs in low resource areas where people don't have access to the grid. seen so much innovation around using clean energy technology for the kind of energy that can really drive incomes. And so things like solar water pumps that a small one acre farmer could use or really designing some of the innovations and advances that we enjoy and see at high level investment, scaling that down so that same kind of technology advance can be used at the household level for someone at the very bottom of the pyramid and really making that transition so that all of these advances are enjoyed by everyone. Lias, do you have anything in mind? Yeah, if I may add as well, like I'm seeing many technologies focusing more and more on models like of the circular economy. So lots of new technologies are being addressed there and introduced for the waste treatment. For example, the e-waste, which is a very toxic waste to handle. And for example, like there is a new technology, new study that was released where they are working on new processes to extract from the e-waste plastics, which is not recyclable, the polymers. And in order to take it back to the original state for them to be able to reuse it again and recycle it. So the technology and chemistry and biology as well like in many sectors, like they are also using some biomimicry techniques where they can mimic some biological processes in order to treat water or like heavy metals or whatever. So all of these are really new tech that is being implemented and it's becoming more and more, even though some of them it's been there for a while, but it's becoming more and more, let's say affordable and which translates into having the business more sustainable and having like a business model that work. So, yeah. So I am actually surprised that none of you mentioned carbon capture because I do think that, you know, CCUS, so carbon capture utilization and storage, it's going to be one of the critical areas. If we want to achieve the global climate and energy goals that we have, I think, and I'm an engineer, so I love numbers, I'll give you another fun fact. The International Energy Agency made clear that the net zero goals will be virtually impossible without CCUS because we need to drive down emissions which requires 7.6 gigatons of CO2 to be captured globally. And that is 190 times more than today. Just let you absorb that. I just thought, you know, we're talking about clean tech, I do think that there needs to be a lot more work on carbon capture utilization, storage. And it's not just, you know, electric vehicles, right? That's not the solution. We're going to need to reduce carbon from everything we do, including aviation, including shipping, including construction materials like cement, which are huge polluters. So I'm surprised that none of you mentioned it because in my mind that is... I said materials, that counts. A little bit. A little bit. A little bit. A little bit. But I do think that... We got the wrong answers, huh? There's no wrong answers, right? I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. It's what you guys are seeing. But I do think that, you know, that will be where I see the future is in carbon capture. So if I was a clean tech startup, anything that you can do to reduce carbon footprint, it's more than welcome because we're looking for lots of tech that can help us on that. Right. So sorry, we're running out of time. I don't think I can get any more questions from the audience because I really want to hear of the panelists' answers for the next question, which is, where do you think that the clean tech sector will be in 10 or even 20 years from now? And I'll start with Catherine. So one of the things that I haven't addressed yet that I think is going to be the biggest change in the clean tech sector is the makeup of the workforce in the clean sector. 10 or 20 years from now, I think we'll have a much more diverse workforce, a more gender balanced workforce. I think we'll have contributions from across the planet, people from all different countries and experiences and capabilities and that by developing a workforce that is inclusive is the only way that we're going to see the kind of innovations that are truly move us forward in all of the places where we need to move forward. So even on this panel having the four of us on here, we each come to each question with very different answers which is awesome if we all had exactly the same answer for each question, we wouldn't be moving forward. It's in that diversity of thought and experience that we find new ideas. And so I think to me the biggest change is going to be what the workforce in clean tech looks like. I love that. I really do. Me too. Dipo, you have to come up with something better than that. Better? I don't know about better. That's hard to do. I think for me, it's going to be fundamental in 10 or 20 years. It's not going to be this thing that's added on. It's going to be are you sustainable, are you taking care of the planet as a fundamental basis? This iPhone that I use every day as Elias mentioned earlier it's full of toxic chemicals that we don't know what to do with when we're finished with it. And so I think that I would like to see the clean tech sector to actually become as fundamental as some other sectors have been when you're developing new companies and new technologies and that's when you'll start to see some of the dirty tech die off. But the diversity one is awesome because I've been spending the last few months here in Kentucky building this data center and I've seen so many license plates that say friends of coal. People keeps the lights on because so many people they've made their money to feed their families on coal. And so these people see clean energy as the enemy. And I think in 10 or 20 years they'll actually see clean energy as the thing that feeds their family versus an enemy. And that'll make me sleep a lot better at night. I think I could talk about this issue for another three hours. I'll let Elias go first and then I'll wrap it up. Thank you Andrea. So basically Catherine and people like covered more stuff if I wanted to add anything like I started seeing it now and I believe like in 20 years it would be much more like the quite common thing to see is basically the NGOs and the social entrepreneurs are basically really playing a big role in the clean tech so it's no longer like just it's not about like making money having a scalable business it's like making the environment better for our children and grandchildren so everyone is basically playing a big role and I'm seeing a trend now really at least in our region lots of social entrepreneurship projects are being there focusing on clean tech concepts to solve social problems and the impact that's you can start see the impact now and hopefully like in 10 to 20 years like the SDGs that were introduced by the UN the Sustainable Development Goals will actually be met in at least most of them in 20 years of now and the only way to do that is through the clean tech the clean tech innovation so that's in short I have a little bit of a different view of course I do believe we need to take advantage of the opportunities that new technologies create I do also believe that we need to start changing the culture and the mindset that we have of the oil and gas industry I totally disagree that is us versus them that is renewables versus oil and gas or fossil fuels I actually think that the only way that we can solve this climate issue and the energy challenge that I was talking to you about in the beginning is to work together because only together we can power progress to provide more and cleaner energy to the world so I would leave you with that unfortunately we're getting really close to the end of our live discussion but remember that we will be answering your questions in the chat after the live panel before we go we would like to hear some final words of advice last word of advice from the panelists so I'll start with Elias this time stay motivated surround yourself with people with motivation and always be the less clever guy in the room surround yourself with more experienced people with the right mentors accept to fail failing at the beginning of the journey is much better than later so learn from your failures and stay clean stay on the streets very good Catherine yeah I just want to I guess my word of advice is that welcome to the start-up world clean energy technology and remember to take care of yourself it's tough out there it's really hard to be an entrepreneur anywhere in the world it's hard to start up in an industry that's trying to disrupt everything and make it all new so that remember to take care of yourself in this process surround yourself with people who believe in you and will support you and be there for you in the good times and the bad times because they will inevitably both be part of your journey beautiful awesome I want to echo what they said which is stay motivated take care of yourself, have the team and the one piece of add-on I would say is kill your ego what you think you need might not be what the market needs and so when you're out there and you're building your business remember the problem you're trying to solve not a specific technology that you're trying to make or a specific thing that you're trying to build rather keep the problem alive and when things are dark ask for help reach out to people it doesn't matter if you haven't talked to me in six years say I need you to reach out and we'll be here for you you're not alone but you have to find a way to stay motivated for years to make this work and the world needs you the world needs you more than I think the world needs any other type of entrepreneur right now I'm getting involved that's beautiful I will be calling you Dipul anytime six years from now I'll make a note I'll have less air so just remember I'll look a little different alright well thank you Elias, Dipul and Catherine for joining us and for sharing your expertise and experiences it was a great panel I also want to thank everyone that's viewing today especially the viewers all the viewers around the globe and thank you for bringing entrepreneurs together to be a part of these conversation even though today's program is over we don't want the conversation to stop we need to continue to talk about entrepreneurship we are going to take the next 30 minutes to answer any questions maybe you were too shy to put on the chat or to ask so stay put and ask your questions now the panelists should be available to answer those questions for you also check back here on gistnetwork.org for information about other upcoming events from GIST including programs like this I hope you enjoyed it, thank you so much for allowing me to be here and for letting me ask you all these questions I appreciate it, thank you Andrea thank you