It is estimated that the global economy will need over 300 million new jobs in order to accommodate current unemployment, supplement projected job loss resulting from automated industries, and provide opportunities for the next generation. In 2015, 10.2% of the world’s workers were living with their families on less than $1.90 per person, per day. 946 million people remain with zero access to sanitation facilities and 757 million adults cannot read or write. And now with the global pandemic having a devastating effect on all facets of life, the situation is even more critical. Unreasonable Impact, a multi-year initiative created with Barclays, was launched in 2016 with the principle aim of scaling growth equity companies addressing these very challenges, whilst also creating jobs. The partnership is designed around ensuring that the fastest growing and most impactful companies across different geographies (Europe, the Americas, and Asia Pacific) are best positioned for scale. The launch of Unreasonable Impact Asia Pacific sees the program support the 12 entrepreneurs that have been identified as critical drivers of change, with the incredibly innovative solutions necessary to meet these challenges at scale, from across the region. Over the course of the next few months, the now fully virtual program will support these entrepreneurs through a series of virtual gatherings and sessions which have been prototyped and perfected to align them with mentors, specialists, advice, resources and capital, as well as with each other. Since the program’s global launch, the Unreasonable Impact community, made up of over 200 ventures, has positively impacted more than 250 million people, reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 49 million tons, and generated more than 47,000 net new jobs in more than 180 countries. The companies have also raised more than USD $5 billion in funding. These 12 companies join this unparalleled global network in its shared effort to drive lasting and scalable change.
Banka BioLoo
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Blue Sky Analytics Electrify
Gramophone
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14
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Nutrition Technologies
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Planet Protector Packaging Siklus
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Urban Spring WOTA
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Zikooin
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Greenway ID Water
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Banka BioLoo Providing water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in homes, schools, worksites and public places.
SEC TO R
Waste Treatment Technology
R EGIO N
India
EN T R E P R E NEU R
Namita Banka
TIT LE
Founder & Managing Director
bankabio.com
Banka BioLoo is a social enterprise that aims to improve the quality of life by providing water, sanitation and hygiene facilities at homes, schools, worksites and public places. They have a vision to see India as an open, defecation-free and water-secured country. The solutions Banka BioLoo provides are sustainable and simple. Banka BioLoo started its journey as a 100% woman-owned microenterprise in April 2008 and is now a publicly traded company. They provide sanitation infrastructure and turnkey, human waste management solutions and services, involving innovative and simple bio-digester technology patented by the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), the R&D arm of the Indian Ministry of Defence. They are a licensee (through transfer of technology) and have partnered with DRDO for technology commercialization for large-scale deployment of sanitation systems. Further, Banka BioLoo provides sanitation operations and maintenance (O&M) services to the Indian Railways.
Namita Banka is the Founder & Managing Director of Banka BioLoo, a research-driven, publicly-listed (NSE:BANKA) enterprise engaged in developing environmentally-friendly Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) infrastructure and services. Her business positively impacts the entire sanitation value chain from capture, emptying, transport, treatment, and reuse of wastewater. Starting as a home-based business to building a corporate has been a long, but rewarding journey. Namita has been the main guiding force behind Banka BioLoo’s growth and business strategy. She has now almost a decade of sanitation industry experience and has been instrumental in the consistent growth of the company’s performance. Namita completed her Bachelor of Science (Home Science) from University of Delhi and also completed her Diploma Founder & Managing Director in Jewellery Designing, Manufacturing. & Appraising from Indian Diamond Institute, Surat. She has over 8 years of experience in the field of diamond jewellery.
Namita Banka
7
Blue Sky Analytics Building an API-based catalogue of high-resolution, high-frequency, and nearreal-time Environmental Indicator Datasets.
SEC TO R
Big Data
R EGIO N
India, US
EN T R E P R E NEU R
Abhilasha Purwar
TIT LE
Founder & CEO
Blue Sky Analytics (Blue Sky) is building the “Bloomberg for environmental data.” Blue Sky collects raw environmental data from public and private sources, deciphering the data with AI to make it user-friendly. Ultimately, this data is sold to potential buyers, including governments, banks, infrastructure, insurance companies, health care providers, and agroforestry companies. By providing global-environment-data-asa-service, Blue Sky is democratizing environmental data for a more accessible achievable sustainable economy. With a community of over 10,000 students, developers, and climate scientists, as well as mid-sized to large clients such as IEA, Dalberg, Clean Air Fund, and Parisar, Blue Sky is building the world’s largest geospatial data refinery to tackle the climate crisis.
Abhilasha Purwar is the Founder & CEO of Blue Sky Analytics, a climate-tech start-up using satellite data and AI to build environmental monitoring and climate-risk assessment products. She is a Fulbright scholar, Yale and IIT alum with experience in private equity, big data analytics, product development and environmental policy. She began her career as a Research Associate at J-PAL, working on air pollution regulation with India’s Ministry of Environment. After her Masters in Environmental Management from Yale, Abhilasha went on to work on building flexible solar cells in Dublin, kickstarting a solar products and asset financing startup at PEG Africa, and investing in clean energy at GoldenSet Capital. Upon her return to India, Abhilasha founded Blue Sky Analytics in 2018 as she believes “data has the capacity Founder & CEO to change an entire ecosystem.” She deems Blue Sky as a focal point of enabling global climate action with high quality, accessible environmental data.
Abhilasha Purwar
blueskyhq.in
9
Electrify Empowering the renewable energy transition by connecting energy producers to energy consumers.
SEC TO R
Power Station
R EGIO N
Japan, Singapore, Thailand
EN T R E P R E NEU R
Martin Lim
TIT LE
Co-Founder & CEO
Electrify is the next evolution in electricity retail and decentralized power production. Started by two senior executives from the energy industry, Electrify is Singapore’s first retail electricity marketplace. With the liberalisation of the energy market in Singapore, consumers can now choose how they want to buy electricity—from cheaper prices to renewable sources; bundled deals to power-saving offers. Electrify helps you make smarter decisions by generating bespoke energy quotes through Fibonacci™, their proprietary electricity pricing engine that sifts through millions of possible price permutations, and offering deep domain knowledge and market intelligence to resolve any misinformation or ambiguity about electricity liberalisation and price plans. Leveraging blockchain technology, IoT, and AI, Electrify has also expanded beyond Singapore to connect energy producers and consumers on a peer-to-peer trading platform across citywide grids. This will ultimately spur the growth of renewables as well as give consumers more choice and savings when selecting their electricity providers in a deregulated market.
Martin Lim is the Co-Founder & CEO of Electrify. He has over 20 years of experience in the mass communications industry, having served as both a creative and strategic lead for a diverse range of clients ranging from SMEs to MNCs. The last decade provided a great deal of exposure to business startups and regional business development. He was headhunted to a regional sales role for InMobi, currently, the world’s largest mobile Internet ad platform, and his interests in energy and water led him to subsequently co-found a company to develop water treatment systems for disaster relief. As the main business Co-Founder & CEO driver for this business, and other
Martin Lim
clients, he led in virtually all strategic areas including planning, business development and consolidation.
electrify.asia
11
Gramophone Empowering farmers to earn double with full-stack technology solutions.
SEC TO R
Agricultural Technology
R EGIO N
India
EN T R E P R E NEU R
Tauseef Khan
TIT LE
Co-Founder & CEO
Gramophone is a full-stack agriculture management solution for farmers, input manufacturers, and buyers, optimizing the supply chain and improving farmers’ livelihoods. The company works directly with over a million farmers on their platform from the pre-sowing stage to settling their crops, helping them increase their yield, purchase high-quality inputs, and access robust marketplaces to sell their crops. They provide Agronomic Intelligence and convenient doorstep delivery of agri Inputs like seeds, crop protection, and crop nutrition products. Delivering inputs to over 20,000 villages across India, Gramophone has increased farmers’ crop productivity by 30% and removed the dependency of farmers’ yield on agri-input manufacturers’ sales. Furthermore, in order to support the disrupted rural supply chain, Gramophone began working with local, rural entrepreneurs for last-mile delivery, which has resulted in their business and reach nearly doubling in 2021.
Tauseef Khan is the Co-Founder & CEO of Gramophone. Along with fellow IIT Kharagpur and IIM Ahmedabad alumni Nishant Vats, Harshit Gupta and Ashish Rajan Singh, Tauseef co-founded Gramophone in 2016 with the mission of transforming the agricultural landscape in India. By centering farmers and investing in technologies that help to lower costs, improve transparency and empower the local community of agri entrepreneurs, Tauseef and his team believe they are in an optimal position to improve the profitability of the farming system across India. Tauseef has more than 10 years of experience in the agriculture sector. He has previously worked as a product engineer at John Deere, and as a chemicals, materials & food research analyst at Frost & Co-Founder & CEO Sullivan. Additionally, he has consulted for agri input and food companies, and worked as a venture capital investor focused on AgTech companies.
Tauseef Khan
gramophone.in
13
Greenway Designing, manufacturing, and distributing clean cooking stoves.
SEC TO R
Domestic Implements
R EGIO N
India, Nepal, Zambia
Greenway is a globally recognized clean cooking solutions provider working at the intersection of climate action markets, rural development and tech-enabled manufacturing. Greenway designs and manufactures improved cookstoves and other household appliances for mass-market consumers. Their flagship product is India’s best-selling improved cookstove, which established adoption, impact, and best in class NPS. Greenway Stoves form modern replacements for traditional mud stoves (chulhas), delivering 65% fuel savings and 70% smoke reduction while working on all solid biomass fuels. Built using their patented air regulation technology, they minimise noxious CO, PM, and GHG emissions leading to better health, savings, climate change mitigation, and everyday convenience. Over the years, Greenway has distributed over 1.4 million stoves and worked extensively with a variety of financing partners to enable rural households access to their products.
EN T R E P R E NEU R
Ankit Mathur
TIT LE
Co-Founder
Ankit Mathur is the Co-Founder of Greenway. A mechanical engineer and a management professional by training, Ankit started up right out of college with an idea to develop a derivatives information platform for retail investors in India. After the collapse of this short-lived venture, accelerated by the subprime crisis, he founded a consulting firm for helping organizations and communities with renewable energy, energy access as well as carbon credits. Subsequently, in late 2011, he co-founded Greenway Grameen with Neha Juneja with a mission to design and distribute products for rural households. Over the years, Greenway has become a leading improved cookstoves manufacturer and distributor globally. Along the way, Ankit has led development of India’s largest improved cookstoves factory. At present, he’s involved in structuring carbon projects for voluntary carbon markets taking advantage of Greenway’s Co-Founder robust supply chain and extensive distribution network. He loves reading, traveling and indulges in birdwatching whenever an opportunity arises.
Ankit Mathur
greenwayappliances.com
15
ID Water Building environmentally sustainable smart shrimp farms with AI plus IoT technologies to solve three major problems of traditional aquaculture.
SEC TO R
Aquaculture and Fisheries
R EGIO N
Taiwan
EN T R E P R E NEU R
Alan Yu
TIT LE
Founder & CEO
ID Water develops patented water quality monitoring systems and provides AI and IoT solutions intended to help shrimp farmers increase their production. The company specializes in building environmentally sustainable and smart shrimp farms. Their farms solve three major problems of traditional aquaculture: mangrove destruction, water pollution, and food safety. They are actively transforming the 600-hectares of abandoned ponds in Yilan, Taiwan into concrete-structure shrimp farms. The bio-floc method they are using effectively contains disease spread and reuses 92% of the wastewater. Combining their AI + IoT system with a uniquely designed shed, ID Water can preserve the water temperature in an environmentally friendly way, increase productivity, and reduce the growth cycle of shrimp. This system can also be deployed to countries located in temperate zones to raise shrimp with low labor costs. ID Water offers an end-to-end solution combining water quality monitoring, automatic water paddles, and a feeding machine, revolutionizing the aquaculture industry.
Alan Yu is the Founder & CEO of ID Water, a company built on his passion to help people and create a positive impact in this world. After participating in an MIT Media Lab workshop in 2015, Alan discovered a natural knack for innovation and keen interest in the startup world. He was profoundly moved by the 2016 documentary, Before the Flood, so much so that he decided to direct his entrepreneurial talents and energy toward climate issues. Over the next few years, traveled across the world to participate in impact- and innovation-focused accelerator programs and further explored the aquaculture space. Upon learning that traditional aquaculture practices led to significant Founder & CEO mangrove destruction, Alan and the ID Water team began charting a path to transform abandoned earth ponds in Taiwan into sustainable shrimp farms.
Alan Yu
idwater.com.tw
17
Nutrition Technologies Providing alternative solutions to address the world’s protein deficit.
SEC TO R
Agricultural Technology
R EGIO N
Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, US, Vietnam
Nutrition Technologies was established in 2014 and originally formed as a solution to relieve the pressure on ocean fish stocks trawled for fishmeal. Today, Nutrition Technologies manufactures and supplies sustainable insect proteins, oils, and frass to help feed the growing aquaculture, agriculture, and animal feed industries around the world. Their core products are derived from a unique proprietary decomposition process that uses a combination of bacteria, fungi, yeasts, and insects to recover nutrients from industrial and agricultural food waste. They have developed their own tropical production system, which is not only low in cost to build and operate, but also uses minimal energy and is a zerowaste process.
EN T R E P R E NEU R
Nick Piggott
TIT LE
Co-Founder & Co-CEO
nutrition-technologies.com
Nick Piggott is Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Nutrition Technologies. He has a BSc in Life Sciences, and has always had a strong interest in entrepreneurship and innovation. Previous to setting up Nutrition Technologies, Nick worked for the UN, spending 3 years in Sierra Leone, West Africa. During his tenure at the UN in Sierra Leone, he became acutely aware of the looming food security crisis, prompting him to move to Viet Nam and set up Nutrition Technologies. Nick was a global finalist in the Fish 2.0 competition in 2017, and a Tech4Farmers winner in 2018. Nick is the industry-side face of Nutrition Technologies, overseeing the product, regulatory and client side of the business, ensuring that the organization Co-Founder & Co-CEO maintains constant awareness of the competitive & regulatory landscape, market trends, technology developments and industry standards.
Nick Piggott
19
Planet Protector Packaging Creating sustainable thermal packaging made from 100% natural waste wool.
SEC TO R
Product Lifecycle
R EGIO N
Planet Protector Packaging (PPP) is on a mission to eliminate polystyrene and become the market leader in sustainable thermal packaging that does not harm the planet. The company has created Woolpack, which is their patented technology that uses sheep’s wool destined for the landfill and unsuitable for the textile industry. Sealed inside a protective film and placed within a cardboard carton, Woolpack is independently proven to keep products cold for more than 72 hours. Compared to polystyrene, Woolpack significantly reduces a company’s incoming transportation and storage costs and carbon footprint by arriving flatpacked and compressed to 50% of its size. Furthermore, their product performs 32% better at keeping content cool while remaining price competitive.
Australia, New Zealand
EN T R E P R E NEU R
Joanne Howarth
TIT LE
Founder & CEO
Joanne Howarth is Founder & CEO of the Planet Protector Packaging (PPP), an environmentally-friendly packaging company. Leading the pack on the sustainable front, their award winning product Woolpack, is made from sheep waste wool, and used for the transport of temperature-sensitive food and pharmaceuticals as an alternative to polystyrene. After studying economics at the University of Sydney & an MBA at UTS, Joanne embarked upon a journey that has seen her evolve as a serial entrepreneur. Joanne believes that “at the end of the day, it’s not the money we earn or the things we own that matter, it is the difference we made to the lives of others, to our communities, and to the planet!” There are few more Founder & CEO worthwhile pursuits than driving positive change, and while it’s true that nobody can do everything, everyone can do something!
Joanne Howarth
planetprotectorpackaging.com
21
Siklus Delivering refills for household products without plastic packaging, straight to consumers.
SEC TO R
Supply Chain Technology
R EGIO N
Indonesia
EN T R E P R E NEU R
Jane von Rabenau
TIT LE
Founder & CEO
Siklus is reinventing the future of retail by delivering refills of everyday needs directly to consumers’ doors without plastic waste. Through their app, individuals can order their favorite household products in various sizes, creating a new and more sustainable way to distribute and consume FMCG products. Siklus distributes refills of household items such as detergent, shampoo, cooking oil, and more at a guaranteed lower cost. The company’s rechargeable motorbikes deliver these goods, equipped with up to 30 SKUs per bike that are dispensed safely and precisely through their proprietary pressurizer technology. By delivering SKUs through third-party logistics (3PL), Siklus optimizes the FMCG supply chain while keeping overall costs low for the consumer. Fueling the refill revolution across Indonesia, Siklus aims to become the next sustainable model of retail: mobile, tech-driven, and affordable.
Jane von Rabenau is the Founder & CEO of Siklus, a start-up that refills household products without packaging and at a lower cost. As part of Jane’s Master’s thesis on ocean plastics, she traveled to the Philippines, where basic water refill vending machines inspired the idea for Siklus. Jane’s professional background is in international development and behavioral economics. She has previously worked for organizations such as J-PAL and KfW on projects focusing on poverty alleviation. While managing a study on sleep deprivation in Chennai, India, she witnessed the horrific floods of 2015 that were further worsened by growing trash problems. These experiences led Jane to pivot her career towards the intersection of international development and environmental policy. During her MPA at Harvard, she focused on policy and entrepreneurial solutions to our Founder & CEO world’s most pressing environmental issues. Now, she is excited to be working with Siklus to create the next, sustainable model of retail.
Jane von Rabenau
siklus.com
23
Urban Spring Using data and smart water stations to redefine the water refill experience.
SEC TO R
Water Infrastructure
R EGIO N
Hong Kong
EN T R E P R E NEU R
Ada Yip
TIT LE
Co-Founder & CEO
Urban Spring redefines the water refill experience outside of the home by building a reliable network of well-designed and well-maintained water stations in Hong Kong. Well is their signature product and an award-winning smart water station that provides point-of-use drinking water designed for high foot-traffic locations. On top of their user-centric design to influence human behavior, Urban Spring’s core belief is to use data to drive service design and lead the change for better living. Their product development has moved towards an open-source Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure for data collection, processing, analytics, and device management. Currently, Urban Spring has over 400 water refill stations across Hong Kong, and they plan to expand to Singapore and Thailand in the near future.
Ada Yip is the Co-Founder & CEO of Urban Spring, a purpose-driven startup with a mission to reduce the consumption of single-use plastic bottles through building a network of well-designed and well-maintained water refill stations. She is also a director of WYNG 43 Social Investment, which invests in innovative, mission-focused startups. Prior to these ventures, Ada was the Program Director of the i2i (incubation to investment) program at SOW Asia. She also sits on the board of Hong Kong Institute of Social Impact Analysts and Education For Good. She volunteers at a number of non-profit organizations and is a member of the Advisory Committee on Enhancing Employment of People with Disabilities under the Social Welfare Department of the Hong Kong Government. She was born and brought up in Hong Kong, and has been dedicated to supporting social Co-Founder & CEO entrepreneurship in Hong Kong since 2013. Prior to embarking this journey, she worked at financial institutions in Toronto, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.
Ada Yip
urbanspring.hk
25
WOTA Decentralizing water infrastructure using water re-circulation.
SEC TO R
Waste Treatment Technology
R EGIO N
Japan
EN T R E P R E NEU R
Ryo Yamada
TIT LE
Co-Founder & Director
WOTA is developing small-scale, decentralized water reuse systems and autonomous control systems for water treatment. Their first product, WOTA BOX, launched in November 2019 as a portable water reclamation treatment plant that can recycle and reuse more than 98% of domestic wastewater. In a device that is only 0.25 cubic meters in size, it enables continuous water use in situations where there is no water supply, such as when water is cut off due to a disaster. Their second product, WOSH, is a water circulation hand washing machine that can be installed anywhere without running water. WOSH also has the function to sterilize the surface of smartphones by over 99.9%, contributing to public space hygiene. The company also offers WOTA PLANT, a cloud-based data management service focused on collecting, analyzing, and coordinating data for water treatment plants, digitizing, and “smartening” existing “dumb” facilities.
Ryo Yamada is the Co-Founder & Director of WOTA Corporation, a company whose mission is to realize “water freedom for everyone, everywhere.” At WOTA, Ryo oversees product engineering for both WOSH and WOTA BOX. Previously, he was a launch team member for SUSANOO, a social startup accelerator program at ETIC. Ryo first became interested in water issues at the World Water Forum, where he participated as a child representative in elementary school. He completed a Master’s degree in Sustainability Science at The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, and received a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Co-Founder & Director Engineering from Ritsumeikan University. He specializes in water reuse technology and policy, product development, and procurement.
Ryo Yamada
wota.co.jp
27
Zikooin Rescuing ugly produce to create novel plant-based meats.
SEC TO R
Food Technology and Processing
R EGIO N
Australia, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, US, Vietnam
EN T R E P R E NEU R
Seyeon Park
TIT LE
Global Sales Team Leader
unlimeat.com
Zikooin Company develops plant-based meat made from upcycled grains, oats, and rice that otherwise would be thrown away due to aesthetic imperfections. As food tech experts, Zikooin developed a patented and innovative technology called ‘protein extrusion’ that gives their products a meat-like texture. Rather than attempting to compete with common Western meat products like hamburgers and hot dogs, Zikooin’s plant-based meat brand UNLIMEAT (Unlimited Meat) is inspired by traditional Korean cuisines, such as Korean beef dishes and bulgogi. Moreover, their flagship product is sliced beef, which is the most standard shape for Asian meals. UNLIMEAT slices are sold at all Subway locations in South Korea, as well as on vegetarian-friendly Domino’s pizzas. Vegan and cholesterol and trans-fat-free, UNLIMEAT is the next generation of superfood with 26 grams of protein, making it competitive with actual meat products. From vegans to vegetarians, UNLIMEAT can be enjoyed by anyone who wishes to take care of the planet.
Seyeon Park is the Global Sales Director at Zikooin. She began her career as a developer for a global shipping and terminal IT solution provider before eventually expanding to overseas solution sales. After 4 years, Seyeon wanted to follow her passion and transition to the F&B industry, so she worked for a premium restaurant reservation platform based in Seoul. Seyeon experienced 360 degrees of Korea’s food industry and relished opportunities to network with chefs and industry leaders. While in this role, Seyeon gained more insight into sustainability challenges facing F&B companies, sparking an interest in food upcycling and ugly foods. Eventually, this led Seyeon to Global Sales Team Leader join Zikooin Company, where she now leads global business development and sales for the plant-based meat brand Unlimeat.
Seyeon Park
29
O N B E H A L F O F U S , T H A N K YO U .
u n reason ableimpact.com