The Green Frog from Silicon Valley

Social enterprises choosing for-profit business model to light the world

Energy storage got a lot of attention at InterSolar last month. If developed countries such as the United States and Germany are seriously looking at batteries to integrate more renewable energy to fight climate change, another fight is going on elsewhere: bring light to the 1 billion people who do not have access to electricity. And I am not talking about charity here. A new kind of social enterprises is choosing a for-profit business model to fuel growth and have a bigger social impact.

Meet Michelle Lacourciere of Sirona Cares Foundation (picture left) and meet Peter Glenn of Fenix International (picture right) with two interns from top business schools. Michelle’s path crossed the one of Pastor Honore who runs an orphanage in Haiti. Their relationship changed from charitable dependency to self-reliance thanks to a solar station.  Peter decided to join Fenix International, a start-up in San Francisco, after spending 4 years in East Africa, to provide power for all whether one lives in Kansas or in Kenya. These are their stories.

RidePal tunes its story and expands green “perk” to companies in Silicon Valley

The first public decisions of Marissa Mayer as Yahoo’s top executive has brought light onto the perks to attract critical talent in Silicon Valley and foster a productive environment: free food, smart phones, etc. One of the most successful employee programs at Google is the shared shuttle service between San Francisco and Mountain View, which has expanded to tens of buses in the Bay Area. The oldest company bus benefit is actually run by Genentech in South San Francisco. It started as a way to deal with parking limitations before growing into a popular employee retention program.

RidePal is bringing this green “perk” to smaller businesses who cannot afford it or do not have the resources to operate a bus system. The San Francisco based start-up launched last week four additional routes in the Bay Area, and participating companies can have a say on where the bus stops depending on their level membership. Workers can also vote on prospective routes on RidePal’s website (picture above).

The second generation of water technology innovators in Israel

Two months ago, I gave a talk in Silicon Valley on proven and emerging water technologies in the Middle East. As the population grew rapidly in the last century, the Middle East became an early adapter of new desalination solutions. To date, over 50% of the world’s reverses osmosis (RO) plants are deployed in this region.

On my flight from Israel, I remembered when I was first exposed to desalination as a child. My father, Haim Cohen, worked on the first desalination pilot plant outside the US in the 1960’s to provide drinking water in the Negev desert. Close to fifty years later, I joined a new water treatment company, Emefcy, after a first career in IT start-ups. It is fascinating to me how much the two projects have in common despite being half a century apart.