hello everybody
my name is patrick child i'm deputy
director general
in the research and innovation
department in the european commission
and the european commission
representative in the
steering committee of mission innovation
and so it's a great pleasure for me to
welcome you today to this mission
innovation ministerial side event
on the journey of clean energy
innovators
and i think we all recognize an
ambitious vision on decarbonizing
societies
requires ambitious individuals
the clean energy is to a large extent
driven by individual innovators who
bring new solutions
to society without innovators society
will not meet
the huge challenges that we face this
century and in particular
are the challenge of ensuring clean
affordable and secure energy
for everybody and so as policymakers
gathered here today under the mission
innovation agenda
we have an important enabling role
working alongside
public and private organizations to
create
the conditions for innovators to succeed
advocacy groups and non-governmental
organizations promoting energy
sustainability
are also an extremely important pillar
in this coalition of
efforts and i'm very pleased that we got
today with us two young innovators
actively promoting clean energy
innovation
part of the mission innovation action
plan
we have the goal of stimulating greater
awareness
among mission innovation members and the
wider clean energy community
the transformational potential of energy
in innovation
and the flagship initiative to deliver
this objective is the mission
innovation champions program which was
launched two years ago
and the innovators with us today include
a number of the 2020 mission innovation
champions
the second cohort of this important
program
the european commission and the european
union have been supporting the
implementation of the mission innovation
champions program
because we like other partners in this
program firmly believe
in the catalyzing role that individual
innovators can have
within their environments whether in
companies
research and innovation organizations or
in their broader
national and international communities
so this side event today
will showcase the exciting challenging
journey
of flagship innovators the successes
they've achieved
the challenges and barriers they've
overcome as well as their views
on the enabling role that public policy
needs to play and the republican
research and innovation
programs philanthropic organizations
venture capital
can bring together in support of this
exciting agenda of clean
energy innovation and we very much hope
that
the uh this event uh will inform the
discussions of our ministers at the
ministerial meeting
of mission innovation next week and thus
help us all to work together to create
division on accelerating the clean
energy transition
so that's enough for me i hope in terms
of setting the scene and it's my great
pleasure
now to start to introduce our very
distinguished uh speakers today
and i can't think of a better person to
kick off with the first keynote speaker
than dr renu suarez um dr swarup is
currently secretary of the department of
biotechnology of the government of india
she is uh vice chair of the mission
innovation steering committee
and chairperson of the biotechnology
industry research assistance council
and if i may say so a lifelong friend of
the
mission innovation champions program so
it's a huge pleasure to welcome you to
this uh platform
and to give you first the floor please
thank you very much patrick for this
introduction and
uh it's indeed a great pleasure for me
to be here today
for this mi 5 side event on the journey
of clean energy innovators transforming
the innovative ideas into breakthrough
solutions i think the whole concept of
mission innovation
itself is so innovative with so many
wonderful exciting
ideas and i think the whole manner in
which this has been brought together
to see that we just do not have the
research ecosystem sitting in isolation
but connecting the innovators to it
and bringing all the countries together
to bring out their innovators
and with this i think the champions
program which was launched
was one of the most innovative programs
that we have taken form
i would like to congratulate all the
mission innovation champions
who have been selected for both the
cohorts here one and year two
and in india we are very very pleased
that we have not just our two champions
but we also look at
national champions who really are those
who were projected and then we can
support them as we move forward
the reason why we look at this is
we would love to see how we can expand
the pool of innovators
and this gives us an opportunity and i
think this roundtable which is being
organized today is so interesting
because not just the innovators can
share amongst themselves the ideas
because you become a point of
inspiration for many other innovators as
it moves along
from india of course innovation and
combining research and innovation has
been key on our agenda for
many years now if you see our last
science technology policy was the
science technology innovation policy we
are now looking at the next policy which
is coming up again
science technology innovation policy and
i think the key focus that we have put
in
over the last couple of years to promote
the research and innovation ecosystem
gives us a lot of confidence that this
is really
what is going to be the future of taking
research innovative ideas towards
demonstration and deployment looking at
the way this whole mission innovation
has
brought together various countries
created platforms
of and i think this has been a wonderful
platform not just for
countries to come forward and commit uh
to meet the objectives with which it was
set up and that is
doubling our investments in research but
a major focus has been on the human
resource
on the capacities which have been built
within countries
both in the public sector and in the
private sector
bringing the startups together which is
very very important and critical as i
see it for any innovation ecosystem to
grow
and i think what mission innovation has
done it has brought in
countries who come in with a combined
and a
single objective and that is to meet
this global challenge
but it also gives the opportunity to
these countries
to have an exchange of ideas with the
startups the academy of the research
groups coming together
we've had a large number of uh bilateral
research initiatives which have been
launched under the platform of mission
innovation
and i'm also very pleased to share with
all of you all that
the first international clean energy
incubator was launched by india
under the mission innovation platform
and we already have
a agreement with sweden
and what we see as an important aspect
of this is
not just as an incubator which is going
to incubate the startups
but we see this as an incubator which
can get
the knowledge exchange the startup
exchange
definitely but also giving access to the
testbeds
and to the markets in different
countries to make sure that these ideas
that we bring forward
can actually go ahead for deployment
purpose
india has been focusing over these last
many years on the startup ecosystem and
i think
this is in sync with what all the other
countries are doing to take it forward
i would really like to now see that this
round table that
has been brought together we have the
best of ideas which gets shared amongst
our mi
champions amongst the innovators and
this helps us to draw out
our next steps for the mission
innovation 2.0
and we hope that to the ministerial we
will be able to take some very key
policy recommendations which can then
help us to expand
the the framework with which mi 2.0 is
moving ahead
mi 2.0 is looking at some very
interesting concepts
and i think innovation public private
partnership
the startup engagement is going to be
key to it i would once again like to
congratulate
all the mission innovation champions all
the innovators who come here today and
to say that
you are not just representing the
specific countries that you are coming
from
but you are representing the larger
global energy
coalition that we are all looking at of
being able to come together
to achieve what our common goal and
objective is
and i think that is very important so
your innovative ideas
are actually going to help us to move to
breakthrough solutions
so once again congratulations to all of
you your single idea is going to be so
important
for taking this ecosystem ahead and we
would like to see this
as a sort of a ripple effect that what
you do here at mission innovation
you can go back to your countries and
bring in and inspire a lot of many other
innovators and we hope that this will
become a global phenomena
and we could bring in a lot of other
innovators to move ahead
in helping us to achieve what we put
together as a collective goal
so thank you very much a pleasure to be
with you as always
and congratulations and good luck to all
our innovators
thank you very much
[Music]
reyna thank you very much for that
inspiring and enthusiastic uh
opening to our event and i think you've
set the scene extremely well
and i'd now like to move on to our
second keynote speaker
representing um the investment community
and uh
it's a particular pleasure to present uh
ashley grosh
who is director at the gates ventures
where in particular she's responsible
for the breakthrough
fellows program previously she served as
chief operating officer of 3p partners
worked for wells fargo supporting the
company's sustainable finance and
environmental and commitment efforts
and i think he's in a great position to
share with us what the gates ventures
are
are doing in this important space so
ashley over to you please
great thank you patrick it's wonderful
to be here
it's an honor i'm calling in from
colorado so it's good morning
but good evening over for most of you so
as patrick
mentioned my name is ashley grosh i'm a
director
on the breakthrough energy team at gates
ventures
this is bill gates private company whose
mission is to help
lead the world on a path to net zero
emissions
by 2050 by supporting cutting-edge
research and development
investing in companies with
game-changing technologies
and advocating for policies that speed
innovation from lab to market
before i preview one of the exciting
programs that we're building
i want to emphasize why our organization
is so
focused on technology and innovation as
well as deployment
if you could imagine just for for a
minute if we generated
all the electricity we need today
without
emitting a single molecule of greenhouse
gas emissions
which were a long way from doing right
we would cut total emissions by
only a quarter and so therefore it's
clear
that we need to continue innovations not
only within electricity
and scale up existing solutions but we
really need to focus on breakthroughs
across
other major contributors to ghg
such as agriculture manufacturing
transportation and the built environment
so that's really what we're going to be
focused on if we don't plant those seeds
today
we're not going to have the solutions we
need in the future quickly for those
that don't know about
breakthrough energy within gates
ventures it's a network of entities and
initiatives including investment funds
non-profit and philanthropic programs
and policy efforts linked at a common
commitment to scale critical
solutions to achieve this path to net
zero emissions that bill
has envisioned by 2050 so one of the
programs that i'm excited to lead
is the breakthrough energies fellows
program which will be rolling out soon
and the goal of this fellows program is
to help
uh fund and foster the best innovators
in the world
that are working on critical climate
technologies such as green hydrogen
zero carbon cement the big emitters we
really need breakthroughs we need
the innovative bright minds working on
these and so our program will go
out globally and look to support these
individuals and build ecosystems
partnerships around them trying to speed
up and create
other pathways to market for their
technologies
it will be a philanthropic effort as i
mentioned it's going to require
significant partnerships so that's why
this
stakeholder group is so critical we hope
to work with you all
on this program and many of the other
initiatives uh that we're building out
we're going to need
not only technology innovation and
partnerships but
um government policies to help pull
along these these innovative
technologies things that we've
we've not seen before i also wanted to
point out that big
that bill will be releasing a a climate
book
next year and he will dig into tackling
the climate change challenges
where he identifies and goes into great
detail about the key technologies that
we need to be focusing on globally
um my program and others will be focused
on these these key sectors and bill will
really give
a great detail about why it's so
critical that we focus in these areas
today
in terms of how we can all work together
i would love to stay engaged i'd love to
get our team
more engaged with all of you and make
ourselves available to share the updates
to bring you along on the journey that
we're going to start here
looking for fellows and doing other
initiatives so
more to come from me more details about
our programs will be released soon
but i invite you all to engage along
with breakthrough energy
and get involved with our our programs
we really do have a world-class
ecosystem that we're building and you
all are critical to that mission
so again uh thank you so much for the
time today congratulations
to all the the innovators here and lead
thought leaders
i know we're going to learn a lot today
um and and i look forward to being a
partner of yours in the future
so thank you again for having me
thanks very much ashley and indeed uh
very keen to
uh stay in touch with you as you develop
this exciting new initiative
uh within the gates ventures and uh i
think that
you know since we have very very common
agendas and very very similar goals
there should be a lot we can work
together on i mean the
gates ventures has been a a strong and
inspirational partner for us in mission
innovation
over the years and i'm sure that will
continue um
we now move to the next stage in the
meat of our event
today which is the round table where
we'll see the
interventions and presentations of six
of our mission innovation champions
uh one representative of a mission
innovation member government
and two young innovators who are engaged
in promoting clean energy
innovation and the idea today is that uh
all of these uh
participants uh from the innovators the
young innovators and the
other representatives will tell us their
personal story
how their personal journey has been
affected
for example by the challenges that they
faced in the
sort of technological and business
environments that you've had to face
what sort of public policies
both public r d police programs um and
other
public policy instruments have been
helpful to you and where are there still
obstacles which you think
that we as policy makers can uh work to
facilitate progress and and support you
in your efforts
and also uh thinking again about uh
ashley's presentation
you know where the private sector
venture capital and other
uh investment sources can help further
to accelerate
your work and more generally the
deployment of clean energy technologies
so um what i plan to do during this
session
is to introduce each of our speakers our
participants
in turn and then invite them to to
present to us in a in a few minutes
uh their story their journey uh their
answer to the questions that i've just
set out
and i'd like to start uh with dr malach
al-nouri
who is uh the provost of efat university
in saudi arabia i'm very happy that
saudi arabia
is not only providing the platform for
this event but also
hosting the virtual ministerial we have
next week
dr al-nari is an expert in clean water
and clean um energy resource management
and strategic planning
and also a powerful advocate for women's
empowerment in clean energy
so dr nori please
you're on mute
i want that thank you thank you patrick
thank you
i'm very humbled for the opportunity to
share my journey to bring new clean
energy solutions
to society and to share with you today
the challenges and the institutional
support and the policies and programs
that they throw
in my development as an innovator i have
slides actually one slide that i would
like to share
it's uh possible to put it up
yes the next
the first yes that's it it's someone's
life okay
so um i looked at the event in my life
uh as in leafs so this is the
branch of my life you can say uh my phd
was an important phase which brought me
to think as a researcher and as an
investigator
who would spend years on in-depth
studies
doing one thing without any slackness
and this takes lots of
skills to be able to do this kind of
focused research
which is a challenge early in their
every
researcher failure but the first
challenge was to find a sponsor which
was not
easy but then in 2003 which er saudia
did not
start the uh the program of scholarships
so until 2005. so but i was really lucky
to
to land a scholarship through my job at
ifa university
a scholarship from aramco to the
ministry of education towards university
so the first really program that
supported me in my journey
was the business government partnership
moving to the next leaf one of the major
milestones was in my career was joining
the center
for clean water and clean energy at mit
massachusetts institute of technology
as a positional fellow in 2012
and the first member of evan faldoon
fellowship program initiated by
king university petroleum and minerals
and mit and a collaboration agreement
to support women in stem this was
the the second program which really
advanced my skills and it would be
categorized as university research
collaboration
agreement the main challenge then was
uh for for actually uh continuing my
work and conducting the research
as i was researching water desalination
systems innovative solutions
uh to address uh the related technical
environmental issues
uh data data was hardly available
uh and for free industry mainly locked
the data and
it was not freely available for
individuals to to grab
and to experiment with and to model one
this leads to building uh models based
on uh literature and assumptions
rather than real industrial data
so it becomes a challenge in into the
innovative
innovative career and then next uh i
faced another
typical challenge which is the research
fund uh my
uh friendship under the internship
program concluded after two years
so the sabbatical lead that granted me
by the
my university but uh and mit professor
uh john dean hart whom i'm very thankful
for offered me the
uh to join his research group so i
continue to work with mit
and mickey mechanical engineering and i
also received a research grant from
electricity utility in the us through
mit lincoln lab
and this was a project to investigate
innovative solutions for desalination
and renewable integration
for the power grid solutions uh to
mitigating the variability of the
removable energy sources
so the programs that benefited me at
this stage were industry
academic research grants and again real
world data at this stage
was an issue so i had to do lots of
assumptions and
might affect which might affect again
the quality of the
solutions in the next
leaf i exhausted my
my my funds in 2014.
but again i was directed to apply to mit
visiting squadron program
which does not provide any fund but
provides access to learning resources
and support
uh that was uh an excellent support as i
was given access to
all the learning resources libraries
labs but i had to find part of my
research
uh on my own at this critical stage
where i needed to work on
prototypes at this stage i gained
wonderful
support from c3e network in 2016 and i
was recognized as international
ambassador
this gave me visibility visibility which
helped me
in my next stage in 2017-18 university
industry partnership program again was
key in enabling me to
implement free work solutions i worked
with business partner
local energy company in saudi arabia
which provided fund
and installation my university at
university provided
fund acn energy research center in
netherlands provided
specialized equipment innovative
solutions usually
require diverse expertise because they
combine
new elements and this was a challenge at
this
stage i was expert in one area but i
had to look for expertise in other areas
as well to complement
the work in my solutions
in the last leave which is 2020 i need
uh to find partners and visitors to
implement the solutions on small and
large scale so at this stage i accept
and keep
the support from mission innovation
champion program and was appointed as a
champion for saudi arabia
these programs innovation programs such
as the mission innovation champion
foster innovation
and support the exchange of ideas across
the globe
to conclude uh the challenge is mainly
uh where
proprietary data that's locked by the
industry at later stages technical
expertise to support the various aspects
of this
of the innovative solutions and later on
uh the
partners and visitors to fund these uh
implementation uh research funding
programs
uh such as uh sabbatical leads from
universities
eventual fellowship program funded by
kfpm around contacts
we're key key in supporting the journey
for
myself and many others also university
industry partnerships
and finally the recognition by
international programs and networks
such as c3e and visual innovation also
play an important role for
exporter and credibility which
definitely supports
an innovator this is my
journey in a nutshell so thank you for
listening
and i turn it back to you patrick
okay well thank you very much uh malik
and thanks for
uh congratulations again on being the uh
mr innovation champion for saudi arabia
and we wish you every success with the
visibility
and recognition that that will bring to
take your research and innovation
activities forward
we now move to our next uh speaker who
is
maria hernandez she is
co-founder and ceo of ingelia a company
based in spain
leading an industrial initiative to
recover carbon and vital elements from
organic waste and produce bio materials
maria is also i'm proud to say the
mission innovation champion for the
european commission
uh and i'm happy to present her on
behalf of the european union so maria
over to you please tell us your story
yes thank you very much thank you for
the
for the introduction uh good afternoon
ladies and gentlemen
my name is marisa hernandez i am an
industrial engineer by training
mba and ce master in finance and i have
developed my professional career
starting up companies in innovative
sectors
i am co-founder and ceo of ingelia and
ingelia is an sme that has developed an
industrial process called
htc hydrothermal carbonization which
acts like an acceleration of the natural
formation of coal
transforming organic waste streams into
a line
magnet-like solid product suitable to
replace fossil coal
so i have some slides i think i would
share my screen
i have prepared some slides
so the htc technology was discovered at
the beginning of the 20th century
but it was not further developed at
industrial scale because at that time
fuels derive it from petroleum were more
promoted
in 2006 my colleagues and i we were
three founders
had the vision to see this technology in
the market
and we started to work on the
development of an industrial process
we started collaborating with key
stakeholders scientists
equipment providers and clients building
a strong knowledge network around the
project
that could provide enough information to
take the right decisions for the
technology development
we were granted an fp7 project from the
european commission which was very
important for us to invest
in the process development and to get in
contact with supporting partners for the
project as well
then we moved to the start to the
commercialization and in 2017 we started
the
the commercialization process the time
to go into market was critical
since all aspects around the project
needed to be mature enough
we had already invested in a second and
improved reactor
we also had closed agreements with via
cold purchasers
and we have developed a control program
to monitor process operation and
maintenance
in order to provide our clients with
tools to solve any issue with the new
process
the commercialization strategy was
focused on obtaining customer
validations
arranging industrial trials in our plant
and at the same time
developing agreements for the
installation of new plants whereingelia
was supporting the clients very closely
i think the ability of building up
confidence both
on the company and on the technology and
the capacity of working together with
clients are key in this phase
the availability of programs for public
investments in demonstration plans like
the
fti fast track for innovation or the
innova innovation fund are very
important
we were granted the clean energy
accelerator award in the uk
and the jessica fidei in spain both from
european funds
that helped us and our clients as well
entering the technology into the market
we also participated in working groups
for standardization of the htc product
and in permitting procedures for plants
environmental authorization
this has allowed ingelia to have been
installed today three plants in spain
uk and belgium and to working in
additional plants within europe and
abroad
administrative procedures are affecting
the velocity of the commercialization
and i think that building teams within
the public administration specialized on
evaluating new technologies
in order to simplify the procedures as
much as possible
would help accelerating the deployment
of new technologies
when the first phase of the
commercialization is finished you need
to think big
and prepared to grow since the market
opportunity is huge
it is key to define a good strategy to
grow fast
maintaining the company's leadership we
are focusing
on financing a challenging business plan
and structuring the company's growth
and here the contribution of venture
capitalists with previous experience is
key
in our case we are digitalizing all
processes to simplify clients tasks
we are building up on capacity for
plants assembling to accelerate plants
construction
and we are increasing the market
technology value by
developing new applications for the bio
coal in the industry
enhancing sustainability and maintaining
competitive advantage
well i think the teamwork is essential
in all phases of the company's
development
and i think that understanding well the
different companies faces
being able to attract the right partners
resources and stakeholders
joining the project is really the key of
the success
finally i want to express my gratitude
to
to the organizers of the event to the
mission innovation initiative
and to the european commission and i am
really very honored to represent
the innovation here in this high level
event thank you very much
maria thank you very much and thank you
for presenting that really impressive
success story of
a successful partnership with public
authorities and private investors and
we wish you every uh success for the
future
and we now move uh to completely
different part of the world to china
um and it shows that mission innovation
is a truly global initiative
and we go to professor kan lee who is
chairman of the catalysis
society of china serving also as the
dean of materials and clinical school at
the university of science and technology
in china
and direction of director of the dalian
national laboratory for clean
energy so uh professor lee uh the floor
is yours please tell us your story
okay thank you patrick
very well perfect thank you patrick
it's my great pleasure to join this
activity
uh i'm kenli from uh dallas instead of
chemical physics
currently i'm the directorship of the
clean energy national clean energy
laboratory and
i would like to take this opportunity
to share our experience in clean energy
for the last 20 years in this laboratory
we are actually focusing on our
research on solar fuels
solar fuels including like hydrogen like
methanol
which are produced from renewable energy
mainly from a solenoid and so uh
the the one thing i really here to
tell you is uh we recently successed
uh to uh make a demonstration industrial
demonstration on solar fuel production
in the large scale as large as a
thousand tons
in north western part of china
and this is the first demonstration
on solar fuel production in industry
which is a from solar
energy from pv and of course i
also can get energy from 1d and
hydro and to generate the hydrogen
from renewable energy using the
electrolyzer within the advanced electro
catalyst
and so the next step you use this
hydrogen
to convert co2 into methanol
or some other uh chemicals like
alcohols and also some higher
hydrocarbons
and all these are called solar fuels and
so this through this way we can
not only produce the renewable
solar fuels but also we can store the
solar energy
so people call this kind of a project as
liquid sunshine
that means you store the solar energy
into the
into the barrier so that is a
one thing we will just succeed in that
in china as a first demonstration
and the second thing i would try to
share with you is that we uh
uh in china we we are very happy to have
this
government police to encourage energy
clean energy and the renewable energy
that puts the renewable energy as a
first
priority in energy policy so
that means now the renewable energy
particularly
clean energy like hydrogen energy become
popular and is becoming popular in china
so the people in china industry and also
academia
are working on clean energy clean
hydrogen
growing hydrogen and so the hydrogen you
of course you can
uh obtained from uh from natural gas
that is not really clean but we are
trying to
get hydrogen from water what splitting
and
using the photocatalysis of
photoelectric catalysis or electro
catalysis
and so the hydrogen has become popular
in china because
many industry people are developing
hydrogen fuel cell technology and so
they're moving from the the the
the hydrogen is called the ground
hydrogen which is from
fossil resources now moving to the
renewable energy from water you can get
hydrogen through electro catalysis and
so this is a
very very good thing because the
government
they're really in china encourage
renewable energy research and
development
and so try to reduce the co2 emission as
much as possible
and so now i think
i watch make some suggestions on
try to emphasize some points and
we should in this field we should do
more
international collaboration and
among our members of rmi
and also we should
emphasize the fundamental researches and
to understand
how we can efficiently obtain the
hydrogen
clean hydrogen or solar fuels from
renewable resources like a solar
like a one day like hydro and
another interesting another good news i
want to share
this aspect i want to share with you is
chinese government the real support the
research on fundamental and
risk understanding of
solar fuel studies and so for that case
we
fortunately we we are supported by the
national science foundation of china
and the real launch uh center
so-called artificial uh photosynthesis
sensor in
in our laboratory that will be the first
center especially for solar fuel
research uh through artificial
photosynthesis in china
and so uh this is a really you know the
big
news for us and i want to share this
good news with you
and this we are really you know
support us support people in this
laboratory
to make big effort in hydrogen
production
solar fuel production and from the
fundamental researchers
and so finally i watch
thank you again so it's very happy to
be here with you and i really wish
through this platform
we get more uh practical collaboration
between our members and also the
collaboration between academia and the
industry
for this research we have to strengthen
this kind of
collaboration thank you very much for
your
for your attention thank you
so uh professor lee thank you very much
for those inspiring insights into your
work in solar fuels
your liquid sunshine uh hydrogen and
artificial photosynthesis some very very
topical important issues where indeed
international collaboration i'm sure
will be increasingly important
we come now to uh our next speaker uh
next champion
phil de luna uh from canada he is the
program director of the materials for
clean fuels challenge program
in the national research council of
canada he leads
a multi-disciplinary collaborative
research program
to develop made in canada novel
materials to decarbonize canada
and i think he's uh if i'm right but
you'll correct me phil you're the
youngest ever director in history of the
canadian national research council
yes well thank you so much patrick for
that invitation or for this introduction
and i'm so honored to be here with other
great clean energy innovators
um i was brought here to talk about my
my journey in innovation and my my
journey started
at the university of toronto where i
started my phd under the supervision of
professor ted sergeant
i was supported by a scholarship from
the government of canada
where i worked on similar to professor
lee
on electro fuels and electrochemicals
produced from
co2 the idea is to take carbon dioxide
from
the air and to source and make all the
chemicals and fuels that we need and
the hard to decarbonize sectors to
actually get
the carbon from the air rather than
fossil fuels from the ground
during my phd i had the opportunity to
publish uh
excellent works and and lots of papers
in in the space
and additionally i had the opportunity
to try to scale my technology
as a finalist in the carbon x prize the
carbon x prize is a 20 million dollar
international competition to capture and
convert the most co2
during my phd we had applied and with
the
support of the provincial ontario
government we were actually able to
demonstrate and scale up a prototype
unit
again in collaboration with xerox
research center canada
highlighting the public private and
government partnership in order to
actually show a demonstration
of our technology of our electrochemical
co2 conversion technology
by doing this we were able to make it to
the final round and at the end of my phd
when all was said and done
i had the opportunity to think about
taking this technology and starting a
company with it
now for all the cleantech innovators on
this call and everyone else out there
listening
we all know how difficult it is to start
a company in cleantech
oftentimes it's not the technology
that's a limiting factor but rather it's
the market
it's the opportunity it's the timing and
during that opportunity and during that
time i had a great conversation with my
my supervisor and and we agreed that the
timing just wasn't quite right
around this time i was i also had the
opportunity to apply for a position at
the national research council of canada
which is canada's chief research and
technology organization
to lead and start a brand new
collaborative research program called
the materials for clean fuels challenge
program
and that's where i am today so
part of this journey going from
scientist
to innovator to now director at the
national research council
has really shown me the importance it
takes for
public private and government
partnership in not only funding but also
in technology development
to help take innovative approaches from
the academic labs or from startup
companies
and to partner with governments in order
to help scale this up
and bridge the valley of debt and that
mid trl
so that's the that's the goal of my
program today my program has three
thrusts
co2 conversion clean hydrogen production
and artificial intelligence for
materials discovery
in co2 conversion we're trying to take
co2 from the air
or captured from flu sex sources and
convert it
into chemicals and fuels renewably using
renewable electricity
with clean hydrogen production we're
trying to create new catalysts
for clean hydrogen production either
through electrolysis or methane
pyrolysis
and with artificial intelligence for
materials discovery we're building a
brand new national lab in uh near
toronto
where we'll be focused on accelerating
the discovery of these catalyst
materials
using artificial intelligence and
robotics building self-driving labs
to help us accelerate the pace of
discovery even further
so i i wanted to highlight and think
mission innovation
and all of the the important work that
needs to be done on a collaborative
international scale
i i echo the comments from professor ken
lee
uh the need for international
collaboration the need for fundamental
research science
and the need for a partnership between
academic public and private sector
to help move these technologies further
so thank you very much for having me and
again i am humbled to be here alongside
of fantastic innovators from around the
world
thank you well phil that was great thank
you
enormously i mean you've really inspired
us with your personal journey and
obviously it's a journey which is only
beginning and that you have many i'm
sure
brilliantly successful years ahead of
you as you sort of forge a path between
the different
uh actors in the uh research and
innovation landscape so uh
you know good luck with that and
congratulations again on your position
um we move now to australia and to anna
skabek
she is the ceo of a company called
climate works australia working to
develop a low-carbon economy by
partnering with business and
government to unblock barriers to
implementation
former banker green policy advisor anna
has led climate works since i think its
creation in 2009
um analyzing emissions reductions
opportunities and partnering with
business and government
uh to unblock barriers now but i'm sure
uh anna you're much more
uh articulate and convincing than i am
in describing your
personal journey so we're keen to hear
it please anna
thank you and good evening as it's
midnight here in australia
um i tonight will uh
explain the story of my organization and
uh the focus of our work in supporting
net zero emissions by sector
through convening co-designed pathways
and catalysing implementation
and i'll describe our theory of change
and give an example of one of our
current programs
which is convening heavy industry
collaboration in australia
focus on very large corporates we've
heard about startups
today but i'll describe our work at the
bigger end of town and also describe
my observations on how investment can
support innovation
with best effect if it's combined with
demand signals not just supply side
investment in technology so i will share
my screen
now just to walk through some slides
um here we are hopefully this will
work
do you see my screen
see that you do um
is that better
climate works australia is funded by
philanthropy
based at a university operating as an
independent think tank
a non-profit evidence-based independent
advisor
committed to accelerating the transition
to net zero emissions for australia
and southeast asia pacific we were
co-founded in 2009
by a philanthropic foundation the maya
foundation and monash university
and we work within the monash
sustainable development institute
we act as a bridge between research and
action
analyzing net zero pathways for
governments businesses and investors and
helping facilitate the conditions for
implementation
to support the transition to a
prosperous net zero emissions future
we're very much focused on the
deployment of technology
uh to support its adoption once
commercialized so we've heard of other
commercialization story and
pathways and my experience is at the
other end of the spectrum of how do we
ensure that they are widely deployed
i often talk about um you can lead a
horse to water
but we will have to help it drink if we
are going to achieve sufficient
decarbonisation
in time to achieve the paris agreement
goals and that needs
much more rapid uptake of the
technologies that have already been
uh commercialized as well as more more
rapid commercialization of those that
are emerging
so we study the barriers to adoption and
how to unlock those
our focus areas are our geographic
region australia
and our neighbours in southeast asia
pacific we have staff
in jakarta and indonesia as well and we
focus on
these seven systems the physical economy
through cities food land food and land
in particular
energy industry and the enablers of
decarbonisation
actions in those technological sectors
through economies and government whole
of economy government policy
the financial system and again whole of
economy financial
sector policy and corporates as
institutions
themselves and the investors and
superannuation funds that can influence
the decarbonisation strategies of large
corporate
companies our theory of change
is to develop a gender setting research
that takes up the back casting approach
of what is the end goal net zero
emissions and a low carbon economy
and then use that to build the case for
action
and apply that analysis to
the specific jurisdiction or sector that
we're working with
and then focus on the implementation
facilitate the key stakeholders from
that sector and identify what are the
enablers to unblock those barriers if
these technologies exist
why are they not being taken up in the
economy and we
we unpack each of those and the barriers
are quite different for different
technologies
we then engage closely and directly with
decision makers
and their and the intermediaries who
influence them
and we follow that up with capacity
building we find that even when the
right commitment is made at ministerial
or ceo level
it it can take much greater support
inside the organization for the capacity
to deliver that commitment
through all of this is a
multi-stakeholder participation approach
and so convening at the sector level the
industry peak bodies the banks and the
investors the regulators
the policy and political representatives
with producers and consumers of the
technologies that
that either produce the emissions or can
decarbonize
and community leaders and the research
and
uh deploy the research and
commercialization community
that convening uh is where the
philanthropic funding comes in that is
obviously not an academic pursuit
that can receive the traditional
academic sources of funding
but it is highly time intensive and
highly valuable
because most of these organizations
don't come together otherwise
for the purpose of discussing achieving
net zero emissions
but when we when when we create the
space they do come
so here's an example we've recently
launched the australian industry energy
transitions initiative
working with our partners across europe
the energy transitions commission and
american research partners with the
rocky mountain institute of australian
research partners at the csiro
and our convening partners climate kick
we have convened 11 of australia's
largest
industrial companies to focus on the
hard to abate sectors
of our economy and we will spend two
years guiding this group
through research and analysis
implementation and engagement on the
learnings
and the development and in particular to
focus on early action projects to
overcome
the implementation barriers and help
these organizations do collectively
what they can't do individually focusing
very much
on the potential for hydrogen in
particular
um as a growth industry in australia and
as a decarbonization
opportunity for these companies that
currently
represent um 14 of australia's emissions
uh very very large emissions emitters
these these
10 largest companies here
for context australia's industrial
supply chains are significant
globally as well as locally australia is
the world's
largest ion or exporter largest oxide
producer
largest aluminum exporter largest
lithium
exporter and on track to be the world's
largest
lng liquid natural provide natural gas
exporter as well
so it is extremely important that
australia
can support its large established
companies to decarbonise
these existing industries and so we are
bringing the research community together
with the companies themselves
and the investors australia's largest
superannuation fund and one of the
largest banks
to craft these pathways for net zero
emissions supply chains
in these sectors
what have we learned from this so the
innovation support
needs a push and pull measures where the
push is often the traditional
funding for the technology itself the
investments necessary for the
development
of the cleantech but the pull is the
demand signal creating
the market signal that sends the
incentives
for the supply chains to invest and
respond so that is
to show the producers of the technology
that there will be a buyer for it
at scale this can include governments
using their own procurement power
setting direct procurement criteria for
private sector to use
for example mandating the share of clean
technology
in the production of the supply chains
but also in using
traditional investment programs rather
than use them as grant rounds to use
them with reverse auction style
funding rounds that attract a larger
business scale
response for technology rollout for
example supporting multiple providers at
once through a competitive program
which catalyzes a supply chain scale
response
which survives the life of the grant
round through creating its own
momentum and bringing the costs down
during the deployment
in short moving from innovation to
system transformation
involves three stages
make it work that is support the
demonstration and analysis
make it real so link it to the real
economy
through the relevant uh context whether
that's profit
health jobs investment the other
priorities that are
relevant to the producers and end users
of the company's involved in the supply
chains for these
these new clean technologies and thirdly
make it stick and these are the pull
measures the demand signals the
structural incentives that will support
the widespread implementation
it could be the creation of of financial
return through government subsidies or
other
um credits and incentives it can be
regulation to mandate
usage targets it could be industry best
practice frameworks which are working
well for us in
the natural capital agriculture sector
at the moment and have begun to work
well in the financial sector
it can be social licensed transparency
measures but without those three
we find the commercialization effort at
the commercialization journey is
incomplete
if it hasn't moved through to widespread
adoption
and that is where uh my team at climate
works um
have spent most of our efforts and
that's where the multi-sector
sector convening plays a very important
role in bringing together government
with the industry groups and the users
and the consumers
that's all i have time for today thank
you
very much indeed for sharing that very
rich
presentation of your experience bringing
together business and government to
overcome barriers to innovation and uh
the complexity of all the moving parts
that you have to work with i mean
a really impressive success story
and we now move to the next phase of our
round table today with the
government representative drew layburn
who is
assistant deputy minister in the energy
technology sector at natural
resources canada drew will also have the
pleasure of introducing our two
young innovators who are going to round
off our panel but before that i'm sure
he's going to give us
a great perspective on the approach that
canada and the canadian government
brings to this uh
encouraging uh innovation space
particularly
uh your commitment to mission innovation
we all have fond memories of the
ministerial
uh when we were still able to meet face
to face in vancouver
a few months ago and canada's commitment
to mission innovation is extremely
strong and welcome so uh drew you're
extremely welcome and uh
please the floor is yours thank you
patrick it's a pleasure to be here even
if it is virtual
um in my role i oversee most of canada's
investments in r d for clean energy
technology
so advancing canadian breakthroughs in
collaboration with our international
partners
and this past summer i had the pleasure
of participating in the mi champions
ceremony
so i'd like to start with a big thank
you to all the mi champions who
graciously took time today to share such
insightful remarks the work that you are
all undertaking across a wide variety of
disciplines is truly inspirational
i believe that your involvement in
mission innovation will help to
accelerate the pace of change because
your ideas
your innovations and your breakthroughs
represent some of the most promising
clean tech solutions to date
the global transition to a clean growth
economy is gaining momentum even as the
world tries to contain the copic
pandemic
and limit its economic impact
governments are coming up with economic
plans to protect jobs
to help people who've been laid off and
to support businesses during this
difficult time
but transforming our economies toward
lower emissions and cleaner processes
is as essential as ever and to do this
we need the hard work and the creativity
of people like the mi champions who
spoke today
i am so encouraged by the participation
in mi
we all know that mi is about building
relationships the multilateral bilateral
connections
that help to ensure a smooth transition
to a clean energy future
through inclusivity and collaboration
that means having the benefit of a
diversity of voices in the development
of policies
that can move our countries forward
canada is committed to inclusion and
diversity and that's why
as host of last year's and mi
ministerials
canada underscored the need to harness
the full participation
and leadership of women indigenous
peoples and youth
in particular we were proud to host the
first parallel youth program that ran
alongside the ministerials
we were impressed and inspired by the
collective expertise the energy and
ambition
that those youth delegates brought to
vancouver and their participation has
paved the way for a more open and
inclusive approach to these
international meetings
encouraging greater intergenerational
collaboration
i commend the youth who are stepping
forward you are demonstrating to today's
world leaders that you are an
indispensable
part of the global push towards a
low-carbon economy
we are very lucky today to have two
youth representatives here
to share their vision and experiences
akshai mukher
and helen watts mr mukher is the founder
and ceo of climate solar
and representative of the sdg 7's youth
constituency
he's an experienced energy entrepreneur
and innovator and under his leadership
climate has become a global energy
company with offices in india
and chile for his commitment he was
named to forbes's
30 under 30 asia and was an echoing
green climate fellow in 2019
then we'll hear from helen watts student
energies director of innovation and
partnerships
she oversees student energy's global
fund development and collaborates with
over a hundred public private and civil
society organizations
she is the founder of student energy's
global youth energy outlook
which is the largest data set of youth
perspectives on the energy transition
and which will launch at cop26 next year
helen was recently named one of canada's
top 25 environmentalists under 25
and she was also instrumental in
bringing youth to our ministerial last
year in vancouver
we'll hear from akshay first so akshay
the floor is yours
thank you good evening and good
afternoon to everyone
my name is akshay marker and i'm
delighted to be part of
this event i'm extremely honored to be a
delegate in such a steam group
i'm excited to share my story about how
i started and
planned we have to create a more
sustainable
decarbonized and energy efficient future
i am today representing climate and the
solar
a solar thermal company based in india
and an office in chile as the ceo of the
company
and also honored to represent sbg 7
youth constituency
before elaborating my vision towards net
zero and what we are doing at calamita
i'm delighted to speak about sdg 7 youth
constituency
the constituency is a great platform and
official engagement
engagement platform for the young people
on energy topics
at the united nations including the
sustainable energy for all
which is also known as se for all and
high level
the political forums so i recommend the
youth those are engaged in the energy
domain to join the group
my journey started in 2015 when i
graduated from the university holding a
mechanical degree
at calamitanza we are working to develop
a clean airy solution for the industrial
application
we have seen the evolution of solar
photovoltaics and wind energy
to power the world in a renewable and
clean manner but what about the
industries
usually when i am asked what is the
motivation for me to build the climate
enza
and develop the solar thermal solution
for industries it's basically the
innovation that i want to use as a tool
to drive this uh new energy solutions
according to a study that was published
in united states
uh energy administration it states that
industrial sector accounts for 54
of the primary energy demand across the
world
and out of that 90 of the energy is
being produced by burning of the fossil
fuels
imagine how much amount of the carbon
emission is being released
by this when i graduated i wanted to be
a part of this renewable ecosystem
but uh already the market of the solar
photovoltaics and the wind
was crowded so uh i wanted to use my
innovative thinking and the mechanical
engineering to develop a new brick
breakthrough solutions
one such solution is concentrated solar
thermal
the solution has been in the market
since long time but has majorly been
only used for residential
as well as for the cooking purposes not
for the industrial purpose
however we at climate enza believes that
the solar thermal
has a huge power to play in the
industrial sector
especially in the topical countries as
well as those countries that have high
solar radiation
this usually include the western and
southern parts of india
northern chile australia middle east and
various parts of the latin america
the goal of using the solution in
industry is to improve the energy
efficiency
which could be much better than the
boilers running right now
also reduce the amount of dependency on
the fossil fuels which is high cost uh
when compared to the concentrated solar
thermal at scale
additionally reduction in the carbon
emission is a major
benefit that will be delivered by the
solar thermal solution
we are focused on improving the overall
efficiency
and at the same time in innovating the
financial mechanisms
that will make it easy for the
industries to adopt these solutions
we are today working with some of the
largest clients in the world which
includes the nestle
as well as some major pharmaceutical
companies in india and
mining and mineral companies in chile we
are also working with leading academia
in india
to innovate a new solar thermal storage
solution
that would be live by 2022 uh providing
dispatchable
24.7 energy for the industrial
application
this would not only reduce their uh
dependency in the daytime but also would
provide a complete
full uh solution for the solar thermal
and
running their application at last i want
to
want to conclude by saying industrial
sector is critical
as much as the power sector therefore
the government
privates and academia should collaborate
together
and plan uh the new solutions as well as
policy about how we can decarbonize the
industrial sector
as well as accelerate towards the
climate targets of 2030 to build
this uh sustainable and uh decentralized
decarbonized industrial future thank you
so much
thanks very much actually very very uh
inspiring success and uh and uh
good luck for the future but i quickly
pass on to uh
our last speaker uh helen um you've been
introduced
uh you have the last word absolutely
um and thank you so much uh patrick and
drew for your introduction
i'm so delighted to be here for my
second year attending mission innovation
um very differently this year of course
i'm very delighted that also speaker
alongside so many inspiring innovators
and other organizations
um so my name is helen watts i'm the
director of innovation and partnerships
at student energy
and student energy is a global youth led
organization we empower young people to
accelerate the sustainable energy
transition
we work with a network of 50 000 young
people in over 120 countries to build
the knowledge skills and networks that
young people need to take action on
energy
so personally i actually come from a
background of community grassroots
organizations and global migration
policy
um and those are areas that for me used
to feel very disconnected from the
energy technology and climate science
space
uh and that was until i found a platform
for me to bring this knowledge to
energy systems change work so i came
across student energy when i was still
at university
um kind of in the same way that students
often connect to new opportunities
through my friends and networks that
felt that there was something about this
organization that i would connect with
it was a good example of how effective
peer-to-peer engagement is to really get
young people engaged on climate and
clean energy
at a young age from whatever academic or
knowledge-based background they're
coming from
i ultimately pursued a career in student
energy because i felt really
passionately about the mission of the
organization and about empowering young
people
to shape their futures and despite my
limited technical knowledge
and limited work experience being a
recent graduate student energy actually
trusted me in a leadership role
where i went on to work with
organizations around the world advocate
for meaningful youth engagement
and design programs with our partner in
youth network
um now at 25 years old i've had the
opportunity to design the first youth
sustainability advisory board for one of
the world's
big five technology companies um i've
had the opportunity to co-found a youth
social entrepreneurship incubator for
young people
working on green growth solutions um and
as previously mentioned started the
world's first global youth energy
outlook which i'll share a little bit
more on
um but my story is one that i share with
many young people in our network to
really encourage young people to pursue
opportunities to work on clean energy
innovation
regardless of their background or level
of experience and to really internalize
the value of bringing those diverse
sources of knowledge and their own lived
experiences to this challenge
i look at my story as well as an example
of how critical it is to trust young
people to lead on their ideas and
innovations
and see them as key partners in
achieving the energy transition not
simply as beneficiaries
because the fact does remain that on our
current trajectory we simply can't
afford to
leave out over two billion young people
um from the clean energy solutions that
we need
their solutions their lived experiences
their diverse sources of knowledge those
are all critical to bringing really new
integrated approaches to the challenge
and i know from my experience at student
energy
and my personal experience that young
people do want to be part of delivering
the solutions needed
not only the needed technological
solutions but also new approaches to
overcoming financial and adoption
barriers
to scale existing solutions identifying
code benefits between energy systems
change and other goals like gender
equality
and resilient health care building
public advocacy for clean energy to
impact consumer behavior
and educating children so that they also
see energy is an exciting space to learn
about climate solutions
so student energy has been working now
for over 11 years actually to make space
for young people
to lead on their clean energy solutions
um as mentioned
we had the opportunity to work with with
canada last year on mission innovation
and the clean energy ministerial to
bring the first youth program there
which was a great example of
intergenerational collaboration in
action
but we do a lot of this work with
governments companies and organizations
to ensure that young people are really
included meaningfully in spaces where
they can add value to our shared mission
uh so on that note i'm delighted to
invite all of you here today to engage
with us on the next phase of this work
to really leverage the opportunity of
youth led innovation um so over the next
year uh student energy will be working
to develop the global youth energy
outlook
uh and this will launch at cop26 in
glasgow
uh it closes a critical data gap that we
identified uh last year
um where there really was this missing
link between young people calling for
more ambitious action on climate
um and what young people were actually
asking for in terms of real policy
technology
and co-benefit-driven solutions for the
energy transition
so this will actually be the world's
first data set of 50 000 youth
perspectives on the energy transition
through 2030.
it's being led by 12 incredible youth
regional coordinators around the world
uh that i'm very excited to share more
on um
we are gathering uh and what they are
doing right now is working with
the global youth network to gather the
priority policy actions
technological and integrated solutions
consumer behavior changes and social
co-benefits that you
want to see in the energy transition
this will define the areas that young
people want
to work collaboratively with governments
and organizations on
and will really be a breakthrough moment
in equipping young people with a unified
and focused call to action
we'll be working with our global youth
network and actors in the energy system
to facilitate
collaboration around uh the um around
the energy transition plan that young
people
are building and to continue supporting
youth led innovation to accelerate the
sustainable energy transition
so hoping to work with all of you more
on that thank you very much
helen thank you very much and uh
congratulations on the work you're doing
in student energy and
and thank you for uh the bridges that
you've been helping us to build
in order to bring the constructive and
and sort of real-life experience of
young innovators into this space which
as you say
um is vitally important if we're to
achieve the goals that we're looking for
so we're really
keen to intensify and deepen our
collaborations with you
uh and excited to hear about the new
initiatives you just uh
you just presented so thank you very
much um and thanks to all our panelists
uh for the
rich and diverse perspectives that
they've shared with us today the
personal stories the journeys
the experiences that uh they have um
have lived um and what has struck me is
you know three words that all begin with
inter
so international uh mission innovation
is uh all about international
collaboration
uh building bridges learning from each
other and
and and increasing our impact uh through
collaborative international effort
interdisciplinary
bringing together different branches of
the research and innovation
community bringing them together with
business bringing them together with
governments and forging a sort of common
agenda
and also intergenerational i
particularly thank our last two speakers
for
reminding us and underlining the hugely
important contribution
that our young innovators are not only
making today
but we're making uh i'm sure even more
in the future um so thanks again to
everyone who's contributed thanks to all
our champions and congratulations for
your role
uh thanks to drew and uh for your
uh work and support for permission
innovation to ashley and to renew
for setting the scene in such an
authoritative and clear way
and we have now a little bit of time uh
20 minutes or so for questions and
answers um
i i'm not trusted to manage the
technology of that because it's uh
too complicated for someone of my
generation so i'm very happy to have
with my colleague
daniele croppone who um i'm
short has gone through extensive
training um
to ensure that he identifies the best
questions and passes them on to our
speakers
and then i'll round things off in 20
minutes or so uh
when we've had this question and answer
session so danielle please
thank you patrick well uh the floor is
open now for
uh questions from
participants uh the audience
uh please uh we would like to have your
feedback and any
particular question that you might have
to this
years
i don't see any at the moment
so if that is the case
uh perhaps we can get back
ourselves to the speakers and
and ask questions patrick i do have uh
one in general for uh for speakers that
were in the round table
on um whether the champions program the
mission innovation champions program uh
was uh did play somehow
uh helped in how
the champions program helped in the
journey of innovators so this
is the up to the runtable participants
the panelists to answer
that i don't speak them now
on the screen if our
friend in riyadh could readmit
the roundtable participants the
panelists onto stringyard please
okay great
so i like to start with the malak i mean
you find the champions program that
was somehow helpful in connecting with
other innovators and
also bringing you new perspectives
from around the world absolutely
uh thank you daniel uh yes
i i mentioned through my uh intervention
how uh the mission innovation
champion program in specific uh brought
in lots of uh visibility and
lots and also backed me up with uh
additional credibility from independent
organization to pinpoint
the innovative aspects of my uh
contributions on my solutions
uh also connecting to this group of uh
innovators around the world through
different platforms
uh brings and uh enlightened uh
ideas and inspiring sites additional
insights
into uh the innovator uh
thinking uh flow where where we learned
from
the advancement in china versus canada
versus
australia and we learn from each other
i think this is the main purpose of uh
such
programs connecting interchanging the
idea
and bringing people across the world for
the one pose which we are all
supporting which is the innovation in
clean energy
thank you my luck i would like to invite
uh
bill de luna
thank you i just wanted to say this is
of course
an unprecedented year and an
unprecedented time
i really wish that we could have gone
all together in person
and create our stories of innovation and
our shared our stories of
challenges together but despite this i
think
with the epidemic happening we're as
connected as we
never be um virtually and in other
settings
the mission innovation champions program
has
done so much to help elevate the message
and has done so much to help
connect me and my organization with
other fantastic people around the world
my only
other comment would be i'm excited to
see you all in person one day
after all this is over but this is
fantastic program
and it's very rare to see the presence
of other mission
or other innovators in cleantech to
share these stories with
thank you
uh bill could i perhaps take that
forward and ask another question to all
of you
um as you know we are preparing for the
ministerial
next week uh the key question for the
ministerial is you know what happens
next what's the next sort of phase in
the life of
mission innovation you know what does
mission innovation 2.0 look like
um i mean if we're thinking about
designing a future
champions program building on the
experience we've had so far with the
first two years
you know what's your advice to us what
would be the things that you think you
know have worked
well for you in the program um and apart
i mean phil of course i agree we'd have
loved to have you all together
in the ministerial in in chile and
unfortunately not possible but um
you know other things that we could
think about to make the program even
more
successful even more powerful and even
more useful to you in in building and
developing your
your careers and your professional and
uh and your journeys as innovators
if i if i may take a first step at this
question um i think
in the next generation of mission
innovation it would be amazing if we
could build more of a community
and then host more of these sort of
intimate workshops
speak to the leaders in each of the
different countries in each of the
different clean energy ministerials
to hear about the local challenges and
problems that governments face in
developing policy
and also hear from perhaps the
entrepreneurs and
the innovators in the social sector as
well
so that we can get different
perspectives from around the world
currently the the uh events have all
centered around in-person meetings in
the clean energy ministerial
which of course uh pre-pandemic or bc
before kovan as i like to call it
what would have been a perfect time to
do it however now that we
are in this uh post pandemic world it
would be fantastic if we could have
smaller workshops bring in amazing
speakers do it all virtually and get to
meet and interact
um at least online
okay thanks phil any other thoughts on
that um
uh have some of you had contacts for
example with your
colleagues from the first cohort of uh
champions and you know is there some way
that we can sort of try and
work on building a sort of an alumni
community of the success stories of the
champions program
um thoughts on that
i was going to build on fields comments
actually about the
community i have found that
the engagement that we've had so far has
been
only bilateral if you like like we've
each
been asked to say one one piece of one
story
but we've not been facilitated to have
the
um cross sharing between the innovators
we haven't
and obviously that takes more effort in
a virtual environment but it's possible
with breakout rooms and
but i think what would facilitate um is
is a more targeted
topic so the shared problem solving so
um
rather than us bringing our experiences
from where we are
into an open space actually creating the
shared task that the ministerials are
grappling with
um so you know for for example um
how will how will the world bring down
the cost of hydrogen
and the deployment for example and and
have have a dedicated
discussion with curated questions and
and
and uh engagement and and
and similarly obviously for other topics
that would be more relevant
and i would have i would appreciate uh
engaging more with
ministerial questions and hearing as
phil suggested the perspectives from
each
country so that we can take more
back to our countries from what we've
learned from
about the innovation ecosystems and the
policies that are working
as that's quite difficult to do in these
short
five-minute presentations yeah
no and of course the constraints of
working virtually like this is a is a
really
big challenge i mean we are working to
get you all together if we're able we
hope to have ministerial in
chile next uh next summer and then that
that does facilitate much more direct
interaction with ministers and um
and other you know sort of uh
policymakers engaged in the
uh maria you got a perspective on all of
this your experience as a champion so
far and what would you like us to see
doing better in future well
i think this experience is very very
very interesting for innovators and it
brings
us a lot of possibilities to to give our
developments known
to the ecosystem to the to the
innovation community and in this sense
it's very good
uh i would i am i mean i agree with the
rest of the innovators that maybe
workshops together with investors
or with public administrations in order
to work more concretely
on projects would help because we don't
we shouldn't forget that our mission is
just to accelerate the energy
transitions and this
in order to make things to do this it is
very important to
to invest in new technologies at
industrial scale at commercial scale
so all these meetings i am sure it will
help just to
to have a exchange of information
and and share experiences but in general
i am very happy to be here and i think
this
this is the right thing to do and and i
hope
we will succeed all of us thank you very
much
okay thank you um do any of you have
questions for us
i mean i realize we've been sort of
presenting you with this uh
challenging agenda making you present
your life story in five minutes which is
of course almost impossible
um uh maybe dr lee do you have a
a question you would like to address to
us yes as a sort of um
leadership of the mission innovation
community yeah dr lee please professor
i think you're mute professor lee
i'm afraid we're still not hearing you
i'm sorry it's still not working
maybe someone else has a comment before
we
solve our connection problem with uh
professor lee
phil you must have a question for us
sure actually why not so my question is
could you give us a little bit of a
teaser
into what mission innovation 2.0 will
look like
where are you in the development process
and is there anything that we can do to
help
you well already the session today has
been very helpful
um and i mean not only in in in sort of
harvesting
uh all the rich inputs that we've had
about your own experiences
but also in giving visibility to the uh
champions program as
a key component of the key success story
of mission innovation
so that we can you know make sure that
this uh very direct
engagement with the um sort of
community of innovators in the clean
energy space uh continues to be
a big dimension in the future work um i
mean
of course it's for the ministers to uh
share with us their vision next week
um but what i think is very optimistic
is that uh
there's already i think a very solid
consensus that mission innovation
is a a necessary and very valuable
um uh forum as a sort of global
catalyst for research and innovation
activities around the whole challenge of
clean
energy innovation um our guiding
principle thus far has been a sort of
collective commitment to double
publicly funded research and innovation
spending
so very much concentrating on the input
side and i think we made some really
good progress on that and we've got
another
side event tomorrow on tracking progress
for those of you who might be interested
in that
um but we need to take it to a new level
and what we what i think you'll see
is that we shift the focus away from the
inputs you know how much money
money are we spending to more you know
what are we achieving together what are
the outputs you know what are the sort
of
top line goals the the sort of missions
of mission innovation if you like
and can we identify some really powerful
themes
where international collaboration can
really uh add a dimension of necessary
value and i think that
um you know that's certainly something
that ministers will want to be talking
about
and we have a huge opportunity with the
ministerial meeting
uh in uh in chile next summer and then
leading up we hope to a sort of
crescendo of uh
commitment uh in the um in the cop
uh the cop 26 uh later in the year and
that's the moment when we'll sort of
mark the transition from the first
five years of mission innovation into
the into the next stage so
uh but but there'll be an open an open
segment of the ministerial um
meeting next week and it's uh uh you'll
be able to connect and follow the
discussions that ministers are going to
have on the next stages
so i think it'll be building
consolidating the successes that we
already have
around the different thematic work but
also identify
identifying a few areas where we can
really take things to a
new level of engagement with some really
strong uh political leadership coming
from different mission innovation
partners
and i think that you know the challenge
for all of us is to see how do we
get um the uh different
you know components of mission
innovation including the champions
program
being as sort of visible and central uh
to all of that as possible so you know i
really thank you again
uh for your commitment so i think i mean
in a way that maybe
serves as a sort of i'm supposed to be
wrapping up in three minutes time
and so thank you for your question which
has given me the opportunity to get
very excited about a subject which i'm
really passionate about
um but but also i mean thank you all
again for your
contributions today um uh for me
the the champions program uh and the
work we're doing with
uh with the community of investors uh
including the
the young investors and the other
speakers that we've we've had in today's
panel
is a a really necessary way of
connecting
with real life i mean it's easy for us
policy makers to
sort of imagine that we're doing good
but it's also very important for us to
hear from you that directly where we are
doing good
uh and where we can perhaps do even
better so thanks to all of you
thanks to everyone who's been watching
and listening um this is a really
good start for me for the sort of side
event program for the ministerial next
week
other events in the pipeline in the
coming days as i said um and look
forward to seeing you all again
very soon i hope in in person um
and if not before in the ministerial in
chile
next spring so thank you all very much
thanks for everyone who's been watching
um and i'll draw things now to a close
so
thanks a lot goodbye
you