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Addressing Energy Poverty through Innovations in Delivery

Speakers

  • Senior Vice President of Social Impact, The Huffington Post
    Brian Sirgutz is Senior Vice President of Social Impact at AOL/Huffington Post Media Group, where he leads all aspects of the company's impact content and engagement strategy. Brian created the Impact, Education, TEDWeekends and Good News verticals that reach over 20 million people on a monthly basis and is leading the development of social impact-related business and product development innovations on the Huffington Post’s platform. Prior to this he was a founding member and President of Causecast, a pioneering firm specializing in social impact technology platforms. Brian also is an advisor to the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation.
  • Managing Director, Capricorn Investment Group
    Dipender Saluja is a Partner of Capricorn Investment Group, and a Managing Partner of the Technology Impact Fund, founded to demonstrate that it is possible to invest profitably while driving sustainable positive change. The firm strives for extraordinary investment results by leveraging market forces to accelerate large scale impact, and some of the past and current investments include Tesla, Planet Labs, QuantumScape, SpaceX, Innovium, and Helion Energy. Prior to Capricorn, Dipender was Chief of Staff at Cadence, a global market leader in electronic design, where he built and managed businesses that worked closely with electronics companies around the world. Prior to that he worked at Data General (EMC), Honeywell, ROLM (IBM), and the GF Energy Research Center. He is an electrical engineer by training, and attended UND, Univ of Minnesota and Stanford. Dipender serves on the boards of AST, Automatiks, Encell, Innovium, Joby Aviation, Navitas, QuantumScape, RayVio, Raxium, Saildrone, and Sense, and is a member of the Leadership Council of Cyclotron Road, and on the investment committee of PRIME. He is based in Palo Alto, California.
  • Partner, LGT Impact Ventures
    Jasjit brings global investing and operating experience to his role at Agni, a company focused on sustainable energy. Prior to Agni, Jasjit helped setup Omidyar Network – a leading early-stage VC fund – in India. At ON he led the Access to Capital practice and managed several successful early stage VC investments in cleantech (including Agni), agribusiness and healthcare companies. Jasjit has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, a Master of Engineering in chemical engineering from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Technology in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
  • Founder and CEO, Hybrid Social Solutions
    Jim Ayala has worked on economic development issues in emerging markets for 29 years in his various roles as social entrepreneur, CEO of a listed company, management consultant and trustee of several non-profit organisations. He believes that business and investment capital have an essential role to play in solving urgent social problems by working with communities and other stakeholders to scale up social innovations at the base of the economic pyramid. Jim is a Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year and Ernst&Young EOY Philippines.
  • Programme Manager, Shell Foundation
    Simon runs Shell Foundation’s Access to Energy Programme, which has the goal of helping to provide access to modern energy services for the poor. Before joining the Shell Foundation in 2000, Simon worked globally in a broad range of business and development roles, with experience in start-ups, multinationals and non-profit organisations.