Meeting the Challenge of Increased Energy Demand: Opportunities for a “Clean” Energy Matrix?
Speakers
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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.
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Executive director, Chile Sustentable
Sara Larrain is Executive Director of the Sustainable Chile Program, a member of the Interamerican Network for Water and Life Defense, and a board member of the Internacional Forum on Globalization. Past roles include teaching at the Universidad Católica de Chile; co-founder of the Ecological Action Nacional Network; coordinator of the energy/atmosphere campaign of Greenpeace Latin America and the Energy Program of the Sustainable South Cone Program. She has participated in the design of public policies for the National Program for Energy Efficiency; the design and approval of a law establishing a quota of 10% of new renewable energies for 2024; the creation of the Environmental Ministry; Environmental Tribunals; the closure and restoration of mining sites and a law increasing to 20% in 2025 the mandatory quota of renewable energies. Today her team is working to guarantee the human right to water and the protection of glaciers in the Andes Mountains threatened by mining expansion.
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Chairman of the Board, Fundación Avina
Sean McKaughan has over 20 years of experience in the field of sustainable development. He is Chairman of the Board of Fundación Avina, a Latin American philanthropic foundation contributing to sustainability in 18 countries of the region.
Prior to his current role as Chairman, Mr. McKaughan led Avina’s executive team for seven years as CEO. During his tenure at Avina, Mr. McKaughan has been an advocate for inclusive business, the Amazon, social innovation networks, and the promotion of sustainability in Latin America and throughout the world.
Mr. McKaughan holds master’s degrees in Urban Planning and Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. He and his family have lived in Rio de Janeiro since 2001.
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Coordinator MapBiomas and SEEG, MapBiomas
Forest engineer, consultant and social entrepreneur in sustainability, forest and climate. Coordinator of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimation System of the Climate Observatory (SEEG) and of the Annual Mapping of Land Cover and Use in Brazil (MapBiomas), columnist for O Globo and Época Negócios Magazine. Visiting scholar at the Brasil Lab at Princeton University. He was General Director of the Brazilian Forest Service, Executive Director of Imaflora and curator of the Blog do Clima. Board or Committee member at Rainforest Alliance, Preferred By Nature, Imaflora, Institute of Energy and Environment and Santander
