The Three Buckets of Water Conservation with Kim Baker, Senior Director of Innovation at Elemental Excelerator

Hardware to Save a Planet · 2 Mar 2023 · 47m · Episode 22

What this episode covers

Kim Baker, Senior Director of Innovation at Elemental Excelerator, discusses the organization's role in funding and supporting climate tech startups, with a specific focus on water conservation hardware. She outlines three key areas for water innovation: supporting existing municipal infrastructure, extending access to off-grid communities, and addressing emerging contaminants like microplastics. Baker highlights portfolio companies such as Century, Source Global, and Matter, detailing their specific hardware solutions and deployment models.

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • The Hardware Entrepreneur · 34m

    #065 - How to care about sustainability to get rid of plastic bottles (and still make a profit), with Moritz Waldstein of Mitte, Germany

    Moritz Waldstein-Wartenberg, co-founder of Mitte, explains how his company replaces plastic bottled water with a home purification system that adds essential minerals to distilled water. He details the company's journey from a Berlin fab lab to a €10.6 million funding round, highlighting the strategic use of Kickstarter and Indiegogo to validate demand and attract investors like Manifesto Ventures and Kärcher. Waldstein also discusses the technical innovation of using heat-pump distillation to mimic nature's mineralization process and the organizational shift to agile 'work streams' to manage multidisciplinary hardware development.

  • The Spark Gap · 57m

    The Spark Gap - Episode 36

    Hosts Carl and Corey discuss their favorite entries from the 2015 Hackaday Prize, focusing on projects that address serious issues like water conservation and food production. They highlight specific hardware components such as the LS7366R quadrature counter and the Cypress FX3 USB controller, while reviewing projects like the Urban Kitchen Garden, Smartlet power outlet, and a light electric utility vehicle for Sudan.

  • How I Built This · 38m

    HIBT Lab! SOURCE Global: Cody Friesen

    Cody Friesen, founder and CEO of SOURCE Global, explains how his Arizona-based company uses hygroscopic nanomaterials and solar energy to extract drinking water from atmospheric humidity, creating 'hydropanels' that produce up to 5 liters per day. Friesen details the thermodynamic principles behind the device, the choice of materials that concentrate vapor 10,000 times, and the company's strategy to become the world's first renewable, fully-digitized drinking water utility. He discusses the business model, which includes selling panels directly for around $2,000 and offering water-as-a-service contracts to institutions like the Navajo Nation, while addressing the challenge of high initial costs against the long-term value of decentralized water access.

  • The Builder Circle · 18m

    For Hardware Startups by Hardware People: Building The Builder Circle with Host, Sera Evcimen

    Sera Evcimen, a mechanical engineer and startup mentor, explains the mission of The Builder Circle podcast to support hardware founders through case studies and practical advice. She details her background working on diverse products like satellites and robotics, which led to her hypothesis on common hardware failure modes. Evcimen outlines upcoming affordable resources, including 'The Building Blocks' strategy packages, designed to democratize high-quality hardware decision-making for startups with limited budgets.

  • Embedded.fm · 1h 10m

    74: All of Us Came in Sixth

    John Shook, a manufacturing engineer and hobbyist, discusses his experience as a semifinalist in the Hackaday Prize with a remote water consumption monitor. He details the technical challenges of sensing municipal water meters using a 3-axis magnetometer and the necessity of rigorous documentation to win over judges. Shook also reflects on his past wins in the Mouser 500 Challenge and Circuit Cellar contests, emphasizing the value of open-source hardware and public domain releases for community learning.

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by Hardware to Save a Planet. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.