Rob Rhinehart: Promoting Engineered Staple Food Is His Game

Rob Rhinehart, the founder of Soylent, belongs to the new breed of food pioneers, thanks to his creation of Soylent. This is classified as a food product, not a dietary supplement, by the Food and Drug Administration, thus, its consumption as a staple meal for adults.

Soylent is touted as an effective solution to address the issues of food quality and shortage as well as malnutrition – or as the manufacturer says it, maximum nutrition for the body with minimum effort required. Rhinehart created the food product with sustainability and efficiency in mind considering the issues about food production and waste in the United States.

The food product consists of several ingredients chosen for their rich nutritional value including soy protein for improved digestion; algal oil for energy; isomaltulose for sustained energy; and a blend of vitamins and minerals.

But Rhinehart is not resting his creative mind with just Soylent. He has also announced another version of the food product – Soylent 2.0, which are offered in recyclable bottle. Each bottle of Soylent 2.0 represents 20 percent of a daily meal plan.

In the first version, Soylent was sold in powder form with the users adding water before consumption with each mixture representing a full day’s ration; the cost-efficient nature was in its favor. In the second version, Soylent 2.0’s recyclable bottle form may be less cost-efficient in terms of shipping costs but its benefits more than offset the costs; Soylent 2.0 does not require refrigeration and does not spoil for at least one year after production.

According to Rhinehart, Solent 2.0 is designed to appeal to a wide market, such as people who want to use it to bridge the gap between meals or who want to skip the preparation part.

Rhinehart’s company, Rosa Labs, have funding support from various investors including Lerer Ventures and Andreesen Horowitz. So far, the company has shipped over 6.25 million meals.

Hahna Alexander & Matt Stanton: Harnessing Foot Power

In 2011, Matt Stanton and Hahna Alexander together with a fellow classmate in the mechanical engineering program of Carnegie Mellon University were engaged in a school project. In it, the trio was instructed by their professor to create a product that students in campus will benefit from – and the result was a shoe with embedded LED lights and with the capacity to harvest energy, thus, allowing its wearer to travel more safely especially at night.

And thus was born SolePower, an innovative shoe insert that harvests energy with each step made by the wearer. Energy transfer occurs when the heel hits the ground, which cranks a tiny rotor, induces an electrical current transfer to the wire coils, and charges a lithium-ion polymer battery pack located on the shoelaces. Tests conducted shows that a 15-mile walk can generate sufficient power to charge a smartphone.

Stanton (CEO) and Alexander (CTO) has gained the financial support of Project Carnegie Mellon’s Project Olympus, AlphaLab, and various investors on its Kickstarter campaign.

Casey McNeil: Recycling REEs Is His Game

Casey McNeil, the founder of REEcycle, has so far raised $130,000 in non-equity staked cash and $160,000 in in-kind prizes but with his near-revolutionary technology, he is set to raise more funds from investors. His company establishes mutually beneficial partnerships with several companies mainly by providing these partners with reliable and profitable revenue streams while REEcycle secures a steady stream of rare earth elements (REE).

The result: REEcycle provides its United States-based customers with a more sustainable, secure and affordable supply of critical REEs. The recycling company’s customers range from government stockpiling agencies to REE wholesalers, all of which have benefited from the company’s innovative recycling of the elements used in several industries. Emphasis must be made that REEs are crucial components in the manufacture of a wide range of technologies including cell phones, hard drives, audio speakers, electric motors, wind turbines, and national defense systems.

REEcycle has created a more effective and efficient method of recycling the permanent magnets present in these products. These magnets, which are known as the strongest of its kind on Earth, contain neodymium and dysprosium; these REEs are highly valuable materials that are extracted in a more eco-friendly method from the electronic waste collected by REEcycle from its partners.

The recycling of these two highly valuable materials has another benefit – the United States has the opportunity to import lesser quantities of these elements from a single country (i.e., lesser dependence). Currently, China supplies 90% of the world’s neodymium and dysprosium production.

The company recycles the REEs by collecting the discarded magnets from the electronic waste. The external nickel-plating is removed, the remaining materials grounded, and then placed into a recyclable solvent mixture. The magnets’ iron and boron components are separated from the neodymium and dysprosium, which are packaged for shipment to U.S. manufacturers. The secret behind the innovative method is the patented solvent.

Katie Anderson: Water Conservation Is Her Passion

Katie Anderson, the founder and CEO of Save Water Co., built on her familiarity with the real estate industry to establish her company. Her main goal: Become a leader in providing effective and efficient water conservation measures.

Today, Anderson has been instrumental in saving half a billion gallons of water in and around Houston. Her company fixes and retrofits water systems in residential structures, mainly apartment buildings, in the city. Her motivation for water conservation lies in the increasing importance of water in the arid western states of the U.S. especially in places with high oil and gas fracking activities; fracking requires plenty of water for successful mining.

Anderson’s entrepreneurial spirit is being used for the common good considering that experts are warning about water shortages worldwide including the United States. She has assembled many of the best experts in energy, education, science and technology, and agriculture to promote Save Water’s goals.

Brennan Potts: Tapping into Non-operated Oil and Gas Assets

Brennan Potts is a co-founder and managing director of Titanium Exploration Partners, a Dallas-based investment firm with its main focus on the acquisition and development of non-operated gas and oil assets across the United States. He leads the evaluation and implementation processes for many of the private, independent equity-backed oil and gas companies located in the Anadarko Basin and Eagle Ford Shale. His focus also includes investments in other shale-rich areas including the Permian Basin, Utica, Marcellus, Niobrara, and Bakken.

Potts is also in charge of the investments from idea generation to opportunity sourcing and strategy execution – truly, challenging tasks for the young entrepreneur. With his investment style, Titanium Exploration Partners’ investment platform has a strong financial foundation that investors, customers, and stakeholders demand. His investment decisions have contributed to Titanium’s flexibility in pursuing investment opportunities with the goal of asset acquisition.

He and his co-founders saw the opportunity that came with the boom in fracking especially in the Eagle Ford Shale, one of South Texas’ energy-rich areas. As part of an emerging class of energy entrepreneurs, Potts seized the opportunity by co-founding Titanium in his home; the company first $20 million investment was made on his kitchen table.

Titanium Exploration Partners has so far raised $300 million via private equity funding as well as acquired interested in more than 100 wells and 25,000 acres of oil and gas-rich lands. Fracking is one of the most capital-intensive businesses, which explains the constant push for more investors and investments.

Potts is a veteran of the oil and gas industry even before he co-founded Titanium Exploration Partners. He was the Vice President of Titan River Energy and he was also involved in business development at Upland Oil & Gas and Valor Petroleum. He is a graduate of Baylor University as well as an active member of the ADAM Energy Forum and Dallas Chapter of Young Professionals in Energy.

Andrew Augustin: Becoming an Inspiration for Many in Game Development

Andrew Augustin, the founder of Notion Games LLC, is a passionate game designer, creator and artist of several successful games including Super Ubie Land, Team Notion, and Up Up Ubi, and Up Up Ubie Remix. He is also known for his passion in teaching video game design and development in Austin’s public school, an advocacy that has gained the attention of the business and education industries.

In 2012, Augustin founded Notion Games with the goal of bringing 2D games to the general public or the masses. Together with his employees and management team, he hopes to inspire young and old alike to become actively involved in game design and development.

Augustin has also created many memorable videogame characters including The Sims 3 Pets. He has also been featured in various industry publications including Nintendo Force, Pure Nintendo, Black Enterprise, Advanced Photoshop, and The Source. He has won numerous awards including The Best Graphic Designer in Austin for Super Ubie Land.

Jeffrey Rosen: Humble Bundle Is His Bragging Right

Jeffrey Rosen, the co-founder of Humble Bundle, is an unassuming guy but when it comes to Humble Bundle, his passion for combining videogames and charitable endeavors shines through. In 2010, Rosen co-launched Humble Bundle, a digital game store with a revolutionary idea in a capitalist market dominated by fixed pricing – customers are invited to pay whatever they want for low-budget indie videogames and to specify the amount by which the creator, store and charity will be paid.

Then, most industry insiders believed that it was suicide. Now, Humble Bumble is a recognized leader in the “name your price” industry – and it is saving and changing thousands of lives in the process via its charitable contributions while making profits in the process.

According to Rosen, Humble Bumble allows its customers to give all of their stated payments to the charities that they like. The customers trust the company in terms of actually giving their donations to the pre-selected charities and feeling good about their purchases.

From indie games, the company has expanded to selling videogames for major publishers as well as music and audiobooks; among the major publishers in its online store are Warner Brothers and Electronic Arts. The Humble Bundles are usually offered on a semi-regular basis in a 2-week period with the bundles often containing bonus media or games offered in the middle of the week; the bonuses are usually available for customers who have either already purchased the applicable bundle or paid more than the average price.

The Humble Bumble now has several charities benefiting from the sales including Children’s Play, the American Red Cross, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The company has raised over $50 million – and counting – for charities in the last 4 years of its operations – and that’s when it clicks for Rosen and his team that, indeed, they are doing something good for their fellowmen.

Eric Migicovsky: Giving Smartwatch Competitors A Run For Their Money

Eric Migicovsky, the founder of Pebble Technology Corporation, was inspired to create his Pebble Smartwatch because of his annoyance at the chirping sounds of a smartphone. He launched the most successful Kickstarter project to date with Pebble, his e-paper smartwatch, when he raised $10.3 million between 11 April and 18 May 2012. He has since gained the support of Silicon Valley venture capitalists who invested $25 million in his company.

The Pebble Smartwatch was first sold in Best Buy in July 2013, which sold out within 5 days. By 31 December 2014, Pebble Technology Corporation has sold its millionth watch.

Such popularity is due to the wide range of useful features and functions on the Pebble Smartwatch. These include a programmable CPU, memory and storage; vibrating motor, accelerometer, and magnetometer; Bluetooth; ambient light sensor; smartphone notifications; gaming apps; and activity tracking, among others. When the smartwatch is connected to either an Android or iOS device, it can also display emails, text messages, and incoming calls, as well as social media notifications.

Erie Meyer and Aminatou Sow: Providing Women in Tech an Open Venue

Erie Meyer and Aminatou Sow became tired of the refrain about women’s relative absence in the technology industry in comparison with their male counterparts. As an answer, the duo co-founded Tech LadyMafia, a Listserv and membership group exclusively for women in technology.

The site provides its members with the open venue to brag about their accomplishments, exchange tips on wide range of subjects, and brainstorm on projects, all with the underlying goal of providing that, indeed, women in tech do exist.

Today, it has more than 750 members from various parts of the world from California to China; it started with just 40 members. Its two women co-founders are also active in the technology industry – Sow is the digital engagement director of IAVA, an organization that provides support for veterans; and Meyer is a senior advisor to the Chief Technology Officer at the White House.

Interested women can choose from a series of mailing lists on the Tech LadyMafia website as well as apply for membership. When you become a bonafide member, you will instantly gain access to a network of women in the technology industry who can become your source of inspiration, contacts, and resources as well as your possible mentors, confidantes, and event planners. Think of Tech LadyMafia as the more sophisticated version of LinkedIn albeit for a specific cohort.

The brag Listserv feature not only encourages women to brag about their notable accomplishments but also provides inspiration for others about their own capabilities. According to Sow, women who read about the accomplishments of their fellow women in technology are more confident about their own abilities.

The job board is yet another useful feature since it provides women with the opportunity to expand their personal and professional networks. Members can tell other women about job opportunities, desired connections, and other networking possibilities. Even men have been used to log on to the site to look for suitable women employees through the job board.