The Co-founder and President of Vancouver-based Takachar is one of only two Canadians, and the only person from British Columbia, included in the second cohort of Fellows at Breakthrough Energy, the climate organization founded by Bill Gates.
The announcement and honour for Kevin Kung comes as BE Fellows expands its efforts to find new scientific ways to cut worldwide greenhouse gas emissions from 51 billion tons a year, to net zero.
Kung’s Takachar received much of its early assistance through entrepreneurship@ubc’s HATCH Venture Builder initiative. Since then, it’s been on a fast path to awards and recognition for its small-scale, low-cost portable equipment that converts waste biomass into solid fuel, fertilizer and other specialty chemicals. While pleased with the honour, Kung is quick to point out that his work comes out of a collaborative effort with Yankai Cao and Shahabaddine Sokhansanj at the UBC Biomass and Bioenergy Research Group.
Breakthrough’s Global Fellowship Program is aimed at providing funding and mentorship for the world’s top innovators as they work on new technologies in the battle against climate change.
“To succeed, these leaders need a uniquely tailored set of resources and that’s why we created the program,” said Ashley Grosh, Vice President of BE Fellows. “We are very excited to welcome this group into our second cohort and support them as they take on our most pressing clean technology challenges.”
Takachar’s role is focused on reducing the logistics costs of hauling wet and heavy biomass, by using a thermo-chemical process. The company says its tech addresses several of the UN’s sustainable development goals such as cutting 700 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, reducing biomass induced wildfires, and increasing net income for many of the world’s communities by creating a market for crop residues.
Kung will join 62 other leaders from around the world who are working on 30 breakthrough technologies in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This Fellowship announcement comes as entrepreneurship@ubc explores new ways to help innovators accelerate their approaches to solving many of the challenges impacting the global future.
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