Team:NU Kazakhstan/Human Practices
Human Practices
Human Practices
In order to understand the impact of our project, we wanted to look from different perspectives. We have spoken to one of the leading oil and petrochemical companies, accelerator coaches, government representatives, and scientists.Royal Dutch Shell PLC
We have spoken to Mr. Charles O.Holliday, Chair of the Board of Directors of Royal Dutch Shell PLC, during his visit to Kazakhstan about the future of fuel cells and hydrogen fuel. Mr. Charles O.Holliday plays a key role in the success of Shell as The Board meet regularly to discuss reviews and reports on the business and plans of the Company.Over the years, Shell has been involved in solving the key energy issues globally. “Shell has been involved in hydrogen production as well as in research, development and application for decades, with a dedicated business unit, Shell Hydrogen.” - according to Shell Hydrogen Study, Energy of the Future. Therefore, this meeting with the Chair of the Board of Directors of Shell was an important and crucial meeting to get the stakeholder’s opinion on the issue of hydrogen production, storage, and transportation. Some of the things we discussed was the future of potential biomass usage to produce hydrogen fuel and to replace the platinum catalyst in fuel cells. The general outcome of the topic was that Mr. Charles O.Holliday gave us an insight about the hydrogen fuel cell industry and spoke about the challenges that need to be solved before the hydrogen fuel industry can replace the fossil fuel industry. What we have learned after the meeting is that hydrogen fuel is clean and sustainable energy forms that is gaining more attention as the climate impact and environmental protection is taken under consideration for energy supply policies. However, for the hydrogen fuel to capture a significant share of the energy market, considerable time and high capital investment costs are required, which is why hydrogen fuel did not gain much commercial acceptance.
Considering the obstacles Shell Hydrogen put forth in the hydrogen fuel industry, we could foresee the future implications of our project. Therefore, the discussion with Mr. Charles Holliday helped us realize some of the real-life problems that need to be solved before hydrogen fuel industry is the major energy supplier globally. Some of them include but are not limited to hydrogen fuel production, transportation, and storage. Mr. Charles Holliday recommended to continue the project as it has a great potential to be the innovative solution to biomass hydrogen fuel production. He also supported the idea of using the carbonized biomass to replace the platinum catalyst. This meeting helped us to know the general opinion about biomass hydrogen fuel production from the stakeholders’ perspectives.
Also as a result of the meeting, we have been in touch with Shell Headquarters and after their recommendation, we have applied to Shell Gamechanger program for expertise and commercial support of our product.
Takeaway: Our team noticed that the hydrogen fuel production is the new raising energy resource and that there is an issue with efficiency, complexity of production, and time consuming processes.
Entrepreneurship specialists
Dan Balter is an experienced entrepreneur with a proven track record. He specializes in ecosystems and organizational development. Dan is an expert in acceleration processes and intrapreneurial strategies. As the Global Managing Partner of Duco, he creates breakthrough partnerships and works with clients in various industries around innovation strategy and entrepreneurial process. We were able to present our project to Dan Balter as he has experience with technology based startups. The input we got was to apply for a patent as our innovative technology needs to be protected before we enter the market. This is not only about protecting the technology but also a key factor in remaining competitive. Starting the patent application process with the help of Nazarbayev University Commercialization Office was the turning point for our project design, modeling, results, and etc. because the patent application is a comprehensive technology review process that ensures the uniqueness of our product.
Takeaway: We realized that our project is the innovative solution to real life issues in the energy resources industry and that the protection of our intellectual property is crucial before we continue to partner with stakeholders.
Anarbek Utegulov is the Director of the Business Incubator at Nazarbayev University. Mr. Anarbek focuses on the development and organization of the business incubation programs for early stage startups to help them turn innovative ideas into growth stage enterprises. The program provides such support as business education modules, personal mentorship, industry connections, subject area expertise and resources for prototyping / MVP development. He helped us to improve the operational moments of the project that includes the production, storage, and transportation of the nanomaterials and hydrogen gas. We have researched the key trends of R&D in the hydrogen fuel industry and with his help we have improved the applicability of our project in real life. His expertise helped to direct our project in a way that will not only be about conducting experiments in the laboratory but it will be possible to scaleup for mass production. Takeaway: The key to a successful project is thinking ahead of time and planning the operational moments of the project by considering all the aspects of the project.
Government Representatives
During the Startup weekend: Green Tech supported by the Mayor’s Office of Nur-Sultan, we were able to present our project to the representatives and organizers of the event. Such events are organized to motivate and inspire young scientists, philanthropists, and entrepreneurs to start their own Green projects or startups. Out of 75 teams from all over Kazakhstan, we were one of the Top Three teams that got chosen as the most innovative ideas. We received the support of government officials who think that our project has a great potential to advance the existing technology not only in Kazakhstan but in the rest of the world. The Director of Astana Innovations was very impressed by how far we have come with our project and awarded us with a prize money and an opportunity to participate in an international accelerator program by Seedstars for an Investment Readiness Program. Takeaway: The support of government officials is valuable as they recognize the importance of renewable and alternative sources of energy.
Scientists
Prof. Zhumabay Bakenov is a Full Professor in Chemical Engineering of the School of Engineering and Digital Sciences at Nazarbayev University. Prof. Bakenov holds a Doctor of Engineering (Chemical Engineering) degree from Tokyo Institute of Technology (2007) and PhD degree from Kazakh National Academy of Science (Physical Chemistry, 1994). Since 2010, Prof. Bakenov published more than 70 research papers in impact factor journals, obtained several domestic patents and two EU patents, and presented his research at more than 80 peer-reviewed international conferences.
We have spoken with Dr. Zhumabay Bakenov about partnering with the Battery Institute to produce our nanomaterials with the use of the furnaces and the possible integration of our nanomaterials in lithium sulfur batteries. This is a promising collaboration that opens up another possible field other than the hydrogen fuel and fuel cell industry.
Takeaway: The more diverse uses of the product means the higher the chances of having a competitive product in the market.
Damel Mektepbayeva is the Co-founder of Hoope which is an affordable medical device for painless and rapid diagnostic test for home use. She completed her graduate studies in Biotechnology at Singularity University in California founded at the NASA Research Park. Working in the biotechnology field and starting her own business, her feedback was essential to overcome all the obstacles biotech companies face at the early stages of the business. She listened to our pitch where we included the deal of our business, customer discovery, customer value proposition, market analysis, financial data, and the climate impact. She was impressed with how we have put together our pitch deck and our presentation but gave tips on improving the market validation. We had to be clear on how our project would impact our customers. We had to show the value of our product as clear and simple as possible so that our customers feel the need in our product. We were able to deepen our knowledge about how biotech companies are started and we greatly appreciate the input that Ms Damel gave us.
Takeaway: Market validation with simple and clear values of the product is the key to taking the product to the market.
Danny Ducat is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Michigan State University. His research works are focused in Cyanobacterial biology and biotechnology. Dr. Ducat aims to understand the phenomena, and other adaptive responses, that could lead to a better understanding of how to poise metabolism for maximal photosynthetic efficiencies and the most effective biological sustainable solutions. As our cyanobacterial strain is integrated with the Rhodopsin to increase the photosynthetic system and produce hydrogen gas, we have reached out to Dr. Ducat for expertise and advice in cyanobacterial metabolism. His paper titled “Rewiring hydrogenase-dependent redox circuits in cyanobacteria.” which focused on the possibility of increasing the hydrogen production within the cyanobacterial cultures by expressing the FeFe hydrogenase helped our project to correctly determine whether exogenous cytochrome is needed for our project’s case. Thanks to Dr. Ducat we also used the PAM and p233 plasmid he sent us for our project. Takeaway: Due to Dr. Ducat’s paper and feedback we were able to conclude that exogenous cytochrome is not needed for our project.