The CleanTech World Tour that just launched in July is the first initiative trying to create a worldwide network of entrepreneurs, startups, and innovators focused on clean technology, which is why ST is proud to be one of the principal official partners. At the heart of this project, Camille Rigaud, a marketing mentor for IoT companies in France, and Loic Bordes, an electronics engineer, are our STM32 ambassadors, and the architects reaching out to various clean tech actors across the globe, to bring them together to solve problems.
They will offer technical expertise using our local ST offices, and they’ll also benefit from our partners as well as local network to accelerate the initiative. Loic and Camille are currently in South East Asia, but they will also travel to New Zealand, Polynesia, and South America, in the hope of forming a truly global network that not only understands the specific needs of each region, but that can also bring concrete solutions.
For multiple decades, our commitment to the environment and the conservation of natural resources has shaped our company and our activities. In 2000, ST already ranked first in environmental management among 14 semiconductor companies, and Pasquale Pistorio, a former ST President and CEO, famously coined the phrase “green is black”. At the time, many thought leaders believed that green technologies and environmentally friendly operations would tank revenues, but very early on, ST understood that it was actually the opposite and that the road to profitability led to efforts to save our planet. And it hasn’t changed. Last year, we published our 20th Sustainability Report showing that over two decades we reduced our water footprint by 73% and our carbon footprint by 75%. One could thus say that it was in our DNA to support the CleanTech World Tour.
STM32 Joins the CleanTech World Tour
Clean technology is increasingly popular because it’s a new way to solve major world problems and create wealth. Clean tech designates any service or product that leads to a reduction in the consumption of finite natural resources, thus solving problems such as climate change or the destruction of ecosystems, among others. It is different from green tech or sustainability since it also includes technologies that can improve productivity or reduce costs. They don’t necessarily have a direct impact on the environment, but can indirectly lead to a reduction in the consumption of fossil fuels and natural resources. Clean technology is, therefore, a vast domain that tremendously benefits from embedded systems and connected solutions.
It was thus natural for Camille and Loic to approach ST, and it was exciting for us to show how we could contribute to the project. Although they will not be installing embedded systems themselves in the field, they are STM32 ambassadors that will show what our platforms can do for the people they meet around the world. For instance, in North America, the PlacePod is a parking sensor that helps drivers shorten their commute, thus improving their quality of life and reducing carbon emissions. A similar project in Europe from Wizzilab shows how easy it is to go from our development platforms to a marketable product. STM32 is also at the heart of a power network that brought electricity to rural areas in Rwanda.
Ewazte: A First Case Study
The CleanTech World Tour was essential to us because, through the efforts of Loic and Camille, it helps us better reach new entrepreneurs. For instance, they will get to use our local offices and teams as they reach out to new partners that we may not already know. In Indonesia, they recently met Gamal Nasser, founder and CEO of Ewazte, a company that describes itself as the “Uber for trash”. The country suffers from a waste management crisis, and Ewazte acts as a middleman between companies and treatment facilities. The idea is for corporations of any size to contact Ewazte through a mobile app to sell him their trash. In turn, Ewazte resells the garbage to recycling plants and other factories that can reuse the materials, thus creating a virtuous cycle.
The project is still in its infancy, but we can imagine that STM32 modules could help Ewazte keep track of its fleet, harvest valuable data through sensor boards, or make garbage bins smarter to automatize the collection process, as is already the case in smart cities. This example also shows the power of the network that could come out of the CleanTech World Tour as various actors that wouldn’t have met otherwise can now combine their solutions to better the world. Furthermore, the countries that Camille and Loic will visit all have strong mobile infrastructures, making them great places for embedded platforms and IoT systems. We just can’t wait to see what projects the CleanTech World Tour will find on their way to Hanoi, Bangkok, Santiago, or Bogota, among others.
Word to the Wise
As we sat down with Camille before her trip, she noticed one thing:
“As more people talk about the CleanTech World Tour and get involved, we [Camille and Loic] see it take shape and see people write new stories to make the world a better place. By talking with ST, we saw that there was a real interest and need for what we’re doing. As a result we wanted to thank ST for supporting us in this endeavor and pushing us to challenge the people around the world to find new clean technologies for today and tomorrow.”
We wish Loic and Camille the best and will follow their journey. However, there’s still an important question: What will you do to make the world cleaner and better? Projects like the CleanTech World Tour are essential, but we also know that our partners don’t need to travel around the world to recognize the challenges surrounding them and to come up with creative solutions for a cleaner planet.
Start Clean
ST continues to make our microcontrollers more efficient, affordable, accessible, and powerful, as we recently saw with the launch of the STM32F7 and H7 Value Line. We also help developers get access to easy-to-use IDEs like Mbed or free and popular alternatives like System Workbench for STM32, and our STM32 Community will be a support, a strength and a great place to face the challenges that will come your way.
We also offer a vast array of sensor boards to better perceive the world around us while many of our solutions, like our Cloud-Connectable Discovery Kit, or our LoRa and Sigfox modules, will help bind the platform together and connect it to a cloud. Finally, STM32 Open Development Environment greatly simplifies bringing all these tools together around an application by offering open source code, free algorithms, and example applications to jumpstart projects.
The only question left is: “What will your CleanTech be?
- To know more about the CleanTech World Tour, visit Hit The Innovation, the project’s website.
