3.10 On Obliterating Entrepreneurial Underprivilege with Holistic Innovation Support with Deepa Lounsbury

In this episode, Deepa and Amy discuss ways to support underrepresented entrepreneurs in climate tech and “making the umbrella bigger for who gets to be a climate entrepreneur,” along with the reality and challenges in the entrepreneurial space.

Quotes

“Underrepresented people are underrepresented often because they are undersupported.” – Deepa Lounsbury

“Bringing that productization piece is almost as important - or just as important - as the technical solution in and of itself.” – Amy Simpkins

Deepa is the CEO of LabStart, which unlocks underrepresented entrepreneurial talent from diverse communities and breakthrough climate innovations out of our national labs and institutions. She has spent the last 18 years bringing innovative clean energy products, programs, and initiatives to life. This includes bringing a new residential battery product to market at Enphase Energy, building out the $24M California Sustainable Energy Entrepreneur Development (CalSEED) program to fund early stage entrepreneurs, setting up GE’s first distributed energy platform, commercializing a demand side flexibility software product at a startup, and investing at one of the earliest clean energy venture capital firms, Angeleno Group. 

Deepa holds a bachelor’s degree in Business from the University of Southern California as well as a master’s degree from UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group.Resources:

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