Entrepreneurial Appetite
Entrepreneurial Appetite
Black Tech Founders: A Conversation about Gemini Energy Solutions with Anthony Kinslow II
Support the from A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship
Ever wondered how you can contribute to environmental equity while celebrating milestones? Join me, Dr. Langston Clark, as I turn my 40th birthday into a call for action! We are on a mission to gather 40 new donors for the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and I'm dedicating all podcast profits from June and July to this cause. In this special episode, we revisit a conversation with Dr. Anthony Kinslow II, an A&T alum and the visionary CEO of Gemini Energy Solutions. Prepare to be inspired by his journey from aspiring civil engineer to a leading advocate for environmental justice.
Dr. Kinslow delves into the stark realities of environmental injustices impacting Black communities, revealing how disproportionate exposure to pollutants and unreliable power infrastructure are systemic issues that need urgent attention. He doesn't just highlight problems; he shares innovative solutions through his work at Gemini Energy Solutions, focusing on community-centered clean energy strategies like resilient, revenue-generating microgrids. These microgrids not only ensure power continuity but also generate income for local communities, empowering them economically and environmentally.
We also tackle the uphill battle of securing venture capital for Black-led social entrepreneurship ventures. Dr. Kinslow and I discuss the challenges we face in the VC world, from navigating complex networks to overcoming funding barriers. Beyond business, we share personal anecdotes about the importance of escapism and mental health, finding solace in sci-fi and fantasy worlds as we continue our fight against climate change. Don't miss this enlightening episode, and remember your support can make a big difference—contribute to the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship today!
What's up everybody. Once again, this is Dr Langston Clark, the founder and organizer of Entrepreneur Appetite, a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting Black businesses. I want to welcome you to a special series of our podcast celebrating a milestone that is close to my heart my 40th birthday. As part of this celebration, I am setting an ambitious goal to gain 40 new donors for the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, an endowment that I co-founded to support teachers and educators who are on their journeys to get graduate degrees. For those of you who have joined our live discussions, you know that typically, 10% of the profits from the podcast go to support this endowment. However, for the months of June and July, I am thrilled to announce that 100% of the profits will be dedicated to the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship. If you are inspired to support this cause, a link to contribute to the endowment can be found in the show notes. We're asking listeners to generously support the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship to help more educators increase their education so that they can better support the students in our community. This special series will feature testimonials from A&T alumni who have gone on to earn their PhDs, sharing their journeys and impact of their education on their lives and career. It will also feature some new episodes from authors who have written books about HBCUs and a few throwback episodes.
Speaker 1:In this throwback episode, we feature a conversation with Dr Anthony Kinslow II, an A&T alum who got his PhD in civil engineering and sustainable design from Stanford University. Listen as Dr Kinslow discusses his latest venture as CEO and founder of Gemini Energy Solutions. I'm excited because y'all know I'm a hardcore North Carolina A&T Aggie and it just so happens in my journey of life. Listen, I find these folks who graduated from A&T who are doing amazing things, and it's not just because they went to. I mean, part of it is rooted in the fact that they came from A&T. But even if you didn't go to A&T, I would still be looking at you like yo, you're doing some dope stuff. Anthony still be looking at you like yo, you're doing some dope stuff. Anthony, y'all don't notice. But dr kinslow, dr anthony kinslow are you? Do you go like junior? Or the second, the second, the second? Okay, went to a?
Speaker 1:T, got a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and went on to get his phd and master's degree from stanford university in civil engineering and sustainable design. What's interesting is I know him from, I think are they your auntie, uncle cousin? It's my big cousin Okay, from his big cousins, dr Diana Berry and Lisbon Berry. They're a couple, and Dr Berry is a historian and she's like dean of UC one of them UC colleges. I can't remember off the top of my head, but she used to work at UT Austin where I was getting my doctorate, and she's been a guest on a podcast in our first season about her book A Black Woman's History of the United States, and so I want to just give Anthony this opportunity to talk about who he is, what he's doing. How did you become a civil engineer? And, just based upon what I read about you, are you a civil engineer and an environmentalist? Are you both of those things in one? And if you think of yourself in that way, how did you become who you are at that intersection of environmentalism and civil engineering?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, appreciate you. This is first off. Hold on, I got to start off right At deep, right At deep right, that's right. So, yeah, it's funny when you asked me how did I become a civil engineer? In fact, dinah's father was a civil engineer and he was, I believe, the first black civil engineer professor at UC Davis.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And so him and my aunt Belle, his wife, were always kind of like this is who I want to be. When I grew up, right, they were living overseas and traveling and doing all these amazing things. And when I got to college, my uncle, my great uncle, said hey, you like people and you like math, you should do civil engineering. And it was just that simple for me. I had no real inclination of what I wanted to do going into college, I just knew I was supposed to be going to college. And so civil engineering just kind of okay, I'll give it a try. And it ended up being something I love.
Speaker 2:I love the idea of being able to combine technology and structures and engineering concepts with humanity, and that's really what civil engineering is. And so when you asked me if I'm also an environmentalist and a civil engineer, I guess yes, but I would say to be a great civil engineer, you also have to be an environmentalist, and for me, you have to be able to understand the impacts that the environment is going to have on the structures that you're building, that you're constructing, and at the same time, you have to understand the impact that your structures are going to have on the environment and society, yeah, and so that that for me is like kind of a core of being an environmentalist is is recognizing those impacts and designing and and building for those impacts yeah or to mitigate impacts in some cases.
Speaker 1:So I find that interesting that your great uncle said that you like people and you like math. So do civil engineering, and this podcast is being recorded way before it's being released. I had a conversation with a fellow Aggie at Afrotech like two or three days ago, and she's getting her PhD from Hopkins. She's talking about how she's in a lab. She's biomedical engineer, her PhD from Hopkins. She's talking about how she's in a lab. She's biomedical engineer. She's in a lab and she's like man, these professors in these labs. They care more about the science than they do the people. She's talking about the toxic environments in these labs that she's been working in and she's persevered through that, but it's ruined her for academia. She does not want to go to academia. So my next question to you is and as I'm thinking about that is why choose to start your own business, which is Gemini Energy Solutions, instead of going into the academy or deciding to become an employee? Right?
Speaker 2:And so I got to give you, you know, all your flowers for going in that route. But I'm kind of in the same boat as her. Academia. It is a very I'll use the word vicious space. It has the potential to be a very vicious space. People talk about Wall Street and these kind of things.
Speaker 2:I'm like academia is on that level where you know it's just there's a lot of egos, there's oftentimes not an appreciation of what your work, how your work can impact people, kind of the ivory tower, kind of the ivory tower sitting on the ivory tower, the white tower or whatever. And you know you're talking and how people talk, how people engage. It's like they're separate from the rest of everybody. Rest of us, right, I say us, even though I'm kind of in that position with a PhD. Also, right, I can be in those spaces, I can move through those spaces. I just don't like to, quite frankly.
Speaker 2:And I also I do want to make a point that I think there's something about Aggies, folks that went to A&T and how they look at whatever work they're in and how it's connected to people and the importance of people generally but also our people, right, and understanding that black folks in America or folks racialized as black in America are fundamentally disadvantaged right, are kept from things, have monies taken from us, have access denied, like this is a daily occurrence. And so when we're in these spaces and we see this amount of privilege, the amount of money, the amount of opportunity in this space and at the same time the conversations never really seem to connect to the realities that we see and that we know our families see, I mean that's that's a hard thing to stomach, that's a hard thing to to take and still want to stay into that space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is a critique someone may have. Dr Kinslow, it seems like you come from a family of Black folk that have been well off. You know what are you talking about and I think even for us, like even a Black person who would offer that critique yeah, I don't think. Personally, I didn't understand the wealth gap until I got to grad school at UT Austin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely thoroughly middle class, dare I say upper middle class. But the wealth, the institutional wealth and the systemic wealth that is wrapped up in whiteness, is on a whole other level, like when you see the way that money is wasted is wasted on things that aren't people in white institutions. It's mind blowing. And so I would just offer that for the person who had the knee jerk reaction critique. Well, look at Dr Kinslow, look at you, dr Clark. Like y'all are doing.
Speaker 2:Well, yes, we are, but we're doing well by black standards. Yeah, that's what it is. It's horrible to say it like that, but the realities are the average wealth of a black household in America is one tenth that of the average are the average wealth of a black household in america is one tenth that of the average white person? Yeah, right, a white household. And so when you take that into account, we could be an upper echelon and still not even be average for a white person. Like, yeah and so, and it's interesting, I have diversity in my family from a socioeconomic standpoint.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have individuals who and I think being black, black in America means that is the case for you, absolutely there's. No, there's no black family. That just all got wealthy people. You got folks who've done really well doctors, lawyers, et cetera and you have folks who been incarcerated. You got folks who just never been out of Section 8 housing or just middle, low income, right, never had owned their own home, right, like these are this? Just the diversity that is exists within our, our households and, quite frankly, something that I tell my mentees when they're going into the higher academia space is there's going to start to feel like a gap between you and the people in your community that you were at before and and like, because your reality is what you're experiencing, what you're seeing, and them and you being away from them. That's going to create some distance and you got to work hard to keep keep them in your circle, because it's important for them to be in your circle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. And so how do you? How do you see your, your founding, or do you see your founding of Gemini Solution as an opportunity for you to stay more closely tied to the diversity that exists within black community, more so than what maybe an opportunity to work in academia would give? Is there a connection between you going the entrepreneurship route and wanting to stay connected to all types of black diversity that exists in the United States and maybe even globally that exists?
Speaker 2:in the United States and maybe even globally.
Speaker 2:You know, that's a great kind of observation and I don't think I've ever articulated it like that, but I think that did have a lot to do with it.
Speaker 2:Right, I early on understood that getting a PhD was in part, not just I enjoyed research, but in part it was so that no one could tell me I wasn't qualified for something. Yeah Right, and quite honestly, if we didn't have the racism and the injustices and the historical kind of precedent that we have in this country, I may not have ever gotten a PhD. Right, I enjoy research, but maybe not enough to have gotten a PhD if it didn't also seem to be something that I thought would open doors and create opportunities for me and, as I put it, have me educated enough to make impact on the scale that I wanted to make impact on. And so entrepreneurship for me is my ability to make impact, and it isn't the only way I want to make impact. I do want to go into academia eventually, and I want to go into politics eventually. I want to have impact in these different realms. But I saw entrepreneurship as kind of that first step for me of where I wanted to first connect and who I wanted to help in doing so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I looked at your slide deck in preparation for the interview and you had some compelling stats about Black communities and what I would consider environmental injustices. So talk about some of the things that you recognized as these injustices that exist and how your business, gemini Solutions, works to alleviate some of these injustices.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the three main stats that I have in there was that black communities are three times more likely, or black people are three times more likely, to die from exposure to airborne pollutants, that's one. Black communities are 69 percent less likely to contain rooftop solar, and black people are four times more likely to suffer power outages. Yeah, right, and there's a lot more statistics you can throw at it. You can talk about not just power outages, shutoffs, the frequency of shutoffs a higher in black households and it's not me and and this is even when you control for non-payments, so they're more likely to shut off a black household fundamentally sooner than they are a white household. Oh right, and they being utilities, right. So, like in every aspect of society, there's a statistic like that. Wow. And so for me, I honestly didn't realize. It's just like you know that you talked about the wealth gap.
Speaker 2:Getting to grad school, I didn't realize that there was a race issue in the clean energy space until I got to grad school, because at A&T there's plenty of black people who are in the clean energy space, until I got to grad school, because at A&T there's plenty of black people who are in the clean energy space and environmental space and are caring about this stuff.
Speaker 2:Right, and, and I also didn't realize how bad it was. I understood the social injustices, yeah. I didn't understand the environmental injustices and how they're so closely linked, yeah, right, and so for me, gemini Energy Solutions, what we are is a catalyzer, and in chemistry, a catalyzer is an agent that increases the velocity of a reaction without changing the end result or the end product. And, in layman's terms, we are accelerating or increasing the velocity of our clean energy transition by making it easier for black or brown people to be involved, of our clean energy transition, by making it easier for black or brown people to be involved in the clean energy transition. So that's like, at a bare minimum, what Gemini Energy Solutions is, what's founded to do and what is working to do.
Speaker 1:How does the power failure thing even happen To me? The power going off is not something that happens on like a regular basis for anybody, but maybe some folks. It is, depending on where you live, and I live in Texas. So we have what they call a snowmageddon, which shouldn't have been as bad as I anyways, I'm not going to go there but people's power went out, right, I guess. Make the connection for me about how that's, how that's like a, a huge like. Why would that be one of the three major stats that you would put on the slide deck?
Speaker 2:There's two reasons for that. First, what the why? Why is this happening? And there's two very simple reasons. The first is that when you think about the technology, you think about wires. Right, they are moving electricity to your home. Yeah well, just like anything, you have to maintain them, you have to sometimes upgrade them and utilities have a. You know they choose how often they do that, and how often they do that in some neighborhoods are less frequent than how often they do it in other neighborhoods. So if a tree falls down or if limbs aren't cut away from the lines or you know these kind of things, you simply just are more likely to have those have outages because of that. Yeah Right, so it's simply a maintenance issue on one hand.
Speaker 2:On the other hand, is divestment from infrastructure within majority black communities is a standard across this country. I mean Jackson, mississippi and the water that is straight from not putting money into fixing up and putting in new infrastructure, and so that's what you're having. Happen in cities across the country is that they're just not putting money into new infrastructure. I mean, my wife is from Germany and she's shocked to see that we still have lines above ground. Happen in cities across the country is that they're just not putting money into new infrastructure. I mean, my wife is from germany and she's shocked to see that we still have lines above ground. Yeah, like you think about all these hurricanes, tornadoes, everything fires, all this is happening and we have lines up in the air as opposed to in the ground, and it's just like other countries are just like, what are y'all doing? Like, but we haven't updated our infrastructure old school. So that that's the why. Why I put it in my deck is because we are directly trying to solve that issue by creating what we're calling resilient, revenue generating micro grids.
Speaker 2:Okay, and this is distinctly different than kind of a resilient hub.
Speaker 2:A resilient hub is something that is solar storage and when the grid goes down, you're able to maintain power because you got the solar in the storage right. And so that's been getting more and more. That's been getting more and more backing in, more and more interest in industries, resiliency hubs, and people understand that black communities are more likely to suffer outages, so a lot of people are trying to go into these communities to offer resiliency hubs, and my thing was that's nice and all, but that's not enough. Right, because I understand the environmental injustices and the social injustices and how close to their length. I recognize that just being able to keep your lights on is great, it's important, but it's not enough. These communities need more money flowing into them, and so this is where the revenue generating part comes into play, and so what we are developing is hubs that not only are resilient when those times when the power outage goes out, but they're generating revenue day in and day out as well, from either solar and or electric vehicle charging stations.
Speaker 1:So what I'm hearing you say is is this like decentralized electricity?
Speaker 2:Yes, we are decentralizing the grid. Yep, absolutely Okay.
Speaker 1:So have you heard of Helium Company?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like I have, but I couldn't tell you what they do.
Speaker 1:So Helium is a company they're doing like decentralized wireless and so essentially what you can do is you can buy a box and you can put that box in your house. It does two things right it gets long fi long Wi-Fi for IoT stuff, and then it has the radio box and the radio box provides like 5G wireless. But you buy it, you put it in your house and they pay you back with a cryptocurrency token and that's how. That's how they were able to get their people to buy in, because they didn't have the money to ship it to people. That's how they were able to get people to buy into it. They bought the materials, put it in their house, and the impetus for me buying is to say that, like I get the, I get the drip of the cryptocurrency every day as it works, as it's on their blockchain or make the connections.
Speaker 1:I'm not a scientist so I don't know. I just knock at the boxes in my house. So when I heard you say that, I was thinking about this. So how do you see, how do you see the the communities benefiting from the revenue generation? Is it going to go into individual homes? Is it going to go into a grant mechanism or to tax base, or how do you see it paying out in that way?
Speaker 2:So what we've done is we've made it so that we call community anchors are the ones that are owning and operating these hubs. So a community anchor for us is a trusted organization that has been active in the community and owns their own property. Yeah, all right, and so for for us. We're saying, hey, they know what the community needs better than we do. All right, so the revenue generation is going to them for them to use, to maybe expand their services.
Speaker 2:One non-profit that we're working with in south carolina, upstate circle of friends. They prepare meals for senior citizens throughout their community and and drive it to them. They do do pickup programs and stuff for the kids of their community and meal programs for kids of the community. I think they did like 20,000 meals over like a four-month period during the pandemic. So they're doing all this great work. They're building food gardens on their property and when they create this clean energy hub, which we just finished the feasibility report for them, they will be able to have revenue generation to expand their services, reach more people, be able to provide those meals for more people.
Speaker 2:They'll have electric vehicle charging stations, which means that their community can now start to look at purchasing electric vehicles because they got a place to charge them Right. Electric vehicles because they got a place to charge them Right, right, and so that is one way. You know that's indirect, but it is a way for one organization that's already been doing work to impact the community with that money Right. A more direct way is that you could have it where the community puts in $10, or someone in the community puts in $10, $20 and all of them all of a sudden have part ownership of this hub and are and receiving dividends each year or every quarter from the revenue generation.
Speaker 1:Right. So what you're saying is cause I remember on a slide that you had churches on there right Picture of a church, so the church can become your gas station. Yes, Right. Or you know, if I own a community center or whatever, it can become the gas station and then people in the community can you basically own part of the gas station.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so, like a church Glad Tidings International in Hayward, california right, the first project we started when we looked at what the money they can make. They can make upwards of a million dollars a year on electric vehicle charging revenue in the spaces that they have. I mean, can you imagine what that type of money could do for that community? I mean, and that's right now what they could be making? But and that's before everybody in California has electric vehicle yeah, it's coming, yeah, it's coming.
Speaker 2:And you know, bishop Macklin is, you know, a true visionary. He said we don't want just a few charging stations, we want to take over one of our whole lots and make it 20 charging stations so the whole community can use it. Yeah, right, because they recognize the not just the revenue potential, but also the need and most of the communities that we focus on. We focus on what we call Justice 40 communities, referencing the Justice 40 initiative that the Biden administration launched in 2021. And we say, hey, there's 13,000 plus Justice 40 communities in the country. We want to reach all of them by 23rd Wow, 23rd. And we want every single one of them to have a revenue generating microgrid for their community, whether the community itself owns it or their community anchor owns it and is using that to provide better services for the community. We feel that this is like just one essential step to starting to catalyze our transition to a clean energy future.
Speaker 1:So let me ask this question define a little bit more what? Because I had no idea about Justice 40. That's one of the things I have on my list to ask you, so I'm glad you went there. What is a Justice 40 community?
Speaker 2:overburdened with pollution, whether that be air, water or soil or all three and and, and the department of energy identifies a community as a census tract. So for those unfamiliar, census tract is essentially kind of a smaller version of a of a zip code, right? So, like every zip code has like four numbers after it if you look at it from like a UPS thing. Oh, yeah, the extra numbers, the extra numbers after the zip code, yeah, that's articulating your census tract, and there's about 73,000 census tracts in the US, and so of those 73,000, about 13% or a little over 13%, so 13,000 of those are just the sporting communities or communities that are overburdened with pollution or or have been historically disadvantaged economically, and the vast majority of those are black and brown communities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's, it's interesting you have Justice 40 and then you have this concept of 444. Then you have this concept of 444. And I was like that's Jay-Z. So talk about what this 444 means and how it relates to the concepts that you've been talking about in Gemini Energy Solutions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And I should also say that those justice-supported communities include indigenous communities as well. Yeah, indigenous lands say that those justice for the communities include indigenous communities as well. Yeah, um, indigenous lands. So 444 is, if we reach everything, one of those communities. We will be generating four billion dollars annually within those communities, four gigawatts of solar energy and for those who don't know how much, that is a lot and 4 000 local full-time jobs in those communities. Yeah, so 444 is kind of what what we see as as kind of like our goal and something easy to remember yeah, yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1:these are huge ideas and I think anytime I can read a book from someone who's an entrepreneur or someone who's a founder, they're always like I want to reinvent the way we do this. These are really global ideas and dreams. These things don't occur in a vacuum. They don't occur in isolation or on an island, so how are you able to get partners to help you do what it is that you need to do?
Speaker 2:partners to help you do what it is that you you need to do. Part of it is my personality, right. I get energy from people, so I'm I I love to engage with people, I love to talk with people, and and so it has been a lot easier in that way to start to have just sitting next to someone and just start talking to them, because you know, I can't not talk to someone if I'm sitting next to them and they end up being focused on something else and, understanding that, the how things are connected, I can instantly say, oh, you know, the what you're focusing on connects to my work in this way. Yeah, and I would love to talk about how we could you know I could bring you into our ecosystem because you're focused on wi-fi right, for instance. That's powerful because one the same communities that I'm serving also have issues with high speed internet, right. But the other aspect is, when you talk about the internet of things, right, or you talk about energy efficiency solutions, a lot of them need Wi-Fi right. So, like, all this is connected. So that's just one example, but so that's one way it's been easy to connect. The other is so I teach, I do teach.
Speaker 2:While I'm not a professor. I do teach at Stanford two classes one, racial equity and energy, and the other quest for an inclusive, clean energy economy. I co-teach these two classes because I do it remote and there's a faculty member that is in person there. There's a faculty member that is in person there, yeah, and we have guest lecturers, and so literally I find people that are doing some awesome things and I invite them to speak at Stanford and that is how I make those connections Right.
Speaker 1:That's why I started the podcast. That's why I started.
Speaker 2:There you go, there you go, Right. And so it's the same kind of thing where it's just like you know, that is one vehicle to to get to people who otherwise are like you know, you sound cool, but I'm too busy, Right.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm talking Stanford. Yeah, they love. Everyone wants to go talk, and we pay them for it too.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, we don't be like, oh, we're Stanford, you know, this is, this is what happens a lot of places like Stanford where they're like, oh, we're Stanford, you should just be happy to be able to speak here. In fact, the business school is it's not allowed to pay people. That's crazy, crazy. And the theory behind it is funny because the theory behind it is fundamentally economic and racially based. Funny because the theory behind it is fundamentally economic and racially based.
Speaker 2:Right, the theory behind is you're not going to play, pay someone like a bezos or someone like that because they got more money than god, right? So what does it matter if they're going to do what they're going to do? They're not motivated for the money. But they never thought to want to invite people who don't have money, who don't already have that, who's doing work on the ground, and so, because of that, it just shows that, the creation of that, it shows the limitation of their thinking and how that's been breaking up.
Speaker 2:Because it's a school, students I can credit, you know, some of them were my students and they they're calling and bringing environmental justice leaders into this space and and, and one of the things they're big on is like, how are we going to invite this environmental justice leader to speak about stuff that none of us really know about, but that is critical to an interesting, and not pay them any money? It's crazy. It's crazy. So this this is. You know, for us it was very important for us to be paying honorariums for, for the folks speaking and to get people who will talk real to the students and be honest and brutally honest with what the realities are, what the challenges are, and I think we've been really successful in that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the things that, speaking about money, I've done like a ton of podcasts with people who are into business and things like that and we hear this a lot, even on podcasts and all that stuff about the lack of funding and was it like venture capitalist angel investment into black owned businesses getting like less than one percent or whatever of that? So how are you, how are you able to raise money to do? Are you bootstrapping? Are you crowdsourcing? How are you getting it? Getting it done on the money side of things, have you found an altruistic venture? Is there venture capital for social entrepreneurship? That isn't. Here's what I really want to ask.
Speaker 1:We think about social entrepreneurship and I think there's tons. I think there's tons. Maybe not tons, but there's a lot of funders out there for people who want to do social entrepreneurship. As long as you're a nonprofit, what I very rarely see is people who want to do give money for specifically for social entrepreneurship that is for profit. So I'm assuming that Gemini Energy Solutions is for profit and not non-profit. Correct? Like how are you able to find the venture capital or the investors to invest in your business?
Speaker 2:So that is a great question. To answer your question, so far we've been bootstrapping, but I've come to the realization that bootstrapping isn't going to get us to scale at the pace that we at the time and the time that we need to. So I've actually started, you know, that conversation and working and having conversations with investors, and I want to bring up the. You know that the same percentage of black companies that are getting funded by BC is around the same percentage of black grad students in the engineering department school of engineering at stanford right, it's, it's below one percent, yeah, and stanford silicon valley that you know. This isn't a coincidence, right, a lot of this is a relationship based, it's, but it's also language based.
Speaker 2:I don't know about you, but doing a phd, it was like you had to basically learn a new language. Yeah, right, and part of them saying yes to your phd was that you learned that language and was able to operate in in how you talked about your work in that language, and the vc space is the same thing. You know, and you know that that is, and I'm like I got two kids now man, it was. It was hard enough to do the phd with. No, I got two kids now, man, it was hard enough to do the PhD with no kids. I got two kids and I got to learn another language, a whole other language.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm trying to learn German right now. I don't need to learn VC, so that is a fundamental challenge and barrier. People are listening for certain things how you say certain things, what you talk about certain things for them to determine whether that's something they want to invest in, whether that, whether you have the right stuff and those things do not often align with the solutions that we see as social entrepreneurs. Yeah, for me, I was the only us based solution to win. The mit solves global climate challenge okay and this is essentially.
Speaker 2:They put this, this challenge, in different categories climate was one of them, for social entrepreneurship, and I was the only US solution to win, and there's five or six other winners across the across the globe, and one of the things that I'm seeing there is there's a lot of people who want to talk about this, right, who love the idea of this, but there's a slow process to get the money, even after winning something like that. Right, it opens doors to conversations, but I haven't got any money yet. Right, and and you know, maybe when this comes out that would have changed. I'm hoping that is the case, but it has been a, you know, a relationship building In fact, I went to Stanford really helps.
Speaker 2:I know people in the BC space, right that I went to school where I'm like, hey, you know, can you give me a warm introduction to this company? Like, that is something I have that other people don't have. So I do have an easier route to it now that I'm working towards it. But you know, there's there's a fundamental issue of the language of VCs how they the formulas they see as what will be successful, and the fact that as soon as you start talking about communities of color as target audiences. They think that you're that, that you can't be scalable, or, and and not that you just can't be scalable, and that that you only work with them, not that you have the ability to work with them plus everybody else. Yeah, yeah, I, yeah yeah, um.
Speaker 1:So it's crazy. I'm not a tech person. My area is physical education. I'm not tech, but I went to afro tech a little bit these past days.
Speaker 1:Yo, there's a sister that went to a&t. Her name is shelly omi bell. She goes by omi bell and she started black girl vc or whatever she's like. She listen, you got to connect with her. I don't. I don't know what that was. I just gave it to Aggie Pride when she was up there on stage. I love it.
Speaker 1:But what I'm saying is she was just she was dropping nuggets about the language piece, about the connection. There's a thing that she says she was like when somebody who's a VC or an angel investor or whatever says how can I help? She was saying she was like oh, I need you to volunteer for this, I need you to do be on this panel to judge. She was like when that person says that they actually want to know how much money you need, and she was going through her process, she wasn't putting that together. So this this lends to my next question, right? And my next question is about the communities that you've been able to cultivate so far to support what you're doing. It doesn't necessarily have to be people who are in engineering or in tech. What does your community of support look like that keeps you going in business right now?
Speaker 2:from California in the middle of the pandemic and my home girl, dr Reagan Patterson, a professor at UCLA, had also moved the same month as I did, and so we're in DC, we both coming from California. She was at Berkeley, I was at Stanford and we said we got to create a community. We don't know people here like that. We got to create a community. So we actually created a wind down in it and had it every second and fourth Thursday for the past 18 months now, and and so those folks are people that work at the EPA, work at the DOE, work in nonprofit space, but focus on energy, environment and equity, and so that's one way that it's been. That's kind of that community that we built together has been one of the examples and we actually started organization, furthering relationships, relationships and energy and environment black freebie, and so that is one way that I'm kind of building community with people who are in this space, who care about equity, and so we're moving in that way.
Speaker 2:You know, for me it is maintaining relationships that I've had from A&T Dr Dusty Nock, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, dr Tony Reams, who's tenured now at University of Michigan but is currently working at the Department of Energy, and so talking with them, engaging with them, and has been really great for me and just keeping things moving in my head, keeping confidence going. And then I got a whole kind of community of just business folks, in particular black business folks, and most of them I met through the Black Engineer of the Year Awards BAYA conference, which is held every year and Dr Tyrone Taborn and his organization has been, you know, putting that on for almost 40 years now and you go there and it's just thousands of engineers, thousands of entrepreneurs, black folks who are just there and engaging, and so a lot, of, a lot of folks that I met there were like you should start your own company, right, and and then so there's all these different points of my life. Yeah, that I've met people and just held on to them. Yeah, and by doing so it helps.
Speaker 2:When you know you get tired, you get kind of disillusioned, you get just kind of, you know, like you want to just drop the ball right. You're just like you know what I just I can, I'm done enough or I've tried enough. And having these conversations, being around these people, re-energizes me, gives me more of that motivation and also, you know, reminds me that I'm not doing this by myself. I'm not in this in a vacuum.
Speaker 1:So I should have asked this earlier, but I got to ask and in my mind I call it the magic school bus. Can you talk about the magic school buses? Because I think, I think that was the most I don't. I don't want to say it was quirky, it was the coolest thing that I that I read in a slide deck what, what is the magic school bus? And you know what I'm talking about. What's the? What's the magic school bus? Oh, you are mute.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whoopsie, I'm muting myself. I'm laughing too hard while you're talking. So, wait, you're talking about in my slides where I talk about the school bus initiative. Yes, yeah, so there's been a huge push recently in certain circles for electric school buses and unfortunately, you know, the federal government, I think, just passed $10 billion or something for that, even though the thing to ask was for $100 billion. So, like, $10 billion sounds like a lot until you realize that they asked for a hundred billion, right, but my.
Speaker 2:So what we're doing at Gemini is we're saying, hey, there may be an opportunity for partnership between schools and community anchors, where the community anchor helps purchase the school bus for the school and then they get the revenue generation of the school bus charging at their site. Wow. So all of a sudden we start having where school districts they're right now they're going to pay for fuel, right. Right now they're paying for gasoline, yeah, and when they get electric school bus, they're going to pay for electricity. That's right. Where is that money going to right? Is it going to large or corporation, or is it going back into the community that they are there, that the children that they're teaching and learning are teaching and educating lit, and so I see there's this great opportunity here, and so that's one of the things that we're exploring having conversations with folks really in several parts of the country.
Speaker 1:I just want to ask that because it just stood out to me in Madison School, but so I know we talked about your community of support. I want to ask this question when we hear about funding or support financially supporting Black businesses, we hear about angel investments, we hear about VC, we hear about pitch competitions, but how can?
Speaker 1:like a regular person. Can a regular person invest in what you're doing almost the way that you could invest in what did you call it? It's the hub, energy hub, energy hub. Like, how do you? I guess there's two things right. I guess one thing is investing in the clean energy hub. That could be one part. But then is there also a part where you could invest in Gemini Solutions overall, like if I wanted to make a donation, I want to give, like I'm not a millionaire, I might be able to get five thousand dollars or less.
Speaker 2:like, how does someone, how could someone, invest in what you're doing right now to support what you're doing? Yeah, so there's there's there's mechanisms called crowdfunding right, that exist, but what they don't tell you is you have to have a certain level of revenue each month before they say, yes, you can be on our platform. So that's one thing we're working towards right now is to getting at that revenue threshold that they have for us to be able to be on those platforms so people can give money more easily, right, right, because there are the FCC rules and things around investment in companies and are you a certified investor and all these things. So it gets complicated. But you know, people can invest in my company right now and they it turns into equity when we do our series a round, and something that I really want to get to that we are not there yet, but I really want to get to is is make it where people can invest in a clean energy hub anywhere, right, so, like a platform that allows them to say, hey, I want to invest, I know that my money will go into putting a clean energy hub in one of these communities that are like mine, right, and maybe my community already has one, or maybe it doesn't, and I'm going to be trying to get it to mine. But I also want to just put money into it and get revenue back, right, and so I really want to explore how you know folks can do that, how students can put in five dollars or five dollars a month or something like that, and then when they graduate, they got maybe, maybe they're getting ten thousand dollars a year just from clean energy dividends because they put in that money as small amounts over time.
Speaker 2:So, like this kind of a wealth generation, wealth ability, are systems that we really need to have in place during this clean energy transition, because trillions of dollars are going to be coming through, a lot of money. Trillions of dollars are going to be coming through to transform the whole country. Right, we need to make sure that we don't. We aren't not only are we obtaining the technology that other people are attaining, but that we have part ownership in it. That's right, so that all those trillions of dollars are coming into our pockets. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to think about it.
Speaker 1:Like, I have this app called Fundrise and it's a REIT. It's like a REIT that's what they call it in real estate but it's basically like a 401k. Whatever I just look, a hundred dollars a month just goes in there, and I bought apartments in Los Angeles, a small percentage of it, and that's kind of like what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Get the app set up or whatever it'd be, I could buy 2% of a hub in South Carolina, even though I live in San Antonio, texas. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. So normally well, I don't want to say normally, because we kind of changed up the format of Entrepreneur Appetite. We used to just focus on books, right, and so we still want to stay true to those origins, and so my final question is going to be what books are you reading? Or what books have you read that have inspired you, keep you going, or that you would suggest for our listeners to read, and it could be as technical as you want. It could be your favorite textbook from undergrad, or the master's degree, or article that you read at Stanford about clean energy solutions.
Speaker 2:What's on your reading list. So I got to say I haven't sat down and opened and read a book since I had to read articles for my PhD. But I do so, like I say, I used to get in trouble for school for reading, like I used to love reading, and the PhD ruined that for me. It was that bad, but I do do audio books, okay, so so I'll throw out a few things. One it's not really a book, but a podcast that I've been listening to recently as I. It helps my kid fall asleep on my, my little infant, three month old. We walk around and listen to it and he falls asleep and and then I just stay and listen to it more while he's sleeping.
Speaker 2:And that is the think 100, the coolest show, okay, and that's by reverend yearwood and he it's all about environmental justice and decline 100 so clean energy, 100 clean energy and how environmental justice and that are hundred percent so clean energy, a hundred percent clean energy, and how environmental justice and that are are intertwined and and you know, to get to a hundred percent we need environmental justice, right, and so been loving that. Quite frankly, I don't read a lot in my industry. What I do is I read sci-fi and fantasy books. Um, I, I, uh. You know I have a whole list of audibles. Me and my wife just sit in and just binge on different fantasy books, authors like Brandon Sanderson, let me ask this question yes, please, please, please, is more helpful than reading your industry books.
Speaker 1:Because, like, think about, like Jules Verne's, what was it? 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea, that joint was written before the submarine existed. You know what I'm saying? The submarine didn't, wasn't created in some lab. It was created in this science fiction writer's imagination. Right, and so do you? Do you read these fantasy books or these sci fi books for ideas about what the world could be and how that that intersects with your, your business and what you're trying to create?
Speaker 2:No, and if I sit back and think about, there may be ways that it has helped me, but for me really it's a way to break away. I understand.
Speaker 2:You know, the space I'm working in is the intersection of climate disaster, right, like we are already seeing the small parts of that with the droughts, the hurricanes, the floodings right, it's only going to get worse and more frequent. So I understand the science about what's coming for humanity yeah Right, more frequent. So I understand the science about what's coming for humanity yeah, right. And I also see how people are so still willfully like ignoring it and keeping hold to their racist ideologies or their kind of perceptions of what people want or what people don't want.
Speaker 2:And so I'm like, in the midst of all this, trying to battle and say, hey, look, you know we need to change or else it's going to get really bad, really quickly, really bad. And so, for me, sci-fi and fantasy is like, just put my mind away from it for a little bit. Yeah, you go into a new world. Experience that new world, the, the humor, the, the, all the light nature of it, as you know, the battle, the, the space battles, and you know all these things. That quite frankly implies that we were successful, right, right, like the fact that these worlds exist, like these futures exist, where there are space battles to be had, says that we were successful in combating climate change, and so that's really for me is just to have a mental break away from kind of that daily struggle of the current realities that we exist in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. Dr Kinslow, thank you for taking this time to speak with us, my first time seeing you ever. Hopefully, if I ever get to DC, I'll crash one of your wind downs and learn a bit more about environmental justice and all that good stuff. Thank you for taking the time to be with us. Thank you, dr Clark. Agni Pride, agni Pride. Thank you for listening to today's show. As I mentioned in the introduction, this episode is part of a special series featuring voices from historically Black colleges and universities. Part of a special series featuring voices from historically Black colleges and universities. This is part of a larger effort to support the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, an effort that I co-founded with two friends of mine who are also on their doctoral journeys. If you would like to support this effort, please review the show notes to make a donation to the endowment. Thank you.