Green Entrepreneurs Assemble—The newsletter for green entrepreneurs and professionals.

A rising tide lifts all boats 🙂 

Hi, I am Akhoy, all the way from North-eastern India.

I put in 100s of hours every month to reach out and interview business people around the world, who are working towards creating a more sustainable future for the planet. Some of them are just starting, while others are generating millions in revenue. There are invaluable lessons you can learn from people at different stages of growing green businesses.

I live in a biodiversity hotspot myself that is undergoing rapid urbanization and deforestation (these two are BFF, to be honest). I understand the importance of successfully monetizing activities that are meant to protect the earth’s ecosystems.

Interestingly, there is very little first-hand content online on green entrepreneurship, which is why I decided to create this newsletter.

Podcasts demand a good deal of time to listen to, but the written format is easier to consume. I have also highlighted important words and phrases to make each interview a quick read.  

Without further ado, let’s welcome today’s guest—

Table of Contents

1. Backstory

2. Technology

3. Difference From Tidal Methods

4. About the Device

5. About the Device

6. About the Device

7. Business Model

8. Team

9. Funds

10. Biggest Challenge

11. Day-in-life

12. Collaborate with Andrew

13. “1 Minute Summary” of the Interview

(Note: I have preserved Andrew’s voice, but made slight edits for readability)

🟢Please tell me your backstory and what got you interested in this field.

I come from an IT background. I've developed myself in electronics from a really young age. I just enjoyed electronics, and my first job was at Microsoft when I was 19.

And then I just maneuvered through the IT world. When I say the '“IT world” it is very much machine learning, and data and network infrastructure, and things like failover systems where servers have to stay awake. Intelligence around that and the power that was required for that.

And because I had that understanding of power systems, I realized that there was an inefficiency in power systems, and something was missing there.

During the lockdown, I took some time out to look at power systems and how we generate electricity. And that is how Active Kinetic 1 came to be. And it's a patented technology.

I actually started patenting in 2001. It has just now started to come together, to be honest. So, it's been an interesting road.

It’s tragically difficult to gain awareness sometimes for a new technology, so I empathize with many other people who are in this position. So, I think what you're doing is absolutely fantastic.

Finally, I'm gaining some traction. The simplicity of the technology has been one of the biggest winning aspects of it.

🟢How do you produce clean energy?

One of the factors that we don't use, and we need to—from a renewable energy point of view—is kinetic energy. The natural kinetic energy that's around us all the time.

So wind or any other kinetic movement, we can use that energy. And waves are particularly one of them.

So, the oceanic movement, tidal movements, is certainly one. But wave movement is where we have found our successes, especially for the technology that I'm developing. I can show you a little bit about in a minute if you'd like to see that.

(Andrew proceeded to demonstrate his technology)

So basically, Active Kinetic 1, as the name describes, uses kinetic activity to generate electricity. But how? Okay, so let's explain that.

The device is a combined physics. It’s based on Newton’s Law of Energy Conservation and Faraday’s Law to convert kinetic energy into electrical energy. Additionally, it follows Nikola Tesla’s Law of Vibration, where he stated “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”

Now, Faraday gave us an understanding of magnetism. He wasn't actually a great mathematician, but, like myself, he was into observational science, and observational science gives you a little bit more rounded understanding of something.

What he discovered was that if there’s a copper coil (which is here in the middle) and a magnet (which is actually on this pendulum here) when you pass the magnet through a copper coil, it induces EMF and effectively generates electric from the two ends of the copper coil.

And at the two ends of the coil, you end up with either negative or positive. So that's what fundamentally has driven the majority of electronic innovation over the years.

The majority of generators will use a rotational device, and this uses an oscillating device. So, you've got the copper coil, then you've got the magnet, and they're strong on the pendulums which allow it to move freely in one plane of motion, which is where it needs to move the most.

And when you move it—I don't know if you can see that—you generate electricity just from movement.

(the bulbs lit up at this point)

Yeah, that's how you know that it's generating electricity. But I've been able to actually improve on that dramatically. Here it's producing a relatively small amount of energy.

But then, I've got models that generate quite a lot of energy, or a lot more energy than this. I've shown them in concealed boxes for the first year and a half.

So, that was one of my concealed innovations. And it's slightly different to what I showed you initially, but it is all based on the same concept.

So, here's another one, and this one's shown on the website. And you can see that they move perpendicular to each other and generate electricity from the actual movement.

So, it's been quite an interesting road. Recently I've been using it in real-world scenarios. And one of those real-world scenarios is wave energy— something that humans have historically found very little success in. In fact, nobody's come up with anything substantial or commercially usable — until now, with this technology.

🟢Are there any differences from tidal energy?

There are.

There are methods that we can use for tidal, but the methods available for tidal are more intrusive to the ocean. And we want to make as little impact as we can from a sustainability point of view, and also an ecological point of view.

And obviously, humans have done quite a lot of damage to the seas, and the oceans, and putting more devices submerged in water seems to be the only way with tidal.

And I'm not so keen on maneuvering that. I mean, ultimately, we need to do something to create clean energy and move away from fossil fuels, move away from other suggested technologies, such as nuclear.

And wave energy does seem to provide the answer that we need. From a river, we've been able to—and relatively small waves in a river, compared to the ocean and the seas—put our device into the water and generate electricity.

We did that at Rochester, a famous location, Rochester Castle, in Kent, which is near where Charles Dickens, if anybody knows the history of Britain, they'll know about Charles Dickens. It's very close to where he would be. I guess it makes for an interesting story as well. But we didn't pick it for that particular reason.

We got authorization from a local sailing club, a yacht club, and they said, 'Yeah, you can come and test it there.' And they actually took the device off of us and they put it in the water to test it. And that was our first real-life test of the technology.

And it worked great. It was able to produce electricity constantly from the water, which means that it is almost a 24-hour renewable energy supply.

🟢Does the device float on the Surface?

Yes, it floated on the surface. I've got a few videos on my Patreon (Electricity in Waves)

So, if you go to Patreon and look for 'Electricity in Waves,' you will find that. Infinecity, who is a partner company working with us, put together this Patreon, to show our journey as we're progressing through with wave energy.

But I should mention that the technology has also been successful prior to that experiment. It was successful in generating energy from the wind of passing vehicles.

🟢The wind from passing vehicles?

Yes. So, as the wind passes the vehicle, the device captures the kinetic force of that, which you couldn't really do with a turbine as it's a gust of wind.

So, a gust of wind works really well. It fires these things. If you imagine many, many, many of those all put together, you're generating a lot of energy in return for nothing.

We can use that technology for things like microgrids too. We can maneuver into many, many environments.

🟢So basically, your device has to move a little bit, and then it can produce electricity?

It doesn't need to move very much to generate electricity, that's the thing. Once you move it, it keeps generating electricity even after that.

So, that's a really, really interesting thing. In science, we call that momentum, and we don't have momentum for many devices.

In these devices, after the energy has been absorbed from the kinetic movement, you're still gaining further energy from the momentum.

And recently we did some data analysis, some data tests with a new bit of equipment that's arrived. It is a more advanced type of the same technology.

And I think nearly 30 seconds after I had shaken it, we're still generating quite a good yield, maybe 20% of the electricity that was from the initial hit which was really interesting to see.

Even after 20 and 30 seconds, we're still generating such a high percentage of electricity, which means that if we put it into a setting like the oceans, we're pretty much guessing that that's a 24-hour electricity source.

And it's renewable, and it's clean, and it's got this circular economy to it, which means that we don't have to dig up all of these materials to create it, because the materials that we're using, we can recycle.

So, it's really interesting to maneuver into this area and discover all of these things. AI could actually make this technology a lot easier.

I feel it has a substantial future because of its attributes.

🟢Are you currently selling any products or what kind of business model are you using for your company?

We are not currently selling anything. From a financial point of view, it's just been an uphill struggle, to be honest, but we are looking at a number of technologies to sell.

Say, for example, we've got a very small generator that is able to generate electricity from human movement.

So things like safety lights at night, which are some of the aspects of this technology that can impact people on a day-to-day basis.

So those kinds of things are what we're initially looking at. Also, using it in other settings where we can generate a constant form of electricity for other areas such as data gathering and things like that.

We are exploring ideas in areas where can see true and immediate potential for income. Some of them are actually on our website.

🟢How many people are working with you currently?

The R&D team for Active Kinetic 1 is pretty much solely myself, and my son also takes some interest.

He's quite young, but all of my sons actually have taken an interest in it. And one has done a bit of design of concepts that we could use. And my other son is absorbed by the technology, he loves it.

But other than that, it is just myself working on the R&D side.

Now, we've partnered with Infinecity. They're a company that's very much in tune with sustainability and enabling energy systems that can free us from the current ties that we have with grid-based power.

Maybe looking at things like microgrids and the support of energy for people on a global level, so that they can move away from fossil fuel dependency. So Infinecity have been a very strong rock to what we're doing, and they've partnered with us and helped us with many, many aspects of the technology.

They're primarily focused on wave energy because they can see that that is where it will provide the biggest impact. We attended a recent conference together in Scotland.

But then also, we've got good supporters from people like James Ward. They're looking to partner with us as well. They do short film productions. 

So, that's going to be quite interesting. I don't know what might come of that even but it's a really interesting partnership.

And then we've also had recent offers from others who are involved with renewable energies and generating an income, crypto-based income or blockchain-type income.

So, we've had a lot of interest from partners at the moment.

🟢Are they funding you? How are you raising funds?

They’re not funding us, which is why we're initially looking at a GoFundMe. So, I'm going to tell people my story and hopefully we get a bit of interest and spread awareness.

So, it's not just about generating income, but it's also about spreading awareness about the technology, letting people in the door to make some hopefully suggestions towards maneuvering the technology, possibly inspiring some angel investment and things like that.

But if not, then we will be looking at a more Kickstarter-type crowdfunding at a later date as well.

Initially, in the next few weeks, we're hoping to start crowdfunding on GoFundMe. I hope that would build awareness and a bit of finance too. One of my biggest concerns is my ability to finance my technology.

🟢Is Financing the biggest challenge that you are facing?

I don't think the biggest challenge is financing. I think the biggest challenge truly is awareness and getting people to understand how the technology actually works. Because there's a contrast of belief.

A lot of people are quite skeptical when they see the technology. Skepticism is the biggest drawback. People are not aware of the technology. They're not sure if it actually works or if it's just one of these free energy technologies, which it is not.

We do claim free electricity because once you've got the technology, it's very easy to repair. This technology consists of a copper coil, a magnet, and pendulums, which makes it incredibly easy to repair the technology.

So, once you've created the technology, at a relatively low cost, you can keep recycling the material forever, as far as we know. If you put it on a wave, or on the ocean or somewhere it can capture kinetic energy, it will generate electricity.

It’s a very difficult concept to grasp until you grasp it and say, “Actually, that makes sense.” It does generate free electricity. Even if it's a small amount or a huge amount, you can't get away from the fact that it's generating free electricity constantly.

So, awareness has been one of the biggest hurdles. And now, I think that we're gaining a bit of awareness and people are gaining awareness, the finance behind that is inevitable because we need this to manoeuvre.

As a world, we must have clean energy, and we need all forms of that capability to manoeuvre forward together. Solar, wind turbines, and certainly wave energy, which is on every coast of the world. Forty per cent of the population lives in the coastal area.

If we could supply ninety per cent of them with electricity that's clean and from this source, then we would be over fifty per cent of where we need to be to make a massive impact on the world, on the planet, on the environment, for animals, for humans, for our future.

🟢What does a day in your life look like as an entrepreneur?

At the moment, I've got heavy finances, so I don't get to spend as much time as I'd like to develop this technology. But I am still dedicating a good amount of time.

And this is why I'm looking at crowdfunding so that I can give as much time as I had during the lockdown. I think that things would then be moving at a much more rapid rate than currently.

Other than the crowdfunder, we’ve actually had interest from a major player.

I can't say much about it, but it has to do with our human kinetic technology. So, in other words, the technology that generates electricity from human movement. We've had some interest in that area.

And also, we've had some interest for the wave energy technology, not for national grid or microgrids, but in smaller capacities than that.

Whether or not we get the funding or not, I don't know if that's going to really matter because they're really interested in manoeuvring that forward.

And I understand why. It's not just for financial gain. It will have a major impact on sustainability in the future.

So, I can't say much but I'm sure in good time, you'll hear about it. It will be on our Patreon and on the website and various other places.

🟢 If you'd like any of our readers to help you and your company in anything, what would it be? Funding, collaborations, partnerships, help with any technical stuff?

I am all ears! I would want people to be involved in all of those aspects that you mentioned right there.

You can always email me by going to the website, there are links on the website. Or you can even contact me on LinkedIn. I'm quite active there.

And if anyone can pop $5 into the GoFundMe, that would really, really help too.

Join Andrew’s Patreon Here: Electricity Comes in Waves | Clean cheap abundant energy technology | Patreon

Andrew’s Website: Donate - ACTIVE KINETIC 1 (ak1.co)

Learn More About Wave Energy Here: Wave Energy - ACTIVE KINETIC 1 (ak1.co)

Connect with Andrew on Linkedin: Andrew Karim | LinkedIn

🟢“1 Minute Summary” of the Interview

• Background and Interest in the Field:

  • Andrew worked at Microsoft at the age of 19 and then navigated through various aspects of the IT world, including machine learning, data, and network infrastructure.

  • He noticed inefficiencies in power systems, which sparked his interest in exploring power generation techniques.

• Technology Overview:

  • He developed Active Kinetic 1, a patented technology that generates electricity using kinetic energy.

  • The device is based on Newton’s Law of Energy Conservation and Faraday’s Law to convert kinetic energy into electrical energy. Additionally, it follows Nikola Tesla’s Law of Vibration.

• Differences from Tidal Energy:

  • Tidal energy methods are more intrusive to the environment compared to wave energy.

  • Andrew focused on wave energy due to its potential for sustainability and minimal ecological impact.

• Business Model and Funding:

  • Not currently selling products but exploring potential avenues.

  • Andrew is currently seeking funding through crowdfunding and his website to raise awareness and finance further development.

• Team and Collaborations:

  • Andrew has found support from partners like Infinecity and others interested in renewable energy.

• Call to Action:

  • Andrew seeks involvement in various aspects, including funding, collaborations, partnerships, and technical support.

The next interview is with Alice Toderi, CMO at a pioneering biostimulants company called Hello Nature.