Author: Mehrad

Asymmetric Collaboration (AC)

In Climate Tech, Portfolio, VCOctober 24, 2023Leave a comment

In my journey with Cool Climate Collective, our early syndicated work unveiled a potent strategy within the realm of climate tech investments. This strategy, which I’ve come to term as “Asymmetric Collaboration”, has not only enriched my understanding of the sector but has also fortified our portfolio, bringing to the fore mechanisms that translate theory into tangible results.

However, it’s imperative to understand that merely having this theoretical framework in place won’t magically foster collaborations. They need to

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Unpacking the Layers of Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) Through a Systems Lens

In UncategorizedOctober 18, 2023Leave a comment

Mehrad

Introduction

In the rapidly evolving landscape of climate tech and innovation, we’re often caught in the paradox of reconciling the promise of groundbreaking technologies with their real-world viability and impact. Enter Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA)—a tool that attempts to answer these crucial questions. However, a conventional TEA often falls short when it doesn’t consider the broader systems in which a technology operates. Let’s delve into the need for a more holistic, systems-based approach to TEA.

Our belief at Cool Climate

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The Universality of Weather Volatility: A New Paradigm

In climate change, UncategorizedSeptember 14, 2023Leave a comment

Mehrad

Gazing across the global landscape this September, a narrative as old as time presents itself anew. Our world has always known calamities, but today, it’s a tragedy repeated across latitudes and longitudes, from bustling metropolises to quiet countrysides.

There’s a phrase that’s been swirling in my mind, a new terminology for our epoch: Geo-Climate Equity. It recognizes that the atmosphere knows no distinction between emerging or developed nations. In the theatre of weather volatility, we are all equal actors.

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A Father’s Wake-Up Call: The Year 2040

In FutureAugust 12, 2023Leave a comment

Mehrad

Becoming a father changes you in ways that are both immediate and profound. For me, one of those pivotal moments arrived when I was setting up a custodial account for my daughter. I filled in her birth date, and the screen displayed a message saying she would turn 18 in the year 2040. That number struck me like an alarm bell. It was the same year mentioned in numerous IPCC and Net Zero reports that warn about reaching a critical

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My Evolving Master Plan (just between you and me)

In Capitalism, climate changeMay 27, 2023Leave a comment

Mehrad

Note: this is a working draft (compiled notes) – v0.2

Having delved into the climate tech ecosystem, encompassing a broad spectrum from global to local challenges, existing and emerging solutions, dialogues with policy-makers to private investors, my perspective on accelerating and scaling the implementation of climate tech solutions has matured and refined.

Last month, I started to see how the work I’ve been doing has been following this grander master plan, that I had yet to articulate. While

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Promethean Scale thinking for Humanity

In Future, Ideas, Innovation, UncategorizedFebruary 28, 2023

Mehrad

In our current era of exponential advances in AI, we are witnessing innovations on the cusp of a discovery that are Promethean in scale. These breakthroughs have the potential to transform our society’s fundamentals, including our economy, health, and material possibilities.

Just as Beethoven introduced a unique and distinctive musical scale called the “Prometheus scale” to push the boundaries of traditional musical structures, AI has the potential to unlock new ways to extract insights

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Climate Leverage Points

In climate changeTags climate, systemsApril 23, 2021Leave a comment

Mehrad

For those familiar with systems analysis, there is this allure for utilizing “leverage points” to create outsized outcomes given the relatively smaller shift. Typically these leverage points are found within complex systems whether it is a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem, etc. but the main premise still goes back to the idea of a small shift in one component can produce big changes through out the system.

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Media’s Role in Education

In EducationFebruary 12, 2021Leave a comment

Mehrad

The act of educating doesn’t simply occur in classrooms, lecture halls, or over zoom.

Media plays a role in exposing us to different viewpoints, mental models, and how others think. In an earlier blog, I outlined at a high level the themes we were exploring in a previous EdTech project I was involved in, and to continue that exploration I want to focus on the role of media and content consumption in

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Environmental Justice

In climate changeOctober 13, 2020

Mehrad

In our modern society, laws exist to regulate the actions of parties that harm others in our society, but it’s important to understand that the existence of a law and the enforcement of the same law are two very different concepts.

In December 2019, the TRACED Act, the first federal anti-robocall law passed, but the enforcement of the TRACED Act and similar past anti-robocall laws were a difficult process for most consumers prior to

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Disparate Justice

In lawOctober 9, 2020Leave a comment

Mehrad

It seems that every other day there is another tragedy involving the police and unarmed black men and women. Some of these incidents are recorded on smartphones and trigger a collective sense of disappointment and questions of why this had to happen.

I want to avoid discussing the intricate details of each case as each situation was unique but there is an underlying power structure that has been cultivated that breeds this kind of

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