Earth Cast Olivia Taylor

🎙In S2E30, Delicia Govender and Olivia Taylor (@olivia_earth) host a season finale Q&A with Chief Etienne Davids and Nthabiseng Msingatha from episodes 28 and 29.




🎙In celebration of Mandela Day 2023, Earth Cast collaborated with Push Local Ventures and recorded a live webinar at the Zapods Podcast Production studio in Cape Town. This three-part season, Social Enterprise Stories, follows the journey of two trailblazers in the EdTech and Sustainable Property Development Sector. We hope you enjoy the episode.

🎙In S2E29, Delicia Govender and Olivia Taylor (@olivia_earth) speak to Chief Etienne Davids, the Co-Founder of SpringBean Media - a proudly indigenous IXam or Khoi and Sān Social Entrepreneurship Enterprise. Etienne focusses on self-sufficient, sustainable solutions backed by ancient knowledge and indigenous wisdom.



Chief Etienne discusses how he is creating micro-cities or bushman cities which foster communities that live in harmony with nature while navigating the pace of globalisation. He also unpacks the importance of a name and, so much more!



🎙To follow more of Chief Etienne’s work, you can find him in the field.



In celebration of Mandela Day 2023, Earth Cast collaborated with Push Local Ventures and recorded a live webinar at the Zapods Podcast Production studio in Cape Town. This three-part season, Social Enterprise Stories, follows the journey of two trailblazers in the EdTech and Sustainable Property Development Sector. We hope you enjoy the episode.

🎙In S2E28, Olivia Taylor and Delicia Govender speak to Nthabiseng Msingatha about how she is focused on driving Human Capital Development for a Just Energy Transition in South Africa. Nthabiseng credits her empowerment of young people, to develop an informed career identity, to her big risk appetite, resilience in the face of adversity and, tapping into her entrepreneurial passion Nthabiseng is the Co-Founder and CEO of YouMeta EdTech.



🎙To follow more of Nthabiseng’s work, you can find her on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nthabiseng-msingatha/



In celebration of Mandela Day 2023, Earth Cast collaborated with Push Local Ventures and recorded a live webinar at the Zapods Podcast Production studio in Cape Town. This three-part season, Social Enterprise Stories, follows the journey of two trailblazers in the EdTech and Sustainable Property Development Sector. We hope you enjoy the episode.

🎙In S1E27, Olivia Taylor speaks to Dr Chantal Naidoo about climate finance and the unique funding needs for financing just energy transition investment portfolios in South Africa. Chantal unpacks options and concerns regarding how to accelerate the JET, and about how her company, Rabia Transitions Initiative, is enabling financial actors to finance and contribute to a just and inclusive transition. She also gives her view on whether international and national finance architecture are suited to support a just energy transition, and so much more!

Chantal is the founder of Rabia Transitions, a nonprofit research initiative working at the nexus of finance and sustainability transitions. She has worked in the public and private finance sectors for nearly 30 years. Her climate finance work notably includes
serving as a regional advisor to the Green Climate Fund supporting African governments to access climate finance, and with the Development Bank of Southern Africa focused on designing green funds, climate finance policies, and designing bespoke renewable energy investment programs. During 2022, Chantal was also seconded to the South African Presidency, where she served as Lead Researcher to the Presidential Climate Finance Task Team supporting their mandate to consider the Just Energy Transition (JET) Partnership forged at COP26 and develop a JET Investment Plan.
 
Chantal has several policy and academic published works and has a doctorate from the University of Sussex looking at the role of financial systems in sustainability transition processes, with masters and undergraduate degrees in accounting, development finance and tax law. She is a also research fellow at Sussex University, Stellenbosch University and a Visiting Researcher at the Grantham Institute of Climate Change and Environment.
 
🎙To follow more of Chantal’s work, you can find her on LinkedIn and Rabia’s website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chantalnaidoo/ | https://www.rabiatransitions.org

🎙 In S1E26, Olivia Taylor speaks to John Belizaire about how energy poverty came about, and its uneven distribution across communities, the biggest challenge facing the energy transition, energy poverty, wasted energy & crypto, innovative technologies, the future of the grid, and so much more!

Since the age of 14 selling floppy discs in high school, John has had an entrepreneurial spirit and interest in technology. He was a recipient of the Intel Scholarship Program and he went on to receive a computer science and engineering degree from Cornell University. When he was 28 years old, he sold his first start-up company for $150 million.

He has gone on to become a versatile CEO and serial entrepreneur who has successfully founded and scaled several more multi-million dollar technology companies. Today, he is CEO of Soluna, a company helping to shape the future of renewable energy development. His expertise as both a highly effective business leader and technology strategist has enabled his new venture and operational success steering complex initiatives from concept to funding, launch and growth.

🎙 To follow more of John’s work, you can find him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

🎙In S1E25 Olivia Taylor (@olivia_earth) speaks to Bathandwa Vazi about the impact of decommissioning coal mines on the South African economy, and unpacks the employment concerns and opportunities surrounding the transition to renewables. Bathandwa explains energy access and poverty, and dives into the topic of the decentralisation of power, and the role that trade unions could play in the just energy transition. This is followed by a discussion about how Eskom can adapt to become efficient and profitable, and so much more!

Bathandwa Vazi is a qualified town and regional planner with an Honours degree in Public Administration and holds an MBA. She is an established professional with 10 years of experience in local and provincial government across South Africa, advising and supporting them on best practices, as well as developing various plans and strategies including climate action plans and revenue enhancement strategies.

Bathandwa’s experience broadly ranges across sustainable energy and climate change approaches in urban development including the areas of local-level energy data and policy development, energy efficiency, renewable energy, informal sector electrification and related local government structures, mandates and project implementation. This includes capacity building, facilitation, training, a learning network and, materials development specifically towards the re-skilling of professionals in the area of local government and sustainable energy.

🎙To follow more of Bathandwa’s work, you can find her on LinkedIn.