AsaDuru: Self-Sufficient, Zero-Energy Communities - A New African Living Standard
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Founding Story
Team
Through an internet search.
Founder, CEO.
Clean Water and Sanitation, Affordable and Clean Energy, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Responsible Consumption and Production, Climate Action.
During 2014 I was very involved with Greenely, a Swedish Startup working with energy visualization, as a Development Engineer. My task was to brainstorm and come up with various features of Greenely’s visualization software. This experience gave me insight to the startup world; I love the long-hours and common struggle towards a bigger vision.
As a person, I love taking risk and have over the years become better at making sure they’re calculated. When starting AsaDuru last year, my philosophy was, “what is the worst that can happen?” which I use in many areas of life when I’m about to do something that seems risky. The answer is that it simply wasn’t worth missing out on the opportunity to succeed and make a massive impact on the world.
Furthermore, I have been an elite karate athlete, representing the Swedish National Team for 7 years. The life of an athlete is all about adversity, especially when you’re not paid, as is the case with karate in Sweden. Each karate tournament is eliminatory, so I would to train up to 12 sessions per week while studying full-time, fly for a tournament, fight an experienced professional for 3 minutes, lose, fly back home and do it all over again. For 7 years. Now that I think about it, it was quite crazy, but I loved every part of it. Eventually I didn’t lose and in the end I even won some international medals.
After I won my first Swedish Championship I suffered a terrible back injury that stuck with me for four years on and off. In 2012 I had to make one of the toughest (but best) decisions of my life to decline my spot for the World Championship and take a year off to rehab. The following year I came back stronger than ever before. All of these experiences have been extremely valuable and I believe will be helpful in my entrepreneurial journey.
I have met with Rick Lindsay who has become a mentor to me and also a partner within the rammed earth industry. Rick is the founder and CEO of Earth Structures Group, the largest modern rammed earth builders in the world, and he is dedicated to helping me introduce this great technology to the African market. Furthermore, I have and keep receiving very valuable advice and help from various business coaches and entrepreneurs in Stockholm, including Siimon Vaske (KTH Innovation), Donnie Lygonis (KTH Innovation), Aleksandar Subosic (Tailsweep), Magnus Rehn (STING), Karin Ruiz (STING) and more.