UAF spinout company presents at 1 Million Cups
December 12, 2019
A spinout of a UAF technology invented by Jonathan Kamler and assisted by co-founder Nigel Sharp presented at 1 Million Cups in October at the Writer's Block Café and Bookstore in Anchorage.
Aquagga Inc. has pivoted multiple times since its first idea to create energy from wastewater. The company is led by Ph.D. candidate Kamler and Sharp, the Alaska Center ICE entrepreneur-in-residence. They talked about their trajectory and pivot points during the event.
The company started looking to turn human waste and wastewater into electricity. However, through their customer discovery they found that treating water contaminated by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) including PFOA, PFOS, GenX may be a viable market in the future but are still looking for evidence of customers active in that space.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “PFAS and PFOA are very persistent in the environment and in the human body — meaning they don’t break down and they can accumulate over time. There is evidence that exposure to PFAS can lead to adverse human health effects.”
Customer discovery is one of the most important steps in a startup business model. It ensures that the company focuses on creating a product that its target consumers actually want and need, and in this case helps validate/invalidate the business model for a potential university technology.
For more information, contact Jonathan Kamler at jkamler@alaska.edu.