Episodes

The guest on this episode of the Inspired by Failure podcast is Kayla Nguyen, EMPAD co-inventor. EMPAD stands for Electron Microscope Pixel Array Detector, which is a highly efficient detector for the electron microscope. EMPAD benefits a large number of researchers across a wide range of scientific fields. This hard-fought technology went through many stages of trials and failures, but finally resulted in success not only scientifically but also by earning a spot in The Guinness Book of World R...

The guest on this episode of the Inspired by Failure podcast is Kayla Nguyen, EMPAD co-inventor. EMPAD stands for Electron Microscope Pixel Array Detector, which is a highly efficient detector for the electron microscope. EMPAD benefits a large number of researchers across a wide range of scientific fields. This hard-fought technology went through many stages of trials and failures, but finally resulted in success not only scientifically but also by earning a spot in The Guinness Book of World R...

The guest on this episode of the Inspired by Failure podcast is Josh Horne, Inventor of Portal Entryways. Portal Entryways is a smart phone accessible App that allows compatible doors to open upon approach. This is possible with Bluetooth low energy technology, and is specifically targeted to users with accessibility needs. Unlike traditional Bluetooth technology, Bluetooth low energy technology doesn’t have to be paired. As long as a door has the Portal Entryways technology, and a user has enab...

The guest on this episode of the Inspired by Failure podcast is Josh Horne, Inventor of Portal Entryways. Portal Entryways is a smart phone accessible App that allows compatible doors to open upon approach. This is possible with Bluetooth low energy technology, and is specifically targeted to users with accessibility needs. Unlike traditional Bluetooth technology, Bluetooth low energy technology doesn’t have to be paired. As long as a door has the Portal Entryways technology, and a user has enab...

The guest on this episode of the Inspired by Failure podcast is Enid Partika, creator of an anaerobic digester that is turning food waste into fertilizer and biogas. Enid and her team at the Rogers Urban Farmlab are working with medium sized vendors such as university dining halls to collect food waste which is placed into the anaerobic digester they have created and will produce liquid fertilizer and biogas without the use of oxygen. Enid and her team have worked tirelessly to cultivate the rig...

The guest on this episode of the Inspired by Failure podcast is Enid Partika, creator of an anaerobic digester that is turning food waste into fertilizer and biogas. Enid and her team at the Rogers Urban Farmlab are working with medium sized vendors such as university dining halls to collect food waste which is placed into the anaerobic digester they have created and will produce liquid fertilizer and biogas without the use of oxygen. Enid and her team have worked tirelessly to cultivate the rig...

Christopher Bean and his team are using their Micro Electric Turbine System (mETS) to create electricity with no combustion and no byproducts. They capture this energy through the pressure that occurs through the flow of gas. Their main target customers are off-shore oil producers who are looking for a way to be more sustainable and who have extraordinary amounts of the oil needed to produce this sustainable electricity. This mETS software is more practical than solar and hydrogen for off-shore ...

Christopher Bean and his team are using their Micro Electric Turbine System (mETS) to create electricity with no combustion and no byproducts. They capture this energy through the pressure that occurs through the flow of gas. Their main target customers are off-shore oil producers who are looking for a way to be more sustainable and who have extraordinary amounts of the oil needed to produce this sustainable electricity. This mETS software is more practical than solar and hydrogen for off-shore ...

On this episode of Inspired by Failure, we talk with Jack Chernov, founder of an AI-powered video editing software. Jack is from Siberia and he recently moved to San Francisco to pursue his dreams of helping people tell their best story through their video content. Jack found that he was always trying to capture the most emotional or poignant moments of trips that he took, and he realized that it wouldn’t be difficult to integrate AI into the editing process by having it sort out frames that sho...

On this episode of Inspired by Failure, we talk with Jack Chernov, founder of an AI-powered video editing software. Jack is from Siberia and he recently moved to San Francisco to pursue his dreams of helping people tell their best story through their video content. Jack found that he was always trying to capture the most emotional or poignant moments of trips that he took, and he realized that it wouldn’t be difficult to integrate AI into the editing process by having it sort out frames that sho...

Julie Bliss Mullen grew up loving and appreciating the outdoors, and after a trip to rural Guatemala during high school to study the water issues of that community, she knew that she had found her life’s purpose. She took environmental engineering and sustainability courses in college and after her internship with the EPA, she was awarded a graduate research fellowship to study emerging contaminants in water. She began looking at conventional treatment methods and then began her PhD studies wher...

Julie Bliss Mullen grew up loving and appreciating the outdoors, and after a trip to rural Guatemala during high school to study the water issues of that community, she knew that she had found her life’s purpose. She took environmental engineering and sustainability courses in college and after her internship with the EPA, she was awarded a graduate research fellowship to study emerging contaminants in water. She began looking at conventional treatment methods and then began her PhD studies wher...

Acoustic Wells was created by Sebastien Mannai as a robust solution to oil well pumping issues. This device is able to listen to how the fluid is flowing (or being inhibited from properly flowing) to diagnose problems in oil wells such as machine failure and other functional metrics. While he has leveraged machine learning in terms of the physical and acoustic modeling, the device comes from fundamental physics, meaning that it does not require a lot of data before implementation. Sebastien has ...

Acoustic Wells was created by Sebastien Mannai as a robust solution to oil well pumping issues. This device is able to listen to how the fluid is flowing (or being inhibited from properly flowing) to diagnose problems in oil wells such as machine failure and other functional metrics. While he has leveraged machine learning in terms of the physical and acoustic modeling, the device comes from fundamental physics, meaning that it does not require a lot of data before implementation. Sebastien has ...

Steve Hoffman has experience as an electrical computer engineer, television executive, and video game designer. He has started 3 venture-funded and 2 non-venture-funded startups during his career, so he has plenty of startup experience to draw from in his latest venture, Founders Space. Steve realized along the way that he liked helping founders build their vision by coaching and mentoring them. He says that the key to knowing whether an idea will be successful is the founder. The main questions...

Steve Hoffman has experience as an electrical computer engineer, television executive, and video game designer. He has started 3 venture-funded and 2 non-venture-funded startups during his career, so he has plenty of startup experience to draw from in his latest venture, Founders Space. Steve realized along the way that he liked helping founders build their vision by coaching and mentoring them. He says that the key to knowing whether an idea will be successful is the founder. The main questions...

Maher Damak has a passion for solving tough and important problems. He first realized that pesticides were so inefficient about 6 years ago and he quickly set out to come up with a solution, now called Sticky Pesticide. In fact, 98% of sprayed pesticides do not serve their purpose because of natural elements such as wind and because most plants are hydrophobic and repel the pesticide liquid. Maher started out talking with farmers and planters to get their perspective and integrate their feedback...

Maher Damak has a passion for solving tough and important problems. He first realized that pesticides were so inefficient about 6 years ago and he quickly set out to come up with a solution, now called Sticky Pesticide. In fact, 98% of sprayed pesticides do not serve their purpose because of natural elements such as wind and because most plants are hydrophobic and repel the pesticide liquid. Maher started out talking with farmers and planters to get their perspective and integrate their feedback...

Bill Cox is the creator of Libsonic, a software that can speed up or slow down speech. Bill began this creation journey out of necessity: he was losing his sight and he needed a TTS software that would work effectively at the high speed he needed. The options out there at the time were not good quality and typically only went up to 2x speed, when most blind people need TTS to go up to 6x speed. The biggest challenge that Libsonic faces is adoption, but he has seen some success with Google and An...

Bill Cox is the creator of Libsonic, a software that can speed up or slow down speech. Bill began this creation journey out of necessity: he was losing his sight and he needed a TTS software that would work effectively at the high speed he needed. The options out there at the time were not good quality and typically only went up to 2x speed, when most blind people need TTS to go up to 6x speed. The biggest challenge that Libsonic faces is adoption, but he has seen some success with Google and An...