[00:02] Jennifer Wu: Hi everyone, thanks for listening to The Founder Spirit podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer Wu. In this podcast series, I interview exceptional individuals from all over the world with the Founder Spirit, ranging from social entrepreneurs, tech founders, to philanthropists, elite athletes, and more. Together, we'll uncover not only how they manage to succeed in face of multiple challenges, but also who they are as people and their human story.

If this podcast has been beneficial or valuable to you, feel free to become a patron and support us on Patreon.com, that is P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/TheFounderSpirit. As always, you can find us on Apple, Google, Amazon and Spotify, as well as social media and our website at TheFounderSpirit.com.

The following episode was recorded during the 2023 Villars Symposium held by the Villars Institute, where I recorded several short interviews over a period of 3 days. The Founder Spirit Podcast is proud to be a partner of the Villars Institute, a nonprofit foundation focused on accelerating the transition to a net-zero economy and restoring planetary health.

“I thank my parents. They made sure we never saw fear in their eyes or felt fear in their voices, never saw sadness or felt sadness. And they just focus on surrounding us with joy and love and hope.”

“And even when it feels like one can't change certain things, one can definitely change how one looks at it. And that changes the perspective. And the idea is, basically, how can we find joy, love and hope in whatever's around us.”

“That inspired me a lot, and that made me realize that my journey has been an incredible privilege, and it gave me the joy and the strength to build my career in entrepreneurship in Uganda.”

We are recording from Villars Symposium 2023, joining us today is Peter Nyeko, a clean tech entrepreneur, Founder and Managing Director of Mandulis Energy, a social enterprise in Uganda focused on delivering affordable and reliable clean energy. 

An aeronautical engineer by training, Peter developed new technologies and approaches to generate very low-cost electricity, cooking and heating fuel as well as fertilizer from agricultural waste. 

Just how did an amateur performer become a clean tech entrepreneur, providing affordable energy that can replace coal and other fossil fuels? Well, let’s talk to him and find out.

Welcome to the Founder Spirit podcast, thank you for taking the time to join us today. 

[02:54] Peter Nyeko: Thank you very much, it’s  a joy to be here.

[02:57] Jennifer: Peter, the first 5 years of your life were spent in Uganda, and then you had to flee to South Sudan due to war in the region. Do you recall your journey to South Sudan? 

[03:10] Peter: Absolutely. I was old enough to remember each day, and it felt like an adventure. We were in the back of a truck surrounded by cows mooing, so that was quite exciting. And we rumbled along, moving zig zags, finally got across the border, crossed a few rivers, and got to where the camp was. 

And it felt like a camping trip because the first five years of my life, I had spent a lot of time with my grandparents, who live on a farm in the rural area, so it felt like a really long weekend. 

And it was great - the things I remember most were fishing, collecting wild honey, collecting firewood, making fire without matches, so it felt like camping.

[03:57] Jennifer: So usually those journeys are very traumatic experiences. How is it possible that you had experienced it as an adventure? 

[04:06] Peter: I thank my parents. They made sure we never saw fear in their eyes or felt fear in their voices, never saw sadness or felt sadness. And they just focus on surrounding us with joy and love and hope. 

[04:25] Jennifer: So I understand that your incredible parents were teachers, and they also made sure that you always had music, dance and drama in your life. Can you tell us how that might have impacted you in your life trajectory?

[04:26] Peter: Absolutely - I am always in character. 

[04:44] Jennifer: You're always playing someone. (chuckles) 

[04:51] Peter: Because life is this incredible movie that each one of us gets to decide what the characters are, what the plot is, what each scene is. And what makes it exciting is (that) it can change (at) the moment, but ultimately you decide how it basically goes.

And even when it feels like one can't change certain things, one can definitely change how one looks at it. And that changes the perspective. And the idea is, basically, how can we find joy, love and hope in whatever's around us. 

[05:25] Jennifer: My favorite quote is by Viktor Frankl, where he wrote in his book Man's Search for Meaning about his times in the concentration camp in Auschwitz - we may not be able to control the situation that we're in, but we can always control our response to the situation. 

So growing up, that I'm sure had an indelible impact on your life, learn to look at life from a different lens, where you might see everyone else around you going through a horrible experience, but you can choose joy and love in order to continue to move on. 

After you had studied in the UK, you went back to Uganda. What pulled you back to your homeland after spending almost a decade in the UK?

[06:16] Peter: I realized that the older I grow, the more I feel connected to my parents when they left in their 20s. I was in my 20s, and I thought, okay, it'll be awesome to go back and be where they spent their 20s. And so that was a great way to reconnect with my family's journey. 

And then I went a bit further and went, alright, why are my parents so incredible? Because their parents must have been incredible as well. And thankfully, at the time, my parents, even though my mum had lost both her parents, my dad still had both his parents. So I got an opportunity to spend a lot of time with my grandfather and grandmother, and that was amazing. 

But a step further, I got now to do an internship in the same prison where my grandfather used to work. But now my internship was different because I was not an officer, I was interning in the chaplaincy - basically helping people figure out how to smile more, laugh more and be more hopeful.

But in the process, living in the same room where he used to live, eating the same canteen where he used to eat, it made me connect to his story. But more than that, finding hope where people usually imagine there's no hope, it makes a massive difference.

And finding people with a lot of hope within the prison system, who are still making sure that they were not just finding joy within, but finding a way to share their joy without. 

Even if they knew they'd never get out of jail, they knew that if they were spending time writing books that others could read later, if they were spending time getting more degrees and pushing the boundaries of knowledge forward, they'd make a difference to the world.

So that inspired me a lot, and that made me realize that my journey has been an incredible privilege, and it gave me the joy and the strength to build my career in entrepreneurship in Uganda, especially looking at where I could find another way to also help people discover the joy, love and hope within and share it even more, to be the best versions of themselves that they can be and help others likewise. 

And I thought, well, I guess energy is that golden thread that connects everything. 

[08:37] Jennifer: So, speaking of entrepreneurship, you had studied aeronautical engineering. What inspired you to found Mandulis energy?

[08:48] Peter: I go back to conversations with my grandmother and from the time we were really young, she'd keep mentioning very interesting phrase which says, “buru anualo match”, and which basically means it is the ashes that gave birth to the fire. 

And I thought, wow, cool, is it like a phoenix? But when I had a chat with grandma much later on, I realized she just meant, whenever anyone feels worthless, whoever anyone thinks is worthless, whatever one thinks may not be worth it, that may be the greatest opportunity to shine and flourish. 

And I thought, I've got to look at how to use what I've learned in aerospace and that ecosystem, what I may have learned in the finance ecosystem, where I spent a bit of time as well, and logistics to see how can I bring those together to try to turn ashes into flames again. 

So obviously, as a scientist, I thought, duh, it must be gasification, pyrolysis, torrefaction. (chuckles)

I realized that what we used to create hydrogen and methane, which is a rocket fuel, was waste. I thought, great, everyone in these rural areas is a farmer - they all have a lot of rice husks, maize cops, grounded shells and coffee husks. 

And I thought, well, why not just use that as a feedstock for generating the energy they need to improve their lives, to power their economies and do it in such a way that whatever waste comes from our processes would still have a greater value than whatever we were delivering as a service.

And after almost a dozen years working on this, we've finally come down to deliver electricity at zero price, while still running a profitable enterprise - and that is what makes me really grateful for those words.

[10:43] Jennifer: So it's been a decade since you founded Mandulis Energy, what were the challenges that you had in the early days and how did you fund yourself?

[10:55] Peter: Yeah, the challenges were definitely a few, I'd say.

[10:57] Jennifer: It's always quite a few. (chuckles)

[11:01] Peter: And I'll always repeat this to myself - a challenge is an opportunity to realize a new solution and find the joy in that journey. That's my mantra.

Obviously, with a startup, the first one is, will people believe us? Getting a proof of concept going, you've got to make it work technologically, then you've got to make it work economically, and then you've got to make it work socially and get people on board. 

In the end, music, dance, and drama helped a lot. (chuckles)

[11:29] Jennifer: Performance.

[11:31] Peter: Yeah, part of our runway actually was funded by being on stage. I went back as an actor, theater actor in Uganda. And I was on stage from 2011 until 2019. 

So at least once a week I was on stage performing, and it was great because it gave me joy - it was a great outlet. But it also helped me bridge runway, which was very interesting. 

Every week I'm on stage, I've covered one colleague's wage - doing musical comedy, cracking people up.

[12:03] Jennifer: So you were self-funded then? 

[12:06] Peter: Pretty much, it took us a few years until we had enough going to build the trust to actually get others to fund it. And so that was very interesting. 

[12:16] Jennifer: That's incredible. And what do you think helped you during the difficult times?

[12:24] Peter: Focusing on joy, focusing on being a vessel for hope and making sure that we can deliver that hope. So we've got to look after ourselves, we got to remain structurally integral, to last the journey and be there, no matter what. So that mindset helps a lot.

[12:49] Jennifer: And tell us a little bit about where you are today and where you like to be 5-10 years from now. 

[12:58] Peter: We're very grateful today where we are at. Mandulis, we've got a few locations running in Uganda - a couple of bio-energy power plants, small ones in hybrid with solar; another three locations running solar ecosystems, another location running a clean cooking fuel production facility. 

And it's great - there are about 10,000 customers using our different services, be it clean cooking, clean water, electricity and biofertilizer, and that's very exciting. 

Where we’d like to be in five years is the journey to expand beyond Uganda's borders. So we're currently making our first footsteps into South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, other parts of East Africa such as Kenya and Tanzania, but also West Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and looking as far afield as Spain, Cambodia, Colombia. 

So it would be fantastic to see the model we've created be replicated in some of these areas, especially within farmer communities, where they will always appreciate the ability to keep their barns warm, keep their mills running and keep their fields blooming at a lower cost. 

And with the focus being low-cost electricity, heating fuel, cooking fuel and fertilizer, it'll be great to see us go from the current 50,000 people to in five years, maybe 5 million people - that's our dream. And we look forward to working in synergies and partnerships with others across these lands to make that possible.

[14:34] Jennifer: How scalable is your technology? I mean, we have agricultural waste everywhere. Is it your hope to bring it to the rest of the world?

[14:43] Peter: Absolutely, it's very scalable. We're working with very mature technology that's been around before diesel, it’s just that oil and gas got so affordable that we just went with it. But now that we're thinking about the environment, we can improve some of those older technologies and make them more affordable than oil and gas. 

Things like biochar turns our equipment into actually carbon removal equipment. So we basically do carbon removal while generating electricity, fertilizer, cooking and heating fuel. So it becomes very interesting in the world we are in today. 

We can go as little as a village with 500 homes, as big as a city with 500,000 homes. And we're developing 31 locations across Uganda, one of which is a massive city with 150,000 homes. So it's scalable, and that's what makes it very interesting.

[15:39] Jennifer: And tell us about some of the impacts that you have on the communities that you work with.

[15:45] Peter: Absolutely, so the impact is very interesting. Uganda has a population of probably a little over 30 million, but it's hosting about 1.5 million refugees from around the region. 

And what's interesting is the way Uganda does this is when everyone comes in as a refugee, they're given a plot of land to plow on, a plot of land to build their home in. So we've decided in ensuring refugees can have access to very low-cost cooking fuel.

So we're working very closely with UNHCR, UN FAO, and we deliver clean cooking fuel pellets, a biochar production stove that enables refugee communities to cook their food at half the price of firewood and a fraction price of charcoal. 

And while they cook, they also generate a biochar, which they can sell back. Therefore, they get to earn as they cook. So right now, of our 10,000 customers, half of those families are in refugee communities. And that makes me very grateful. And we look forward to  growing and building from that. 

Because when someone saves $1 a day on cooking fuel, that's an incredible saving by the end of the year, anywhere in the world. There's so much someone can do with an extra $350 a year in a community where that can cover the cost of health care, cost of education, the cost of investing in household infrastructure, that can bring in more income.

[17:19] Jennifer: Absolutely, they can send the kids back to school. 

[17:22] Peter: It becomes a conduit to more hope. And that's what makes us really excited. 

[17:27] Jennifer: Through your clean tech energy, you're bringing hope and love and joy into the community.

Peter, we're now in our third day at the Villars symposium, can you tell us what you have learned so far from the Villars Fellows and what you've learned as part of this symposium?

[17:45] Peter: The Villars symposium and the Villars Institute in general is really impressive. It's the fact that you bring together these young people from across the globe, from different schools, but who are all really committed to furthering knowledge for the good of the planet. 

And it's been incredible - I've been surrounded by some of the brightest minds since I left academia and they're much younger than the professors I used to hang around with. And they're working on just as advanced science - that's really special. 

And it actually gives me a lot of hope for many parts of the world because I know many of these young people will definitely make an incredible difference in the trajectories of their ecosystems.

[18:31] Jennifer: Yesterday's plenary, Johan Rockström, who is the Co-Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact, stated that we've already stepped over six of the nine planetary boundaries.

How do we bring hope to the next generation, so that instead of feeling angry, they have to find solutions? How do we inspire the Villars Fellows and give them hope that there is a way to heal the planet?

[19:01] Peter: I think we've got to focus on encouraging them. Even if it may feel hopeless today based on our knowledge, this doesn’t mean that the future is hopeless.  

It was exciting on the first day when we learned about new exo-planets being discovered not too long ago. So if a planet was discovered when I was in high school, think about the possibilities and solutions that can be developed to reverse destruction.

I see a lot of opportunities out there, and with the minds we have among the Villars Institute Fellows, together with academics and industries, I'm very hopeful that we can reverse a lot of the negative impact we see on the climate. 

I believe we can move to a place where we can regenerate the ecosystems, re-wild and enable biodiversity flourish once again. There are examples where that has happened now, you see. 

And I think as long as we figure out how to be kind to the planet, to reuse as much as we can what we’ve already taken out of the ground, try as much as possible not to extract from this planet and see what we can do with what's already here. I think it will take us to a place where we rethink science in many ways.

But if we could put humans on the moon, there’s not much we can’t do. And this is survival, I couldn't put my trust in a group of more inspiring generals to take on this fight for the survival of humanity and move it forward.

[20:48] Jennifer: And last but not least, what does the Founder Spirit mean to you?

[20:51] Peter: Wow, the founder spirit, it's a bit like the explorer’s spirit. When anyone becomes a founder of anything, they see an opportunity to chart a brand new course for the good of humanity, for the good of the world we live in, our common home. 

As any journey of discovery and exploration, it's always an adventure, and it's always a voyage full of unknowns and, dare I say, risks. And there's an explorer who’s here among us - he talked about how when he went on an expedition, he got injured, went back, healed, went back again, so three times over to get to the end of his expedition.

So that's what the Founder Spirit feels like to me, it’s about finding joy, finding love and hope on this journey and in that perseverance, cherishing all of it as a privilege.

[21:42] Jennifer: Well, Peter, I want to thank you for taking the time to join us today and really appreciate it for you to share your perspective with the rest of us. 

[21:52] Peter: Thank you very much.

[21:56] Jennifer: If this podcast has been beneficial or valuable to you, feel free to become a patron and support us on Patreon.com, that is P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/TheFounderSpirit. 

As always, you can find us on Apple, Google, Amazon and Spotify, as well as social media and our website at TheFounderSpirit.com.

The Founder Spirit Podcast is proud to be a partner of the Villars Institute, a nonprofit foundation focused on accelerating the transition to a net zero economy and restoring planetary health.

[22:31] END OF AUDIO