Category: Podcast

S3 E4: Dan Caesar – Clearing the Air: Combating Misinformation in Clean Energy

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S3 E4: Dan Caesar – Clearing the Air: Combating Misinformation in Clean Energy

About the episode:

We dive into the critical role of truth and clarity in the world of clean energy and technology. Join us as we explore the myths and misconceptions surrounding electric vehicles, renewable energy, and sustainable living. Dan Caesar, CTO and presenter of the Fully Charged Show discusses how misinformation impacts progress and what we can do to empower communities with facts, inspire action, and drive change. Whether you’re an EV enthusiast or simply curious about the truth behind the headlines, this episode is packed with insights to charge your mind and fuel your understanding.

Guest Name: Dan Caesar

After more than two decades of advocating for ‘cleaner technologies’, Dan has driven electric since 2015 and has led the Fully Charged Show for 7 years.

A passionate promoter of electric vehicles of all shapes and sizes, and home energy tech too, Dan has played a transformational role in developing the Fully Charged Show on YouTube, pioneering its exhibition programme, expanding its ‘Everything Electric’ offering and recently launching Electric Vehicles UK.

Passionate about products that can tackle air pollution and climate breakdown, Dan is practical, that it is in fact, better tech that will inspire the most change.

Dan has been a champion of cleaner technologies for over two decades. Since 2015, he’s driven electric and, for the last seven years, led the Fully Charged Show.

As CEO and presenter of Fully Charged, the world’s no.1 clean energy and electric vehicle show, Dan’s mission is to inform, educate, and inspire millions globally on the benefits of cleaner energy and transport.

A fervent advocate for electric vehicles and home energy tech, Dan has transformed the Fully Charged Show on YouTube, pioneered its exhibitions, expanded its ‘Everything Electric’ range, and recently launched Electric Vehicles UK.

Dan has conceived and delivered multiple groundbreaking projects like Fully Charged LIVE, Stop Burning Stuff, Zero Carbon Kitchen, and the Renewables Roadshow. These initiatives have attracted a loyal audience of over 2.5 million YouTube viewers, 3-5 million episode views per month, over 1 million subscribers, and 100k+ attendees.

Passionate about tackling air pollution and climate breakdown, Dan believes better tech drives the most change. Dan has collaborated with clients and partners like Ceres Power, Solar Media, Accelerating Clean Technologies, and the Department of Energy & Climate Change.

Links:

Fully Charged YouTube Channel

Fully Charged Website

Everything Electric

Electric Vehicles UK

Follow Fully Charged on Twitter

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions, please write to me at: toby@wickedproblems.fm.

Transcript:

S3 E4 Dan Caesar Wicked Problems TranscriptDownload

Wicked Problems is powered by Adaptavis®

Adaptavis is a Business Performance Management and Transformation consultancy aimed at forward-thinking leaders, based in London UK. The company specialises in helping organisations to enhance operational efficiency, drive business growth, and navigate complex transformations. From strategy to execution, they focus on providing insights and practical solutions to improve the overall performance of businesses, ensuring they can adapt to changing market conditions and achieve sustainable success. Toby Corballis is a Partner at Adaptavis.

You can find out more about their work by visiting: www.adaptavis.com

Enjoy,

Toby Corballis

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S3 E3: Euan McTurk – Battery Breakthroughs: Debunking Electric Vehicle Myths

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S3 E3: Euan McTurk – Battery Breakthroughs: Debunking Electric Vehicle Myths

About the episode:

Battery chemist and founder of Plug Life Television, Dr. Euan McTurk, uncovers the facts behind EV batteries, from ethical sourcing and recycling to cutting-edge technology that’s driving down costs and boosting range. Discover why EV fires are rare, how new charging methods can extend battery life, and what the latest advancements mean for the future of small, powerful, and sustainable cars.

Guest Name: Euan McTurk

Dr Euan McTurk is a Consultant Battery Electrochemist who has been working on – and driving – electric vehicles since 2009.  Having worked on next-generation cell chemistries during his PhD at the University of Oxford, developed ways to study how electric vehicle cells fail and how to stop them failing (at WMG*, University of Warwick) and built up a state-of-the-art 200 kW battery test facility in Edinburgh, Euan founded Plug Life Consulting, which provides technical, strategic and public outreach services to projects involving battery electrochemistry, electric vehicles, energy storage systems and charging infrastructure.  Euan is also the creator of Plug Life Television, a YouTube channel on batteries and EVs that explains complex electrochemistry in a way that anyone can understand and busts common myths and misconceptions about electric vehicles. 

*Warwick Manufacturing Group 

Transcript:

S3 E3 Euan McTurk Wicked Problems TranscriptDownload

Links:

LinkedIn: Euan McTurk

Plug Life Television: www.pluglifetelevision.co.uk

The Plug Life Television episode, “Can electric vehicle batteries be recycled?“

Charge Saint: https://chargesaint.com/

Links to other organisations and topics covered in this episode:

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions, please write to me at: toby@wickedproblems.fm.

Wicked Problems is powered by Adaptavis®

Adaptavis is a Business Performance Management and Transformation consultancy aimed at forward-thinking leaders, based in London UK. The company specialises in helping organisations to enhance operational efficiency, drive business growth, and navigate complex transformations. From strategy to execution, they focus on providing insights and practical solutions to improve the overall performance of businesses, ensuring they can adapt to changing market conditions and achieve sustainable success. Toby Corballis is a Partner at Adaptavis.

You can find out more about their work by visiting: www.adaptavis.com

Enjoy,

Toby Corballis

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S3 E2: Sam Clarke: Breaking World Records, Debunking Myths, and the Future of Electric Vehicle Charging.

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S3 E2: Sam Clarke: Breaking Records, Debunking Myths, and the Future of Electric Vehicle Charging.

About the episode:

EV industry pioneer Sam Clarke, a record-holding entrepreneur with over two decades in electric mobility shares his journey from importing electric motorbikes in the early 2000s to founding a zero-emissions logistics company and advising on national EV infrastructure. We discuss debunking myths around electric vehicles and explore how the concept of ‘grazing’ can reset our expectations of electric vehicle charging.

Guest Name: Sam Clarke

Sam Clarke is a life-long entrepreneur, industry advisor, EV owner/driver for over 20 years and a multiple Guinness World Record Holder for EV driving. His EV journey started back in 2002 with electric motorbikes before founding a zero-emission logistics firm (Gnewt) which he sold to John Menzies Plc in 2017. He now works on national charging infrastructure needs for GRIDSERVE in particular leading on the £100M+ Government funded (ZEHID) eHGV Electric Freightway Project. He is also a founding member of The EV Café webinar and news channel.

In 2015, Sam was a Great British Entrepreneur’s Award winner. By 2022 he was made a GreenFleet EV Champion for services to the industry and in 2024 he was voted #1 in the Motor Transport Power Players 2 list and #14 in the greenfleet.net 1 top 100 most Influential list. He also holds two Guinness World Records for the longest distances ever driven in an electric car and van on a single charge 7 (569 and 311 miles respectively).

In 2009 he founded the all-electric last-mile logistics business Gnewt which subsequently won multiple awards nationally and globally and was acquired by John Menzies Plc in 2017. During his tenure, he created the UK’s largest fully electric commercial fleet, the largest privately-owned smart charging infrastructure and UK’s most advanced private V2G (Vehicle to Grid) network. With Sam at the helm, the business was able to deliver over 10 million parcels in its first 10 years of trading 3, mainly in Central London, courtesy of a trail-blazing fully zero-emission fleet, the first of its kind anywhere in the UK.

Most recently, Sam has extended his role from Board advisor at GRIDSERVE to become their Chief Vehicle Officer 4. His role is to drive forward mass uptake of electric vehicles through the creation of a net-zero EV leasing division, commercial charging infrastructure build-outs and support the nationwide roll out of high-powered Electric Forecourts and upgrade of the GRIDSERVE Electric Highway network that resides on 85% of the service stations nationally. In 2023 he led the successful bid for a £100M+ Innovate UK Government fund (ZEHID 6) whose purpose is to roll out eHGV charging infrastructure nationwide, the second largest award ever issued by Innovate UK to private enterprise.

Sam is a high-profile member of the EV community, a regular public speaker for the industry and has previously been invited to speak at the Transport Select Committee in Westminster and at the European Commission in Brussels. He is also a founding member and Company Director/Shareholder of The EV Café Ltd 5. which is a popular webinar series discussing all aspects of EV adoption on regular weekly and monthly sessions. The EV Café has a number of high-profile sectoral sponsors including companies such as, but not limited to, The AA, Europcar, Bridgestone and Webfleet.

Transcript:

S3 E2 Sam Clarke Wicked Problems TranscriptDownload

Links:

LinkedIn: Sam Clarke

www.gridserve.com

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions, please write to me at: toby@wickedproblems.fm.

Wicked Problems is powered by Adaptavis®

Adaptavis is a Business Performance Management and Transformation consultancy aimed at forward-thinking leaders, based in London UK. The company specialises in helping organisations to enhance operational efficiency, drive business growth, and navigate complex transformations. From strategy to execution, they focus on providing insights and practical solutions to improve the overall performance of businesses, ensuring they can adapt to changing market conditions and achieve sustainable success. Toby Corballis is a Partner at Adaptavis.

You can find out more about their work by visiting: www.adaptavis.com

Enjoy,

Toby Corballis

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S3 E1: Jordan Brompton: Electric vehicles, sustainable energy independence, and preparing for the zombie apocalypse.

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S3 E1: Jordan Brompton: Electric vehicles, sustainable energy independence, and preparing for the zombie apocalypse.

About the episode:

Jordan Brompton of myenergi explores the evolving challenges and opportunities in the electric vehicle industry, focusing on sustainability, resilience, and how she’s preparing for a potential zombie uprising! Myenergi is a provider of Home EV chargers, solar PV systems, and Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) – or, as Jordan says, Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS). Jordan talks about her journey to setting up one of the most successful HEMS companies in the UK (with cofounder Lee Sutton) and shares insights about the industry, with a couple of EV myths busted into the deal. Join us as we discuss how companies are navigating economic hurdles and accelerating the journey toward a net-zero future.

Guest Name: Jordan Brompton

Business leader, tech entrepreneur and sustainable investor, Jordan Brompton is the co-founder and CMO of myenergi – a global leader in eco-smart home energy technology. Alongside forging fundamental business relationships, Jordan is responsible for driving the day-to-day corporate strategy and fuelling long-term international expansion.

With the ambition of leaving the planet in a better place than she found it, Jordan has been presented with a number of prestigious awards and accolades for her pioneering work. Alongside being crowned Great British Entrepreneur of the Year, she was named in the TE100, the Stonehage Fleming XV, the Top 10 Women in Energy and took home gold as EY Entrepreneur of the Year (North).

Never one to sit still, she became a published author with her debut book ‘Sparki and the journey to Earth’, which aims to educate children about the importance of working towards a greener future.

Transcript:

S3 E1 Jordan Brompton Wicked Problems TranscriptDownload

Links:

LinkedIn: Jordan Brompton

www.myenergi.com

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions, please write to me at: toby@wickedproblems.fm.

Wicked Problems is powered by Adaptavis

Adaptavis is a Business Performance Management and Transformation consultancy aimed at forward-thinking leaders, based in London UK. The company specialises in helping organisations to enhance operational efficiency, drive business growth, and navigate complex transformations. From strategy to execution, they focus on providing insights and practical solutions to improve the overall performance of businesses, ensuring they can adapt to changing market conditions and achieve sustainable success. Toby Corballis is a Partner at Adaptavis.

You can find out more about their work by visiting: www.adaptavis.com

Enjoy,

Toby Corballis

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S2 E5: Ali Nicholl: Decentralised data distribution: sustainability, impact, and resilience for the future of humanity and the environment.

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S2 E5: Ali Nicholl: Decentralised data distribution: sustainability, impact, and resilience for the future of humanity and the environment.

About the episode:

How can businesses share data to enable them to collaborate effectively whilst still retaining control of their data? Ali Nicholl at IOTICS thinks his company has the answer.

Guest Name: Ali Nicholl

Ali Nicholl is part of IOTICS’ founding team and IOTICS’ Head of Engagement, working across transport, logistics, utilities, the built environment, and defence, focusing on interoperability of IT & OT and digital cooperation across enterprise boundaries. Deploying decentralised, federated approaches that leverage semantics, selective sharing of data and connected digital twins. Ali is actively working on projects supporting the co-creation of transformative services and solutions at the intersection of market sectors and industries – with an interest in ESG, sustainability, and essential sharing networks.

Ali also represents IOTICS within industry and academic initiatives such as TechUK’s Digital Twin Working Group, Cranfield University’s Industry Advisory Board and, as Co-Chair, on the DT Hub Community Council. Ali is passionate about enabling and empowering individuals and organisations to use trusted interoperability to unlock the value of their data assets to meet today’s business challenges, with the future flexibility to be ready for as-yet-undefined technology and needs.

The opportunities presented by enabling programmatic discovery, data sharing and interaction must be married with a holistic understanding to unify technical and business benefits. Ali’s skills lie in taking a view across technical and sector landscapes to give confidence to those taking their first steps and to reflect impacts for the greater good.

Links:

LinkedIn: Ali Nicholl

IOTICS.com

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions please write to me at: tc@wickedproblems.fm.

Enjoy,

Toby Corballis

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S2 E4: Professor Herman Russchenberg: Innovation, Business Strategies, Addressing the Climate Emergency, and the Scientific Perspective!

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S2 E4: Professor Herman Russchenberg: Innovation, Business Strategies, Addressing the Climate Emergency, and the Scientific Perspective!

About the episode:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US called last year the hottest on record “by far”. During the year we saw many climate-related catastrophes – from large scale fires to unprecedented flooding. And yet, for some, the science of climate change is controversial. Many claim that even climate scientists don’t believe it can be attributed to anthropogenic actions. To understand what climate scientists really believe, we thought we’d speak with one.

Professor Russchenberg leads the Climate Institute at the Technical University of Delft and is the scientific director of the national Ruisdael Observatory, both in the Netherlands, an apt choice given that roughly one third of the Netherlands lies below sea level (the lowest being 6.7 metres below) and, so, rising sea levels are an issue.

In this episode, Professor Russchenberg and Toby Corballis discuss what businesses can do, the role of technology in mitigating some of the worst effects, why we’re seeing recent events, the warming of the oceans, and where we’re headed. Importantly, we ask what role business can play in helping to mitigate some of the worst effects of climate change.

Guest Name: Professor Herman Russchenberg

With decades of industry experience, Andrew Gordon-Brooks has built his career across Telco, Finance & Media with both global enterprises and early stage startups. Holding a variety of leadership & executive level positions; including building a global engineering team for a LinkedIn top 25 startup, Andrew is currently Chief Operations Officer for Secure Delivery, a firm spec, a founder member of the OWASP Education and Training Committee, and a key contributor to the OWASP Application Security Curriculum Project.

Guest Profile:

Professor Russchenberg is a full professor in Atmospheric Remote Sensing and head of the Department of Geoscience and Remote Sensing at the Technical University, Delft, in the Netherlands. Since 202, he is the TU Delft vice rector magnificus for climate action.

As well as leading the TU Delft Climate Institute, he is the Scientific Director of the national Ruisdael Observatory.

His research themes are:

  • Climate change: the role of clouds, rainfall and aerosols in the climate system
  • Measuring the atmosphere
  • Climate engineering
  • Nowcasting rainfall

Links:

Find out about the work that Professor Russchenberg is doing:

Calculate your travel footprint using one of the following:

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions please write to me at: tc@wickedproblems.fm.

Enjoy,

Toby Corballis

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S2 E3: Product Quality Matters with Andrew Gordon-Brooks

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Product Quality Matters with Andrew Gordon-Brooks

As we increasingly connect our devices and our lives to the online world, product security and quality become ever more important. In this episode Toby is joined by Andrew Gordon-Brooks, COO of Secure Delivery, a firm specialising in providing security improvement programmes for software engineers, product managers and leadership. Andrew is also a founding member of the OWASP Education and Training Committee, and a key contributor to the OWASP Application Security Curriculum Project, whose goal is to produce a standard Application Security curriculum across academia and industry.

About Andrew:

With decades of industry experience, Andrew Gordon-Brooks has built his career across Telco, Finance & Media with both global enterprises and early stage startups. Holding a variety of leadership & executive level positions; including building a global engineering team for a LinkedIn top 25 startup, Andrew is currently Chief Operations Officer for Secure Delivery, a firm spec, a founder member of the OWASP Education and Training Committee, and a key contributor to the OWASP Application Security Curriculum Project.

Links:

https://securedelivery.io
https://owasp.org
https://productqualitymatters.com/

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions please write to me at: tc@wickedproblems.fm.

Enjoy,

Toby

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S2 E2: Sean Jacob: Tailwinds of transformation: How grounded dreams can teach us valuable lessons.

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Sean Jacob: Tailwinds of transformation: How grounded dreams can teach us valuable lessons.

In this episode, we dive into the incredible journey of Sean Jacob, whose impressive career spans across multiple sectors, from Defence to Commercial, Aviation to Finance, both in the UK and internationally. With an exceptional ability to bridge the gap between business strategy and technology, Sean has been the driving force behind numerous successful projects, programmes, and transformations.

Sean’s career would be the envy of many, with roles as Vice President, Operations for L3 Commercial Training Services, Programme Director for the AA Group Plc, and senior-level leadership roles for high-profile organisations such as Unilever, Orange, nPower, O2, The World Bank, T-Mobile, and Compaq.

When given the opportunity to invest in and manage a commercial flight school, Sean embraced it with open arms. After all, he had transformed the work processes and infrastructures of major organisations, worked with exciting start-ups, and even taken a company into the Sunday Times Fast Track 100. Enthusiastically, he set about bringing these skills to bear on a company that appeared to be doing well, had competent and enthusiastic people working for it, and would benefit from someone with considerable commercial experience taking the reins, helping the team work more effectively and creating a company set for success.

But that’s not what happened…

In this episode, we examine the intriguing story behind a slew of negative headlines in May 2023 following the collapse of Shoreham’s FTA flight school. As Steven Bartlett says, “FAILURE IS FEEDBACK, FEEDBACK IS KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE IS POWER”.

Don’t miss out on the insights and wisdom Sean has to share from his past successes and, yes, this one failure which contains salutary lessons for us all.

LINKS:
Sean speaking at Vistage
Steven Bartlett on the power of Failure to teach us lessons

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions please write to me at: tc@wickedproblems.fm.

Enjoy,

Toby

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S2 E1: We’re pivoting! News about Wicked Problems

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We’re pivoting! News about Wicked Problems

Toby explains how the podcast will change in the coming months to focus more on business. The past few years have seen more than their fair share of challenges for the business environment. An enormous number of businesses are feeling the squeeze and, as a result, looking for ways to increase capacity, capability, and production.

At Wicked Problems, we’ve been helping businesses to do exactly that for years, so we thought it would be good to create a series that helps you solve those problems. We hope you enjoy the new format and look forward to seeing you on the first of the new episodes in a couple of weeks’ time. 

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions please write to me at: tc@wickedproblems.fm.

Enjoy,

Toby

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#1 – Welcome to the Wicked Problems Podcast

“If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind us.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772- 1834)

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Hello and welcome to the Wicked Problems podcast.

My name is Toby Corballis and I’m going to be your host on this journey through some fascinating problems being worked on and thought about by some extremely clever people.

But first, why the term wicked? Well, it’s not meant in the Ali-G sense, nor in the Wizard of Oz sense. Here, the term Wicked is referring to the elusiveness of solutions. This doesn’t mean that such problems cannot be solved, just that a solution is not that easy to find or, when solved, it wasn’t done by any immediately obvious rationale at the time, though sometimes the explanation can seem obvious in hindsight.

Throughout the series you’ll hear people like Martin Clements raise the issue of how businesses can stay safe in an ever-hostile on-line world if, indeed, business leaders are unable to identify, let alone understand, the threat landscape.

John Williams will discuss the problem of how, in an ever-crowded on-line world, people can effectively stand out and make their businesses successful.

Noll Fen talks about the problems of bias and how students – and other mortals like you and me – can defend against it, given it lives in all texts (a problem known in epistemological circles as pluralism).

What are Wicked Problems?

Wicked Problems are one of a class of three types of problem: Tame, Critical, and Wicked.

Tame problems are the ones we rub up against every day. They’re easy to spot and easy to solve. For instance, maybe you come out of your home to find that your car windscreen is iced up. It’s a problem, but you know how to solve it.

Critical problems are ones that need solving immediately. They’re critical because if you don’t solve them very soon, it will be too late. For instance, you’re crossing the road and suddenly realise a car is coming towards you that you hadn’t seen so you jump out of the way. If you hadn’t… well, who knows, but it wouldn’t have been a great outcome for you.

Wicked Problems, however, tend to be beyond experience. They may, in fact, be quite simple to define yet often the solution is fiendishly elusive, hence the term ‘wicked’. They may be in the moment, of a time, or perennial in nature, but there they are, as clear as a silted lake that’s host to an algae bloom.

Neither elegant or glib solutions can solve them – sometimes only the alchemy of experience can forge a solution.

I hope you enjoy this podcast and would love to hear any feedback in the comments below or via the contact page.

Toby Corballis

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.”

Steve Jobs (1955- 2011)

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”

Soren Kierkegaard (1813- 1855)

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