"Making a change is never easy and never will be. But making a change is possible and can be done. And One Young World and its community of change-makers is an example of this."
Caritta Seppä is the co-founder and COO of Tespack, a company created in 2013 with a vision to make energy mobile and to create products that can power the needs of all professionals under any circumstances with clean energy. In collaboration with Plan International, they've created a Solar Media Bag so that rescue workers and local teachers can provide access to education in rural regions by generating energy from the sun and to charge all their mobile devices, such as laptops and lights. Caritta spoke about her journey and her advice for building relationships and networking at the 2019 Summit in London.
Caritta's Story
Hi all, my name is Caritta and I am the Co-Founder and COO of Tespack. We focus on mobile energy, in designing, building and patenting portable energy-storage solutions for rescue forces such as the UN and Plan International.
Last year, I was selected by the Audi Environmental Foundation to participate in the 2018 Summit and had the honour of being selected as a delegate speaker on education. This really was a humbling reminder on how we should never underestimate ourselves and what we can achieve.
Listening to the emotional and inspiring stories from change makers around the globe and connecting with fellow social entrepreneurs and companies filled me with new ideas. It truly helped me to take action in creating partnerships that would support my company’s vision of bringing mobile energy to everyone, everywhere.
Thanks to my participation at the Summit, we embarked on a new partnership via the Audi Environmental Foundation which has allowed us to bring mobile energy to even more regions and continue to support rescue workers to carry out life-saving missions in some of the most extreme conditions.
As one of the key challenges we are still facing today, is the lack of access to electricity. There are around 2B people living without electricity which equally translates to these same people suffering from lack of access to education, clean water, food, and health care.
With this in mind, my company Tespack was created back in 2013 with a goal of making everyone energy independent.
In collaboration with Plan International, we created a Solar Media Bag so that rescue workers and local teachers could provide access to education in rural regions by being able to create energy from the sun and to charge all their mobile devices, such as laptops and lights. With our IoT platform and GPS, teams can get real time updates on the status of rescue workers and ensure their safety.
Today, in collaboration with other NGOs, we have helped power a school of 500 students in the Kashmir region; we have started a pilot with the UN Refugee Agency in Jordan by powering their humanitarian workers in the field so they can continue to provide vital support.
Our goal is to provide access to energy in off-grid regions for a further ten thousand rescue workers in the coming months so that together with NGOs and humanitarian agencies, we can reduce the number of children out of school in rural regions.
One of the key reasons behind my company’s success, has been our focus on creating long-lasting relationships. And one of the greatest places to form these partnerships and to find new collaborators, is through One Young World community and the Summit.
The One Young World community and especially the Summit, is a perfect place to network and get connected but the key here is to be active and be ready to ask for help and support.
What I learned during the Summit, is that often many Ambassadors disregard the opportunity to get connected with the people from the corporations that participate at the Summit. Companies like Audi, Coca-Cola and BP to name a few, all have different projects taking place around the world and they are constantly looking for new ideas and innovations.
However, these organisations and most of the people here, they do not know you nor what is your project or initiative. It is up to you to reach out to them, to get the most out of the Summit. So utilize the application and Facebook community in connecting with people. And remember, as important as it is to get in contact with the right people, it is also to follow up with these leads and potential partnerships. Collaboration does not end when the Summit ends. That is when it truly starts and that is when you really need to put in the real work.
Making a change is never easy and never will be. But making a change is possible and can be done. And One Young World and its community of change-makers is an example of this. So to all of you soon to be Ambassadors, dont be afraid to get started.
Sometimes all it takes for you to succeed, is to understand that you don’t need to be the best or the smartest in your industry. You don’t need to have the fanciest degree or go to the best universities. You just need to be ready to fail over and over again and not feel ashamed in front of the whole world. Pain is momentary and will go away. But glory, now that can last forever.
You can connect with Caritta here.