Robin Ferris is the CEO and Founder of Bankuet.

With the cost of living crisis and inflation, food poverty in the UK is at it’s worst. This year 9.3 million people in the UK will experience food insecurity and in the last year 1 million people have used food banks for the first time.

Volunteering in his local food bank, Robin saw firsthand the challenges that food banks face and how they would struggle to meet the continued increasing demand.

Robin wanted to build a tech platform that would make it was easy and simple for people to donate, whilst making their money go further. And also making sure food banks got the food and items they needed, when they needed them.

In 2019, Bankuet was born with the vision for no one in the UK to go hungry. Since then, they have partnered with over 300 food banks across the UK and delivered over 2.8 million food and household items to help tackle food poverty.

Highlights:

• 03.23: The harsh reality of food poverty in the UK
• 07.15: Things are only going to get worse and less food is being donated
• 10.53: The food bank system, how it all works
• 17.08: The story of Bankuet
• 31.26: The power of technology to solve social issues
• 39.53: Build brand awareness and attracting donations
• 43.31: Bankuet is for profit, building a scalable impact business model
• 49.06: Internal operations, managing volunteers and part time staff remotely around the UK
• 55.33: The future plans for Bankuet
• 59.22: Meeting King Charles

Our Host:
Craig Turner. Founder of Confido Talent, a business that helps Tech For Good startups to scale their product, design and engineering teams.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigturner7/ / www.confidotalent.com / craig@confidotalent.com

Our Guest:
Robin Ferris, Founder and CEO of Bankuet.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinjferris/ / https://www.bankuet.co.uk/
Donate here >> https://www.bankuet.co.uk/givenow

Our Sponsor:
Jobs For Good. The only job platform to find the best jobs in sustainability, impact and much more.
www.jobsforgood.io / https://bit.ly/3wjwJa0

Our Producer:
Jabriel Al-Suhaimi. Jabriel is a podcast aficionado, editing and producing podcasts for many, including himself.
https://www.jabrielalsuhaimi.com/ / https://twitter.com/jabealsuhaimi

Philipp von Lamezan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Squake.

Travel and transport are responsible for 20% of emissions worldwide, with the global population growing, this footprint is only going to increase in the next decade unless we do something about it now.

Squake are advocating for short and long term change, by building a platform that makes sustainable travel and transport accessible to everyone. They do this by focusing on three main steps:

1. Working with businesses to accurately calculate emissions, so consumers can understand the impact of their travel decisions.

2. Reducing or avoiding emissions through alternative means or better modes of travel.

3. Compensating for any remaining emissions by investing in carbon projects.

In this episode Philipp explains more about sustainability in travel and what needs to change, his journey building Squake, the hardest part about being a Founder and his advice for hiring as a startup.

Highlights:

• 02.00: Travel and transport make up 20% of global emissions
• 05.06: Changing consumer behaviour to minimise the impact
• 10.39: The pressures on businesses to change
• 14.33: Transitioning to Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) in the future
• 17.34: Squake overview
• 23.46: Emission calculation, regulations and frameworks
• 26.42: Helping consumers minimise their impact
• 33.30: Raising their Seed round, the good and the bad
• 37.11: The hardest part of the Founder’s role
• 42.31: Early stage and engineer hiring advice

Our Host:
Craig Turner. Founder of Confido Talent, a business that helps Tech For Good startups to scale their product, design and engineering teams.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigturner7/ / www.confidotalent.com / craig@confidotalent.com

Our Guest:
Philipp von Lamezan, CEO and Co-Founder of Squake.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vonlamezan/ / https://www.squake.earth/

Our Sponsor:
Jobs For Good. The only job platform to find the best jobs in sustainability, impact and much more.
www.jobsforgood.io / https://bit.ly/3wjwJa0

Our Producer:
Jabriel Al-Suhaimi. Jabriel is a podcast aficionado, editing and producing podcasts for many, including himself.
https://www.jabrielalsuhaimi.com/ / https://twitter.com/jabealsuhaimi

Elena Rueda is the CEO and Co-Founder of Dama Health.

900 million people around the world use contraception, yet 80% of women report experiencing side effects that decrease their quality of life, and on average women try 4 different contraceptive methods before finding the right fit!

Pretty shocking right! Elena explains why the lack of data and research in this field combined with pressures on the NHS, results in a very poor patient experience and can lead to serious side effects in women including depression, blood clots and heavy bleeding.

Dama Health are fixing this broken system by applying personalised and precision medicine to contraceptive health. Their screening test identifies patient biomarkers and personal preferences, to enable better decision making between patient and clinician. They are also conduct genetic research studies to better understand how different genes react to different contraceptive methods.

Highlights:

• 02.06: Elena’s career journey and being her friend’s contraception guru
• 08.34: The reasons people take contraception
• 11.13: Different forms of contraception
• 13.08: The current routes (and challenges) in being prescribed contraceptives
• 15.34: The side effects of taking the wrong form of contraception
• 17.44: The challenges prescribers face
• 24.40: Dama Health and their work
• 37.15: Dama’s genetic research studies
• 46.30: Getting the right funding for R&D heavy startups
• 57.51: Meeting Davina McCall and being on Channel 4’s recent documentary

Our Host:
Craig Turner. Founder of Confido Talent, a business that helps Tech For Good startups to scale their product, design and engineering teams.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigturner7/ / www.confidotalent.com / craig@confidotalent.com

Our Guest:
Elena Rueda, CEO and Co-Founder of Dama Health.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/elena-r-14335187/ / https://damahealth.com/
Channel 4 documentary: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/davina-mccalls-pill-revolution (Elena/Dama Health snippet 36.58-40.06).

Our Sponsor:
Jobs For Good. The only job platform to find the best jobs in sustainability, impact and much more.
www.jobsforgood.io / https://bit.ly/3wjwJa0

Our Producer:
Jabriel Al-Suhaimi. Jabriel is a podcast aficionado, editing and producing podcasts for many, including himself.
https://www.jabrielalsuhaimi.com/ / https://twitter.com/jabealsuhaimi