Maher Damak's guest appearances

Maher Damak

The Early Stage Podcast

Inspired by Failure

Phil Gregory

Jake Shapiro

Josh Martin

Stephanie Rowe

Bill Cox

Steve Hoffman

Rob Stevens

Juliette Kayyem

Melissa Gersin

Sam Shames

Charlie Kaplan

David Samuels

Sarah Hodges

Blake Bartlett

Tivan Amour

OwlTail

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 into his process. He was committed to the product being biodegradable, which sent the team in the direction of electrically-charged polymers. Using scientific literature and conversations with farmers using pesticides, they have been able to create a product that can be added to the existing pesticide spraying process but make it 10x more efficient.Sticky Pesticide involves one positively charged and one negatively charged stream of liquid that create an electrostatic attraction and change the surface of the plant to accept the pesticide spray. The next steps for Sticky Pesticide are field trials, testing at MIT, forming a startup, and taking the product to market.The best advice he has received was to know your users. He has done his best to heed this advice by openly communicating with farmers and growers about their needs and how he can create a helpful product. His biggest frustrations have been development and waiting on field testing, but he is hopeful that Sticky Pesticide will soon be serving its purpose and increasing growers’ efficiency.Key Quotes:“We are building on others’ work.”“People don’t realize that pesticides are so inefficient.”Connect with us:http://www.michiyamamoto.com/ https://www.facebook.com/InspiredByFailureByMichiYamamoto/

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 into his process. He was committed to the product being biodegradable, which sent the team in the direction of electrically-charged polymers. Using scientific literature and conversations with farmers using pesticides, they have been able to create a product that can be added to the existing pesticide spraying process but make it 10x more efficient. Sticky Pesticide involves one positively charged and one negatively charged stream of liquid that create an electrostatic attraction and change the surface of the plant to accept the pesticide spray. The next steps for Sticky Pesticide are field trials, testing at MIT, forming a startup, and taking the product to market. The best advice he has received was to know your users. He has done his best to heed this advice by openly communicating with farmers and growers about their needs and how he can create a helpful product. His biggest frustrations have been development and waiting on field testing, but he is hopeful that Sticky Pesticide will soon be serving its purpose and increasing growers’ efficiency. Key Quotes: “We are building on others’ work.” “People don’t realize that pesticides are so inefficient.” Connect with us: <a href="http://www.michiyamamoto.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.michiyamamoto.com/</a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/InspiredByFailureByMichiYamamoto/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/InspiredByFailureByMichiYamamoto/</a>

Sticky Pesticide by Maher Damak

Today, we hear from Maher Damak, Co-Founder at MIT-spawned startup Infinite Cooling. For a first time founder, Maher comes across as thoughtful and in control. He and his co-founders have set Infinite Cooling on an amazing run: winning the MIT 100k and a grant by the state of Massachusetts, gaining acceptance and winning the top prize at MassChallenge, and most recently being named to the Forbes "30 Under 30" list for 2019.Combining fluid dynamics with mechanical engineering for social good, Maer first worked on creating electrically-charged meshes to capture water from fog to produce drinking water in remote areas of the world that have lots of fog but no rain. The technology worked, and they found a massive commercial application capturing water from cooling tower plumes with electrically-charged domes. Maher and his team are piloting the technology with MIT's cooling tower and are looking at raising funding from early stage investors to build the team and launch more projects. I see a ton of deal flow from running this podcast, and in my opinion, Infinite Cooling is something special. While profit is certainly important, he also has an eye towards the developing world, with hopes to turn high cost power plants into low cost desalinization plants to provide clean water globally.Infinite Cooling Website: https://www.infinite-cooling.com/Maher's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maher-damak-phd-2217b35b/

Today, we hear from Maher Damak, Co-Founder at MIT-spawned startup Infinite Cooling. For a first time founder, Maher comes across as thoughtful and in control. He and his co-founders have set Infinite Cooling on an amazing run: winning the MIT 100k and a grant by the state of Massachusetts, gaining acceptance and winning the top prize at MassChallenge, and most recently being named to the Forbes "30 Under 30" list for 2019. Combining fluid dynamics with mechanical engineering for social good, Maer first worked on creating electrically-charged meshes to capture water from fog to produce drinking water in remote areas of the world that have lots of fog but no rain. The technology worked, and they found a massive commercial application capturing water from cooling tower plumes with electrically-charged domes. Maher and his team are piloting the technology with MIT's cooling tower and are looking at raising funding from early stage investors to build the team and launch more projects. I see a ton of deal flow from running this podcast, and in my opinion, Infinite Cooling is something special. While profit is certainly important, he also has an eye towards the developing world, with hopes to turn high cost power plants into low cost desalinization plants to provide clean water globally. Infinite Cooling Website: <a href="https://www.infinite-cooling.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.infinite-cooling.com/</a> Maher's LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/maher-damak-phd-2217b35b/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/maher-damak-phd-2217b35b/</a>

Infinite Cooling - Maher Damak, Co-Founder