Hiro Iwanaga is the Co-Founder and CEO of Talus Renewables (TalusAg), the company behind the world's first commercial modular green ammonia production system. A Stanford-trained engineer-turned-investor-turned-builder, Iwanaga spent years at hedge funds like Baupost Group and Silver Point Capital before channeling a decade of philanthropic green ammonia research into a full commercial venture. His technology - containerized units that turn air, water, and renewable electricity into fertilizer - is now operating in Kenya and Iowa, cutting farmer fertilizer costs by 30-50% and proving that decentralized, zero-carbon ammonia production is not a distant dream but a deployable reality.
Jason Aramburu is the cofounder and CEO of Applied Carbon, a Houston-based climate tech company building the world's first mobile, in-field biochar production machines that convert agricultural crop waste into permanent carbon storage - and improved soil - in a single pass. A Princeton-trained ecologist who first encountered biochar during field research in Panama, Aramburu has spent two decades building at the intersection of soil science, robotics, and carbon markets. Before Applied Carbon, he founded re:char (smallholder biochar in Kenya, backed by Gates Foundation) and Edyn (smart irrigation, Y Combinator W14), then invested in AI and energy startups at Baidu Ventures and Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures before returning to his original mission. Applied Carbon raised a $21.5M Series A in July 2024, backed by Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, Congruent Ventures, and the Grantham Foundation, and won the $500,000 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize in September 2024.