green-technology
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Zirconia Inc.
Zirconia Inc. is a Tukwila, Washington advanced-materials company that turns the surface of concrete and steel into a skin of ceramic. Its flagship product, CeramycGuard, is a room-temperature nano-ceramic geopolymer coating - essentially liquid granite - that chemically bonds to concrete and steel to stop corrosion, seal porosity, and repair cracks. Rooted in a modernized version of Roman cement and two decades of university research, the company aims to make aging infrastructure sustainable, safer, and effectively immortal.
Benjamin Cook
Benjamin Cook is the founder, CEO and board chairman of Zirconia Inc., a Tukwila, Washington advanced-materials company building water-borne ceramic coatings that chemically bond to concrete and steel at room temperature - effectively turning aging infrastructure into something close to liquid granite. A self-described green technologist with three decades of cleantech ventures behind him, Cook trades on a single conviction: the cheapest and greenest building is the one you never have to tear down. Before Zirconia he founded GeoTree Technologies, an underground-pipe restoration firm sold for a 5x investor return, and earlier still he traded a planned career in pediatric medicine for a life spent removing toxins from the built environment.
Vigilent
Vigilent is an Oakland, California company that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to optimize cooling in data centers, telecom facilities and other mission-critical buildings. Its software pairs wireless sensors with self-learning control algorithms to automatically match cooling output to real-time heat load, cutting cooling energy use by 40 percent or more while eliminating hot spots and reclaiming stranded capacity. Founded in 2008 by MIT-trained control engineer Cliff Federspiel, the company has deployed across 1,500-plus facilities in 36 countries and counts Verizon, NTT, Digital Realty, IBM and Telus among its customers.