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Back to SearchThere is growing pressure to accelerate technology innovation in the transition towards new low-carbon energy. Avatar Innovations is an immersive program that brings participants together to tackle the oil and gas sector’s greatest challenges, confront climate change head-on, and generate new business ideas to decarbonize practices in an economically viable way.
The Avatar program facilitates its participants to work collaboratively with others across the oil and gas industry. Together, they are building lasting relationships and developing their careers in the future energy adoption and engineering space while providing industry-generated ideas that could lead to viable, investable business technologies.
This year, GHD sponsored Avatar Ignite, the first round of Avatar, enabling 10 young professionals and two mentors to participate in the program. Included in the group was Kiersten Bell, Future Energy Graduate at GHD. Kiersten said, “The main thing that attracted me to be involved in Avatar was the concept of taking our own ideas and turning it into something real - a viable solution for the industry.”
Stoking the fire with Avatar Ignite
Avatar Innovations includes three stages. In the first stage, Avatar Ignite, the 270 participants were divided into 50 teams and assigned a topic which ranged from grid reliance, net-zero hydrocarbons, methane emissions reductions, climate adaptation solutions, carbon capture storage and utilization and more. “The overarching challenge was finding an idea that was not only viable from an economic perspective but also could be integrated into existing workflows because that’s a big part of introducing a new technology - enabling stakeholders to adapt it into their processes easily,” says Sara Elkady, GHD Waste Management Engineer in Training.
What’s next for the innovation teams
The teams worked collaboratively to develop a business case for their proposed solution and pitched their innovation to a panel of executive sponsors. As a result, 13 teams advanced to the second round and were acknowledged for being innovative, implementable and groundbreaking initiatives. Of those 13 teams to advance to the Avatar Accelerator round, three included participants from GHD, showcasing the impact our people are having on this important initiative. When asked how it felt to be selected to advance, Kiersten said, “There are so many brilliant people with unique cool ideas in this program. It was exciting to be selected to advance and nice to be able to continue to work on our project after spending so much time on it.”
Teams selected to participate in this round are sponsored and receive funding for resources at the University of Calgary. The goal is to build out, test and validate the concept and transform it into a practical, implementable solution. Then their ideas are pitched to a panel of investors on “Demo Day.” The final stage, Avatar Ventures, gets awarded to teams selected by a panel of investors. The goal is to award capital for further implementation of the solutions they have developed over the past year.
Making an impact
The Accelerator teams will continue to work on building out their ideas for the next several weeks while everyone at GHD cheers them on. All Avatar participants from the 67 organizations across the country have benefitted from an experience they will never forget. This was a chance to learn from each other and provide their own innovative ideas during a pivotal time for the industry. “The new perspectives and knowledge gained through Avatar is something I don’t think we would have been able to get anywhere else. The networks, contacts and direct involvement in the energy transition will be invaluable as the future of energy continues to evolve,” says Jason Wilson, GHD Waste Management Engineer.
Looking beyond Avatar Innovations
Next, GHD will explore innovation by collaborating with MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub in Toronto, Canada. Through the MaRS ecosystem, GHD will join a community of entrepreneurs, investors, academics and government partners who will unite to transform sustainability and environmental practices in agri-tech, energy, transportation, waste management, and water sectors. GHD will continue to pave the way to innovations that move toward the future of energy.
“We want to enable our staff to become engaged and empowered leaders in the future of energy through programs that facilitate access to entrepreneurial tools and resources,” says Tej Gidda, GHD’s Global Future Energy Leader.
