Innovation

Prince William inspired me to hire more people that have NO EXPERIENCE in our industry, here's why you should too 👇🏾 I've worked with Prince William for a few years on his mission to end homelessness in the UK through his Royal Foundation programme, Homewards. I've watched how he and it work up close. I expected something that looked like a traditional charity. What he's built looks more like a startup. He's gone to six locations across the UK and used his unique leverage to pull together the widest possible group of people with the widest possible range of skills - people who'd never usually work together - and pointed all of them at the problem of homelessness. In some locations that coalition includes landowners, tech start-ups, a homelessness charity, a bank, a mental health organisation, employers, recruitment companies, local schools and more... And it's producing brand new solutions💡 In Cornwall: new homes, all now lived in by people who were previously homeless. In Aberdeen: empty properties brought back into use. In Newport: abandoned land unlocked. Elsewhere, discarded furniture donated to newly housed people. Many of the partners have worked on homelessness for decades on their own, but together, they're producing ideas and results none of them managed alone. And that is the lesson... Business history shows that innovation usually comes from rare combinations of skills coming together. When you stack skills that are complementary but rarely found together, and you get new answers to old problems. The same is true inside a company. The first innovation any company makes is its org chart - which is basically just a map of the skills it's collected and arranged. Hire the same types of people as your competitors, with the same experience, and you raise the probability of getting the same ideas as them. Hire expertise from outside your industry - skills that are rare in your world but complementary to it - and you build divergent thinking into the org chart itself. Apple is the example I always give of "skill stacking"... Steve Jobs said the Macintosh was great because it was built by musicians, poets, artists, zoologists and historians who ALSO happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. They stacked liberal arts skills on engineering skills - a combination Apple's competitors didn't have and it produced products the world had never seen. Prince William has taken the same idea and pointed it at one of society's hardest problems. And from what I've seen up close, it's working! So maybe, as employers, we've got things a bit backwards. Maybe the CV with "no industry experience" might be exactly the person your company is missing 🤔! And maybe we need to start viewing a lack of relevant experience as an opportunity for new innovation. Food for thought?

The future of batteries may not need lithium. ⚡🧂 For years, lithium has powered the clean energy revolution. Electric vehicles. Home batteries. Grid storage. But lithium isn't the only path forward. Researchers are now exploring battery chemistries built from materials as common as salt and oxygen from the air. Why does that matter? Because today's lithium batteries come with real challenges: ⛏️ Intensive mining 🌍 Concentrated global supply chains 💰 Rising costs 🔋 Performance that gradually degrades over time Salt-based battery technologies aim to tackle many of those issues. Potential advantages include: 🧂 Abundant, widely available materials 🔥 Improved safety ⏳ Longer operational lifetimes ⚡ Lower costs for large-scale energy storage The biggest opportunity isn't necessarily replacing lithium in electric cars. It's storing renewable electricity on the grid. Solar and wind need affordable storage to deliver power when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. If these next-generation batteries can scale commercially, they could reduce dependence on critical minerals while making clean energy more resilient and accessible. The next breakthrough may not come from digging deeper. It may come from using materials we've had all along. 📌PS: Found this helpful? Join 19,000+ founders and investors leveling up their game to fix this climate mess. 👉 Subscribe to my newsletter and get actionable insights delivered weekly! 🌍🚀 https://lnkd.in/ektv3C_s #BatteryTechnology #EnergyStorage #CleanEnergy #ClimateTech #RenewableEnergy #Innovation #FutureEnergy

Wind and solar are scaling faster than any other electricity sources in history. The extent of that growth is worth understanding.   Solar has just broken its seventh consecutive record for year-on-year generation. It reached 1000 TWh for the first time in 2021. By 2026, it will likely surpass 3000 TWh – triple the electricity in just five years. Wind continues to grow steadily alongside it.   It’s not just the pace that makes this remarkable, but the consistency. These are not one-off surges driven by a single policy cycle or a commodity price shock. Consistent growth is structural: these technologies can scale at this pace because the economics keep improving and deployment keeps compounding.   It is encouraging to see this progress, and that RWE is contributing to it. Wind and solar have proven, repeatedly and consistently, that they can scale at pace. What comes next is making sure the rest of the energy system keeps up – grids, firm capacity, and the frameworks that make investment possible at the speed this transition requires.

Wind and solar generation is scaling faster than any other electricity sources in history. This chart looks at the time taken for different technologies to grow from 100 TWh to 1,000 TWh of annual electricity generation. ✅ Solar took just 8 years ✅ Wind took 12 years ✅ By comparison, gas took 28 years, coal 32 years and hydro 39 years Nuclear also reached the milestone in 12 years, but then its growth slowed sooner than wind. Importantly, this chart is not measuring market share. It is measuring how quickly different technologies scaled once they reached meaningful levels of deployment. And the story today is also bigger than generation alone. Batteries are increasingly extending solar generation into the evening peak, while electrification is creating new demand for clean electricity in transport, heating and industry. Much of this growth is being driven by improving economics, with wind, solar and batteries becoming increasingly competitive across a growing range of applications. That combination is beginning to reshape energy systems around the world. Renewables now generate more than one third of global electricity, and wind and solar continue to account for the majority of new power capacity added each year. The pace of deployment matters because energy transitions are ultimately about scale. And by that measure, wind and solar are growing faster than anything that came before them.

In the late 1990s, a 53-year-old toy inventor looked at the $80 electric toothbrushes on the market and thought: this is overengineered. John Osher wasn’t a dentist. He was a product guy who had built his career in toys. One of his biggest hits? A battery-powered lollipop that spun in your mouth. It sounded silly. It sold like crazy. But what he really built was manufacturing insight. If you can mass-produce a small motorized gadget for kids at ultra-low cost, why can’t you do the same thing for adults brushing their teeth? That question led to a radically simple idea: a battery-powered toothbrush that actually worked, ran on AA batteries, and cost about five dollars. No premium positioning. No luxury pricing. Just volume and accessibility. And then he added a retail hack: a button on the package so shoppers could turn it on in the aisle. No ad campaign could compete with that moment of tactile proof. They called it Spinbrush The product exploded. Shelves cleared. The data was undeniable. When Procter & Gamble got their hands on it, they didn’t just want to put their brand on it. They bought the entire company. The deal: roughly $475 million. The lesson isn’t about toothbrushes. It’s about transfer learning. John Osher didn’t invent new technology. He applied toy economics to a stagnant category and changed the price-performance equation overnight. That’s pattern recognition at scale. Hear the full story on How I Built This with @guy.raz.

In South Africa, the first human trial of a locally developed HIV vaccine has officially begun. This is also the first trial of its kind in Africa. The BRILLIANT 011 study is enrolling participants at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation in Cape Town. Designed and led by African scientists, this trial will test whether the vaccine candidate is safe and capable of triggering an immune response against the virus. But beyond the clinical milestones, this moment carries something deeper: ownership, especially in a global health landscape where international funding is dwindling, and African countries are turning inwards for locally-led solutions. For decades, HIV has profoundly shaped lives, families, economies and policy across our region. Africa has carried a disproportionate share of the burden. And while global partnerships have been essential, there is something transformational about African scientists leading the charge toward a solution rooted in local expertise, local institutions and local determination. This is what narrative change looks like in practice. From being seen primarily as recipients of aid to being architects of innovation, and from dependency to agency. Progress in science is often slow, careful and methodical. Human trials are only one step in a long journey. But they are a step forward. We celebrate not just a potential vaccine, but the courage of researchers, the commitment of participants, and the quiet, rigorous work happening in laboratories across the continent. The future of global health innovation is not confined to the global North at all. It is being shaped right here at home, in Africa, too. #welldoneSA #science #clinicaltrials #globalhealth #southafrica #africa 🇿🇦

A new model in Payments is emerging: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐰𝐢𝐜𝐡 Here's how it works: For decades, international payments have moved through a network of correspondent banks. Each transaction passed through multiple intermediaries, from local to international correspondents and back again, taking days and incurring fees at every step. This system worked, but it was slow, expensive, and opaque. A new model is emerging — The Stablecoin Sandwich — where blockchain replaces those intermediary layers to enable direct, near-instant settlement. Here’s how it works: → The sender initiates a transfer in fiat (for example, euros). → An on-ramp partner converts those euros into a stablecoin such as USDC. → The stablecoin moves across the blockchain, serving as the settlement medium. → An off-ramp partner converts the stablecoin into local currency (such as pesos or reais). → The recipient receives funds in their local account, often in under 30 minutes. → This hybrid flow combines the compliance and familiarity of traditional finance with the efficiency, transparency, and programmability of blockchain technology. The scale of this transformation is already visible. Stablecoin transactions now exceed $7 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 annually, surpassing 50% of Visa’s global network volume: https://bit.ly/49aC07G Stablecoins are becoming a fundamental layer for liquidity management, B2B settlement, and cross-border treasury flows. An entire ecosystem is forming around this shift: → 𝐄𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞 & 𝐁2𝐁: BVNK, Bitwave, and Contact are helping global merchants manage stablecoin liquidity, compliance, and treasury operations. → 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞: Polygon Labs, Aptos Labs, and Chainlink Labs are building the rails that connect traditional payment networks with blockchain-based settlement. → 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐬 & 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬: Dfns and BitGo offer programmable, secure wallet solutions designed for enterprises managing large digital asset volumes. → 𝐏𝐚𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐬: Mural Pay, Fipto and Noah are integrating stablecoin rails into existing payment stacks, bridging traditional and digital commerce. → An exciting one, Breeze is reimagining the 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝 (MoR) model with programmable, blockchain-enabled settlements that occur instantly. What's happening is not a replacement of the financial system, but an upgrade. Traditional bank accounts are evolving into wallets. Money movement is becoming programmable. Settlement is shifting from days to seconds. The Stablecoin Sandwich represents a new layer of global financial infrastructure, one that merges the reliability of banks with the speed and transparency of blockchain. Source: Fipto, CB Insights, Dawn Capital, and kudos to Arthur Bedel for this great update! 👌 Find this helpful? [𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁] Anything to add about this subject? [𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁] Nice story, Marcel. Next! [𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲]

This hospital charges ₹1999/year for unlimited doctor visits and tests - for a family of 4. Here's how they're making money while doing it. Most Tier 1 city hospitals in India are stuck in a broken cycle. They spend ₹2 crores per bed just on land and construction. This debt pressures them to overcharge, overcrowd OPDs, and push doctors to generate more revenue. Superhealth in Bangalore is doing something completely different. And I think it could change healthcare for millions of people. Here's what they've built 👇 ▶ 1. The VIP Pass model ₹1999/year gets a family of 4: - Unlimited doctor consultations - All prescribed tests covered (yes, even MRIs) How is this viable? The B2B cost of common tests is incredibly low. By cutting out traditional markups and billing friction, they can offer it at near-cost. ▶ 2. Slashed infrastructure costs by 65% They don't buy land or buildings. They lease old structures - like shopping malls - and convert them into 50-bed facilities. Construction drops from 3-6 years to just 120 days using standardized designs and prefabrication. So cost per bed? ₹70 lakhs instead of ₹2 crores. ▶ 3. Faster patient turnover Traditional hospitals keep patients for 3-5 days on average (often to maximise revenue). Superhealth's procedures are optimised 1-1.5 day length of stay. This means their 50-bed facility matches the patient volume of a 150-bed traditional hospital. ▶ 4. Fixed salaries for doctors No commissions. No referral fees. No pressure to over-prescribe. Doctors get ESOPs instead, aligning them with long-term patient outcomes rather than short-term revenue. ▶ 5. Transparent, fixed pricing Whether you're paying cash or using insurance, the price is fixed. No surprises. No hidden costs. Discharge happens within 15 minutes of the doctor's approval because billing is already settled. So the real innovation isn't just affordability. It's proving you can build profitable, high-quality healthcare without exploiting patients. They're essentially competing with health insurance by removing the friction and anxiety that plague traditional care. Book appointment on the app. Walk in. See the doctor. Get tests done. Walk out. No waiting. No billing hassles. Super easy. And I think that’s incredible. Do you think this model could work in your city? #entrepreneurship #healthtech #innovation

Today, I’m thrilled to share what I believe is the biggest breakthrough in microbiome science for a decade. Nature Magazine, the world's most influential scientific journal, has just published a scientific paper by ZOE's scientists, establishing the first reliable, repeatable, global way to measure the health of an individual’s gut microbiome. It represents the culmination of eight years of work at ZOE. Scientists have been trying to solve this puzzle for more than 20 years, right back to when they first discovered how important our gut microbes are for our health. It’s been achieved only because more than 34,000 ZOE members took part in this research. We’ve known for a long time that the microbiome is linked to cholesterol, inflammation, blood sugar control and even how we store fat. But we’ve never had a clear, evidence-based way to measure how healthy a microbiome actually is. This analysis finally delivers it, revealing a global ranking of microbes that works across populations, diets and environments. The insights are remarkable. Among the top 50 “good microbes” linked with better health, 22 were completely unknown to science until today, and most of the others have never been successfully grown in a lab. We also discovered clear links between these good microbes and health outcomes: healthy individuals carry around 3.6 more of these beneficial species, and people at a healthy weight carry about 5.2 more than those living with obesity. We also found a strong connection to diet. People eating healthier diets consistently have microbiomes that score better on this ranking. What we eat shapes our gut health, and now we can measure this relationship with unprecedented clarity. ZOE was created to enable microbiome research at a scale that traditional science has been unable to fund, and use this research to create actionable advice that can transform our gut health. This is a major milestone in that journey. I’m delighted to say that as a result, this breakthrough science is immediately available for the public to investigate their own microbiome through ZOE’s new Gut Health Test in the UK, and this is coming soon in the US. You can now receive not only a reliable measurement of how healthy your microbiome is as you change their diet, but also discover the health of clusters of gut microbes in your gut affecting metabolism, inflammation and more. To all our amazing ZOE members who have participated in our science: you made this possible. You are transforming our understanding of the microbiome. Thank you so much. I hope you feel as proud and excited as I do. I should note that your research is now published in Nature, which is the ultimate scientific accolade, and you can definitely brag about that with your friends! If you think this science could help others understand their health, I’d love for you to share it. You’ll find links to more details from our findings and access to the paper in the comments.

Today in Cell, we published new research showing how AI can help accelerate cancer discovery. With GigaTIME, we can now simulate spatial proteomics from routine pathology slides, enabling population-scale analysis of tumor microenvironments across dozens of cancer types and hundreds of subtypes.   Developed in partnership with Providence and the University of Washington, our hope is that this work helps scientists move faster from data to insight, revealing new links between genetic mutations, immune activity, and clinical outcomes, and ultimately improving health for people everywhere. https://lnkd.in/dSpPdtzz