CARBONAUGHT
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© 2022 Carbonaught Pty Ltd. All rights reserved
An idea born from a series of late night debates, Carbonaught was founded in 2021 by former co-workers from the mining industry who partnered with leading academics in soil carbon and geochemistry.
Eighteen months and a formidable experimentation program later, Carbonaught placed 24th globally in the milestone phase of the XPrize Carbon Removal Program. Venture funding followed and the team is now primed for a 2023 that will alter how food is grown and consumed while scaling their patent-pending negative emission technology.
“At Antler, when we see an opportunity to make a strong impact paired with a blue-sky founder vision, we get excited. Carbonaught has this in spades.”
Bede Moore
Managing Partner - Antler Australia
An electrical engineering undergraduate with a doctorate in the field of machine learning, James is responsible for all of Carbonaught's technical development across both hard and software.
"James is perhaps the most level head I've ever met. His ability to seek out, process and retain information sits at the core of Carbonaught's engine" says CEO Andrew Pedley. James previously worked as a senior data-scientitst at a large mining services contractor with Andrew. There James was largely responsible for remote asset health monitoring for a fleet of over 700 vehicles across 18 global operations.
A code-breaker by nature, James has a website that breaks historically significant ciphers with modern software. James is a company director and chairs the scientific advisory board.
James' google scholar profile can be found here.
An economics undergraduate, Andrew's early career was spent in financial markets before migrating to heavy industry where he built and led operations research/data science teams focused on operational profitability. Andrew is responsible for everything James isn't.
On starting Carbonaught, "We developed the science to the point where it really called for a stand-alone company. At the time, we were at odds with just about everybody which meant, as a team, we needed high conviction in both our capabilities and goals. Having worked together across the years we knew we were up for it."
Before Carbonaught consumed every waking moment, Andrew started a sport statistics consulting business that was used by top flight rugby teams internationally. Andrew is a company director, the company secretary and sits on the scientific advisory board.
Andrew's LinkedIn profile can be found here.
Hailing from Switzerland (MSc and PhD from the University in Bern), Balz is now Professor of Petrology at Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
He was previously the Chair of Geology and Mineralogy at Trinity College Dublin from 2011- 2018 and was Deputy-Director of the Centre for Research in Applied Geosciences. He has also been the editor-in-chief of D1 journal Chemical Geology since 2018.Prior to working in Ireland, Balz was a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair at Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada (2005-2011). Between 1995 and 2005, he was a Research Associate at Oxford, Cambridge and the University of Queensland.
He returned to Australia with the goal of establishing a strong presence of real-world relevant, high-impact research in earth sciences and geochemistry. He is currently the recipient of two ARC linkage grants and is working on the NASA's Perseverance Rover program through QUT.
"Companies, universities, verification bodies are all clambering for expertise in enhanced weathering right now. Balz, has been at the cutting edge of this stuff for over three decades at the top research institutions on the planet. To have him as a co-founder and heavily involved in setting the R&D program has set us apart." says CEO Andrew Pedley.
Balz's google scholar profile can be found here.
David is a soil scientist in the Sustainable Agriculture program at the Centre for Agriculture and Bioeconomy at Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
He specialiSes in the development and utilisation of improved sensing and monitoring technologies for mitigating environmental greenhouse gases, improving crop fertiliser-use efficiency and monitoring soil carbon, reactive nitrogen and biogeochemical processes. His work spans the Australian beef, dairy, grains, sugar and horticulture industries and he has worked internationally in cropping and rice systems.
David currently leads the national Smart Farming Partnerships Unlocking the true value of organic soil amendments project to develop a farm-ready tool for the effective management of composts into farm fertiliser budgets for environmental, soil health and economic sustainability.
Being a cattle farmer himself allows him to link the worlds of academia and industry remarkably well. His knowledge of what works and what does and/or won't work in the field of soil carbon have been instrumental to Carbonaught's strategic direction.
David's google scholar profile can be found here.