Scaling With The Audacious Target of 10 Million Green Jobs In 10 Years w/ Richard Ng | greenworkx

Richard Ng: [00:00:00] I'd been very lucky growing up. I'd had a lot of opportunity. You know, I went to private prep school, went to grammar school, went to Oxford. I've always been driven centrally by how can I make sure that the opportunities and benefits I've had, I can use that to benefit of others. And as a founder at the other stage, it's sort of like you just have the purest form of there's a problem.

Richard Ng: I want to solve. Let's go and solve it. Our mission is to get 10 million more people into green jobs in 10 years. If there is no organization, which comes at this with the audacity to be like, you know what? There's this huge problem. We're gonna take it on, then. Then it's not gonna work.

Amardeep Parmar: Welcome to The BAE HQ Podcast where we inspire, connect, and guide the next generation of British Asians. Today we have with us Richard Ng, who's the co-founder and CTO of Greenworkx. He's also an an aid adventure as  angel, how are you doing today?

Richard Ng: I'm really well, thank you so much for having me on. 

Amardeep Parmar: So  you've got a really interesting story because it's quite unusual.

Richard Ng: Yeah.

Amardeep Parmar: So people have get different backgrounds. They're going into the corporate world to do some like that [00:01:00] before you become a  Founder. But you are in teaching first. 

Richard Ng: That's right. 

Amardeep Parmar: And what I wanna understand is if you arrive further when you're growing up, did you ever think you'd be in the startup world?

Richard Ng: Uh, not at all.

Richard Ng: It has been so many unexpected turns, like there's been at least probably three different unexpected turns. So when I went into teaching, I generally thought this is what I’m gonna be spending probably the rest of my life doing, or at least a very significant part of it, being in the kind of classic education system, because I knew I'd been very lucky growing up.

Richard Ng: I'd had a lot of opportunity. You know, I went to private prep school, went to grammar school, went to Oxford, and so for me, I've always been driven centrally by how can I make sure that the opportunities and benefits I've had, I can in some way kind of use that to benefit of others. And so I thought it's gonna be teaching startups isn't what you normally would think of in that world.

Richard Ng: And so it never occurred to me, but I kind of like, yeah, just fell into it. 

Amardeep Parmar: And even when you were a kid, did you have that idea that I've been very lucky. And when did the idea about teaching come into play? Was it always from a young age or [00:02:00] was it once you went to university? 

Richard Ng: When I was growing up, I knew I was fortunate.

Richard Ng: I knew that I was benefiting a lot from the educational opportunity I had. It didn't really crystallize into the idea of being a teacher until I had a sort of like literally like those scenes in the movies where someone says one thing and it changes everything. It was genuinely like that where I went to university and

Richard Ng: there was a very classic, oh, you can be an accountant, you can be a consultant, you can be a banker, you can be a lawyer, and that's basically it. That's all the things you can do. And so I, I got sucked into that mill and I was applying for an internship with some consultancy firm, and the interviewer called me up after to gimme some feedback.

Richard Ng: And she said to me something like, you know what was really interesting was you sounded so much more passionate when talking about education than when talking about consulting. Because I'd been telling her about some volunteering I was doing in a local school, and I reflected on that and I thought, yeah, I, I do care way more about education than I care about this, [00:03:00] like consulting stuff, so like I should do education.

Richard Ng: And generally that moment changed it for me. And then I was like young and do education then the teach first and, and have been in education in various ways since. 

Amardeep Parmar: So straight off university, right. You were teaching as part of the TEACH first program? 

Richard Ng: Yes. 

Amardeep Parmar What made you decide to actually leave that traditional education system and go separate into the more like technical and startup style of education?

Richard Ng: So I'm a very, very idealistic person, and I've gotten better at managing that idealism. But basically when I went into teaching, the sort of idea I had in my head was, you know what? Like I really see that opportunity is not fairly shared in this country. And what I wanna do is really kind of go in and kind of make that system better.

Richard Ng: The thing which I'd underestimated was that schools, um, have systems and bureaucracies and they are there with good intent. There are lots of very well-meaning people in the education system. There's also a lot of people who are very cynical in the [00:04:00] education system. It was not what I expected and it didn't really kind of work well for me.

Richard Ng: And I think, to be honest, um, if you were to ask my colleagues from the time, a lot of them would probably say that Richard was this sort of like maverick figure. You know, he wanted to do things his own way. Um, which I think was, it's that sort of part of me, which has always been a streak, which has always been like, you know what?

Richard Ng: Like maybe there's a different way we can do things. I kind of fell into startups after that, which wasn't like, you know, in retrospect it sits really well in terms of if you come to something you're like, you know what? Maybe things can be different. Maybe we can just totally tear something up and start again and reimagine it if I actually fits super well in startups.

Richard Ng: But it wasn't a conscious sort of like, I'm going to startups. It literally was when I left teaching, I was like, what do I do now? I'd, I'd thought I was gonna be a teacher for a really long time. I was wrong. I've got no idea what I wanna do. And there was this like really random startup, which was a Math EdTech startup, and I thought, oh, well I've been a Math teacher.

Richard Ng: Like I guess [00:05:00] this is relevant. And I joined that, and then I just discovered like both the world of startups and the world of tech were just amazing. And it really appealed to me as a sense of like, well, firstly, the tech side in terms of the scale of impact you can have, which you as a teacher, you've got your classroom and maybe at best for school and with tech, the number of people who you can impact and extend opportunity is so much greater.

Richard Ng: And then on the startup side, this idea of sense of possibility of maybe things can just be like 10 times better. And if we have an idea, let's just try it. You know, let's just get it out there and see what happens. And, and all that I think was where I was like, you know what? I've kind of found my home.

Amardeep Parmar: And it's  interesting as well, because often seen the news, right? Teachers are overworked. They, I think you said so many of them do come with this idealism that you had, right? They want to make a difference. They want to make the change. But it's just very difficult to do that within that bureaucratic system.

Amardeep Parmar: And what a lot ofEd techs are doing, they provide that supplementary education, right? So it's not necessarily a replacing [00:06:00] school. But they can work together quite well, and they can give those extra skills. And what did you find? So as you, you went into the first startup and you were just more helping out, what made you then decide, actually, let's go a bit further than this, and you worked at several different Edtechs, right?

Amardeep Parmar: What did you learn during that process?

Richard Ng: I, I worked at three different EdTech startups, each with different approaches. One of the things that I learned was how powerful it is when you have a really clear mission and what that can do in terms of like attracting brilliant people to join on something and work on that thing with you.

Richard Ng: And I also learned a lot about, the, from working with these different founders, things where I'm like, wow, this is an amazing thing this founder has done, which I can really seek to emulate. And also, oh wow, like you know, this thing, which actually has not gone that well. Well now I know not to make that mistake.

Richard Ng: And so there was a sort of, it was a [00:07:00] great sort of environment for me to, I think really build my kind of beliefs about, okay, you know, what are the ways that I think like I want to approach a startup and, and you know, I, it wasn't that I actually had set out to be a founder. I know I like early stage in particular.

Richard Ng: And I think you can scratch a lot of that itch by being an early hire actually. You don't have to be a founder by any means. And you really care. about something, which was, I think, true for me when I was in teaching. It's true to me. In these startups, you are naturally just constantly thinking about like all the ways in which, like how could this be different even within a certain startup?

Richard Ng: And actually, you know, when you're a founder actually, you've got that ultimate empowerment of like, if there is something which should be different, well the buck stops here. Um, and, and there's responsibility, but also going with it that sense of like, well actually, you know what? I can just try and get this sorted out.

Richard Ng: It's the, the ultimate, um, position of, I guess it's the, the logical [00:08:00] extension of just removing kind of layers, removing bureaucracy. 'Cause even in a startup, especially as they get bigger, there's always gonna be elements of bureaucracy. Whereas as a founder, you know, you know, especially early stage, it's sort of like you just have the purest form of, there's a problem I want to solve, let's go and solve it.

Amardeep Parmar: So it's  interesting. I, I agree with you there as well, but what I'm finding a tough thing about being a founder is just switching the idealism. Right? There's just so many things you can do and it's deciding what to do. Right? And how do you prioritize? Because it's whole visionary, integrated thing, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Like people who've got this really big idea, idea, we're gonna make a huge change. There's all much, so much more that you could potentially be doing. And it's even with what we're doing today, right? This is gonna keep expanding, but it's how do you actually make the change? Because if you are so busy, come up with the strategies of the other things you're gonna do and actually acting upon that.

Amardeep Parmar: So with like your Ed tech, right, what made you pick that particular  problem to solve?

Richard Ng: So it's really interesting 'cause it again was one of these changes that I totally was not expecting. So as a bit of context, [00:09:00] Greenworkx is climate ed tech as opposed to the more sort of general ed tech, which I'd maybe been looking at before or in different domains.

Richard Ng: And we are focused on building the trade workforce to deliver net zero homes and roads. So we are looking at the problem of we're actually, in order to reach net zero, we have all this incredibly important green infrastructure. We need to deploy solar panels, heat pumps, and you need a massive trade workforce to deliver that.

Richard Ng: So how on earth are you gonna get people into its role? So that's essentially the core problem with tackling and I don't come from a climate background and I previously, to be honest, when it comes to climate, I'd always known it's important, clearly, but always to be honest, being like, well, oh, it's really important, but like, what have I got to offer?

Richard Ng: Like, wow, I really hope someone else figures this out. Like it's probably not gonna be me, but like, really hope someone does. Then I was speaking to Matt, who's now my co-founder, and he, he was explained to me this problem of Well, we need to grow that trade workforce in order of magnitude. If anything, workforce at the moment is older, dropping out the labor market, huge skills crunch.

Richard Ng: And I just thought to myself, well, there's such a [00:10:00] clear, obvious moral imperative to this problem. It's a, it is a very different world where I've been much more recently focused on tech skills, on training people as software engineers from going to that kind of like tech. Kind of software, kind of focused skill, well, to the sort of actually, you know, the, the boots on ground kind of trade roles, very, very different.

Richard Ng: Um, but I thought, you know what, there's like constantly, all the time people are saying, we need more people to code, we need more people to work data. And so this problem here is actually really well catered to. There's lots of great people and businesses who are tackling that problem, but this problem is just so underserved and it needs to be fixed.

Richard Ng: And I, I frankly thought to myself, well, in 10 years time, if things on climate for the world really, really go downhill, and I had not tried this, would I be able to live with my conscious? My conscience and, and I thought the answer was no. I thought I will, I will really regret not having tried this

Richard Ng: 'cause I don't wanna be in that situation where I always have this sort of like, what [00:11:00] if I had tried to do this? Would this have made some sort of difference to this overall huge problem? Which is like one of the biggest challenges facing the world clearly. So that's what basically for me, was a simple, yeah, you know what?

Richard Ng: This is a problem I care about. No one else is doing it. Someone has to do it. I'm gonna see if I can do it. 

Amardeep Parmar: And you've got a huge target right as well that you want to achieve. Can you tell the audience what our target is?

Richard Ng: Our mission is to get 10 million more people into green jobs in 10 years. And that figure comes from the fact that by 2030, globally, between 30 to 60 million more people are needed for green jobs depending on which report you look at.

Richard Ng: And so it's a huge mission. It's really audacious, really ambitious, but it needs to be. Because if there is no organization which comes at this with the audacity to be like, you know what? There's this huge problem, we're gonna take it on, then, then it's not gonna work. And this, this goes back to what I was talking about before in terms of things that motivates me.

Richard Ng: What's really important to me is [00:12:00] if you look at problem, it's sort of, it's very easy for people to be like, oh, this is really hard, we can't do that. And what's really important for the world is you have people who go, wow, there's a thing here, which we need to try and do. How can we best try and do it?

Richard Ng: And it's much more about like, well, what can we do? Rather than like, oh, it's not gonna work for X, Y, Z reason. And so, It's a sort of a huge mission, but I wake up every day knowing that it needs to happen and you know, if, if, if it doesn't happen, like the world has much bigger problems than the fate of Greenworkx.

Amardeep Parmar: Yeah. And like going, when you've got that huge mission on top of your shoulders, right? How do you actually go about starting a company like that? Right? Because it's, as you know, like there's so many different factors going to the beginning stages, right? So you've got your co-founder. And then from there, what are the first steps you took?

Amardeep Parmar: How could, how did you actually get started on that mission?

Richard Ng: So the first thing for us was having sort of aligned together on this sort of, this is a thing which we want to [00:13:00] really commit the next 10 plus years of our career to, from there it's a sort of, like you're saying, it's a sort of like, well this is so big, like where, where do we start?

Richard Ng: And we were really helped by the fact that there were some very useful forcing mechanisms such as, went from July when we started talking about it in August. Uh, a Innovate uk, which is the government's social innovation agency, they released various funding competitions. They happened to release one in August, which was really well suited to us.

Richard Ng: And so it was like, right, well, this is our first thing we are gonna do. We are gonna do whatever we need to win this grant. And so we applied for that and in September we found out we had been successful. And I think outside that as well. Outside that forcing mechanism. It's almost like each day just try to make it a little bit more real.

Richard Ng: And what can you do to make it a little bit more real? Is it, you know, you speak to another possible learner, you speak to another possible customer, [00:14:00] you prototype something, and you can just, if you, every day you make it a little bit more real over time, obviously accumulates and before you know it, you have something and you step back and you think, wow, you know, eight months ago or whatever, we had nothing.

Richard Ng: But, but now we have, you know, 30 learners who we've put through a sort of short course. Uh, we have our first kind of paying kind of client. Uh, we've got lots of other very exciting conversations going on. And, uh, you know, we've closed our pre-seed round of funding and it's, it's, it's a bit like, you know, so when I was a teacher, I was a Math teacher, and one of the things which, um, I think people with a math background love to talk about is that sort of compounding effect.

Richard Ng: You know, like people, you know, that saying that, like, you know, one of the most powerful things in the world is, you know, compound interest and things like that. And if there's a sense of like, if, if each day you just, you know, make things a little bit better. It compounds so powerfully. 

Amardeep Parmar: And so you mentioned there about the PhD as well, but if you go back to even the first bit of funding right at the end of it, UK and the grants you got, what do you think convinced them to invest in you or to give [00:15:00] you that money?

Amardeep Parmar: Like when you're just starting out, you hadn't really had anything yet. Why do they back you?

Richard Ng: I think it's a really good question. I think a lot of it does come to team where even though we weren't climate specialists, we had lots of relevant things we could bring to a table, and for example, with me, because I spent

Richard Ng: various, like I've had various EdTech experiences. Uh, you know, most notably, for example, I joined at Series A, an organization which is now known as Multiverse, which about, you know, a few months ago became UK's first of EdTech Unicorn, and uh, my co-founder Matt, he used to work in 10 Downing Street and he was there for a couple years when t 

Theresa May was Prime Minister and he's also done some very big public sector business development work.

Richard Ng: And so there were a lot of key skills which we had and which we had access to in terms of like network of advisors, which obviously is a huge kind of helping hand [00:16:00] and I think given the right team, given the right sort of clear market opportunity, and then I think probably then importantly, the final bit is that vision and the conviction in the vision.

Richard Ng: I think when you have early stages, that's the most you can have. But if you do have it, actually you do have quite a lot. 

Amardeep Parmar: And then once you got that funding in at these early days, what did you use it for? How did you use it effectively to make sure that, because people get that initial amount of funding, it's quite easy to, especially early stages, to use it on the wrong thing.

Amardeep Parmar: How did you know what to use that money on to help you achieve your mission? 

Richard Ng: So we won that grant. Theoretically in September, but then the money didn't actually hit our account until I think like November or something like that. Um, so actually, you know what, even after we kind of in theory got it, there was still a period where we were like, okay, we actually don't have any money.

Richard Ng: Like, what are we gonna, how do we do this? I think the best founders are people who are resourceful and resilient. And even for us actually [00:17:00] with our pre-seed round, for example, you know, you, you can sign the term sheet. But then like, you know, when does the money hit your account? There's a whole like legals process to go through and things like that.

Richard Ng: And so actually a constant theme for us has been, okay, there's some money theoretically, but like there's something which is gonna like process to take it in, and we just need to keep executing. We just need to keep going, you know, because this is such an urgent problem, you know, this sort of fact that, like I said, by 20 30, 30 to 60 million people will need need in green jobs.

Richard Ng: Like, this is so urgent. Like you just cannot let up and wait for these things, like this money to kind of come in and, and so it, the way I kind of think about it is, If you really kind of want something, it's, there's a willing get into being. And it's about, okay, well what can we do without money? Such as, you know what, I can just pick up the phone and I can just talk to a kind of prospective customer.

Richard Ng: Um, or I can literally go on the street and kind of talk to college [00:18:00] students. And that's a good discipline I think to get into actually as a, as a founder and even when you do have money, you know, I, I think it's important not to lose that, that mindset, that scrappiness, because it's so easy. I think sometimes, especially when we're talking about fundraising, it sort of seems really kind of glamorous, but actually it's, it's the discipline of building a business, which is kind of what obviously being a founder is about.

Richard Ng: And yes, you have money and then the money does enable certain things, but the orienting mindset I think is the same regardless. 

Amardeep Parmar: And you mentioned there about going out and just talking to people. Right? And I feel like it's something that's so overlooked. People often think about social media, right? And they always ask questions on social media, and you can reach a lot of people.

Amardeep Parmar: But if you see it outside Liverpool Street Station, right? Or outside London Bridge where you'd have these people from startups trying to talk to people. And obviously I ignore them. Most of the time we'll pass them, but there, there will be some people who stop and we're gonna do it with The BAE HQ, right?

Amardeep Parmar: I'm gonna [00:19:00] start just randomly starting conversations with people on the train and be that weird guy. But it's just to get people's ideas, right. What do you think of what we're doing? Is there anything you think we should be doing better? Because sometimes you don't know their demand. Unless you're actually talking to people and doing surveys and things like that, gives you some regard of it.

Amardeep Parmar: But from a conversation with somebody, you can really tell the tone. You can see how much of an urgent, how passionate they're about what you're saying. Because somebody might tick a box on an online survey like, oh yeah, I'd be interested in this. But if you're talking to somebody like, yeah, I really believe in this, I really want you to do this.

Amardeep Parmar: That's a fire that can help you keep going as well. 

Richard Ng: For sure. And it's about the fire. And it also makes it more real because I think often when we start thinking about something, we start thinking about say perspective, like in my case learners or in general users we might say. There's a sort of abstract idea you have in your head of, oh yeah, it'll be this kind of person.

Richard Ng: But then for me, the most powerful thing is when you talk to an actual person and the richness of their story comes to life, and, and you can really start to situate something within the [00:20:00] nuances of everything which they're doing and they're going through. And it both gives you such a, a better understanding of the people you're trying to serve.

Richard Ng: Um, but also I find it really, actually, honestly, quite inspirational and motivating. The, the people who we've spoken to, some of the people who we've got previous courses, they are people who I feel a tremendous debt to, honestly a sense of like, I really, really wanna build something, which is great for them because they

Richard Ng: are such hard workers, they're so conscientious and they're so badly let down sometimes by existing pathways. And so when you have real people who are there who can be your reference points, I think it's really powerful to to yeah, to guide your work and to, and to kind of, align your team and motivate everyone behind.

Richard Ng: You know, at the end of the day, you know, yes, okay, there's all this money, but really it's not really about the money, really. It's about so and so who we, we are, [00:21:00] and people just like them, who we are, we're trying to serve. 

Amardeep Parmar: I think some people forget, right? The funding isn't the end. The funding is the means to the end.

Amardeep Parmar: And like I know that you've recently closed your pre-seed, right? Are you allowed to say how much you raised? Yes. 

Richard Ng: So it's a 600 K round. Yeah. 

Amardeep Parmar: So that 600 k, it looks great on paper, right? But then what you've gotta think about is how does that enable us to do what we wanna do? And sometimes people, you see it all the time, right?

Amardeep Parmar: People will talk about their rounds, but okay, so what are you gonna do with that money? And is it just gonna burn away straight away? Or is it gonna be, Okay, with this 600 K, we can make this impact. And obviously for you what it's gonna be is that 600 k to make further progress towards your goals, you can get the more funding so you can really achieve that 10 million people impact or 10 million jobs,

Amardeep Parmar: Right? And as part of the impact as well, one of the things I know you're doing is you've also Angel invested in the past, and we're talking about this before about how it's all again to do the same thing. Like how can you make an impact? And by helping people, I guess, who are like you, people who are really passionate about what they're doing.

Amardeep Parmar: So can you talk about some of the angel investments you've [00:22:00] made? 

Richard Ng: So I think angel investing is a brilliant thing to do and it's exactly like it describes. I think it's, for me it's, it's particularly when I see a founder who has a problem they really, really care about and which ideally for me has potential to be really impactful as well.

Richard Ng: Um, that's when I get personally really quite excited because I believe that there's just this incredible, like, as someone say, you know, who, let's say I've got some money and I'm thinking about investing it, the, the best way I can think of getting return on that money would be through the creation of a business, which has done something really meaningful.

Richard Ng: And if, if I've supported that and, you know, yeah. Okay. I've, I've got some return outta it, but actually it was return, which was really meaningfully generated. You know, I only got this return because something really impactful was built. You know, I, I just think that's a, a brilliant kind of, sort of orienting mindset.

Richard Ng: Um, so I have been [00:23:00] Angel investing for about two to three years or so. I recently have joined Aid Adventures as an angel in their kind of second Angel program. And so Aid Adventures is this UK fund, uh, which is really passionate about backing founders and early teams at pre-seed and seed who are taking on some society's biggest problems.

Richard Ng: And so, That really resonated with me and my approach to what I think startups can do for the world as well. So, uh, it's very exciting for me to be part of that. So as a result, what that means basically is as opposed, it's, it's sort of related to the previous Angel investment, which I've done where, you know, I'm investing my own sort of personal money, typically there as an aid of Ventures.

Richard Ng: Angel, essentially, I've got a bit of money to invest on behalf of aid adventures. Um, but. It's, it's something which I think people, when you say angel investing, people often think, oh, this must be someone who's like sitting on absolute like bags of money and it's not the case at all. Um, and for example, you know, you can [00:24:00] do pre-seed investment or angel investments for like 1000 pounds, which, you know, 1000 pounds isn't a trivial amount of money, but when people think of angel investment, they're probably thinking of a lot more than 1000 pounds.

Richard Ng: Yeah. Um, so I, I. I think it's a, a great thing for people to do and to really also like just build up this sense of, you know, like you just learn a lot from founders, you know, they, they founders. I, you know, I. The founders who I've backed some of them, and the stuff they've gone on to do, I'm honestly really quite in awe of them.

Richard Ng: And, and, and, and that's one of the inspiring things I think for me actually as a founder. Where before I was a founder I had Angel invested in some founders and then I saw the amazing things they'd done and it really humbles you. Um, and, and so I, I, I think it's something which is, it seems really cryptic from the outside.

Richard Ng: Um, but anyone who's really interested in ideas and people and things being better and things being created, I think should definitely [00:25:00] consider angel investing. 

Amardeep Parmar: Even, even me, I think before I was in this world properly, I was always angel investors. As I said, exited founders. People were like multimillionaires, billionaires, but as you said, you were doing it when you just had a job and you're just an employee.

Amardeep Parmar: So, Anybody listening, if they've got some spare capital and they filled their ice or whatever they wanna do with it, then obviously examine the risks and things like that. But it is an option for you to look at and if you study it, you work out more. We'll be putting some guides out and stuff like that to help people as well.

Amardeep Parmar: But it's even one of the things I'm looking at right now, I'm looking at potentially side angel at best, and it's working out. I think it's always gonna be scary to do your first deal, right? Because it's the first thing we've done it, am I gonna get whatever? But we even know as different government.

Amardeep Parmar: Schemes to protect you in some ways, right, as well. So we can go into that in more detail and I'll post like links to that kind of stuff. But we're gonna have to move on to the quickfire questions now, but I'll definitely get you on again 'cause I wanna see how Greenworkx is going. And now obviously you've just got the funding in and see what you've done with that.

Amardeep Parmar: So first question is, who are free British Asians that you'd love to shout out? [00:26:00] You think people listening right now should be paying attention to or following? 

Richard Ng: So the first  is Nikita Thakrar. She is Co-founder and CEO of Included VC. Included VC I think is a brilliant organization, basically changing the face of venture capital because venture capital is so often the same sort of profile.

Richard Ng: Um, and it included VC really works on increasing opportunity to people to learn about venture, no matter what background you're from. And I'm someone who, myself, for example, I went through included vc. I was on the first cohort. And actually Greenworkx would not have been possible without included VC and the things I'd learned there, although it's not designed to kind of for you to go off and be founder, but it was, as it happens, really helpful for me.

Richard Ng: And so she definitely, um, one of three, the second Wing Chan, he is Co-founded and CEO of Sourceful. So, Source is this sustainability startup, which has been another great source of inspiration to me. Um, so they are building a sustainable way for businesses to kind of source. All their kind of materials and packages sort of end to end in a sustainable way, [00:27:00] and it's,

Richard Ng: he's someone who, again, didn't have a climate background, he was just like, you know what, this is something which I think is important, and even though I don't have his climate background, I'm gonna go and try and be a climate founder. And he's been sort of phenomenally successful. And, you know, the, the business like has raised from some brilliant investors at Series A.

Richard Ng: So he is another kind of person who I hold in kind of deep admiration. And then the third we Mae Yip. Mae is one of the co-founders of Eric. Eric is a, um, digital platform which kind of connects Gen Z to Creative careers. Mae as it happened, is one of the founders who I've Angel invested in. Um, and yeah, what really stood out to me when I spoke to her was that sort of like, yeah, clear, clear mission drive, and it's when you have founders who, for me, you know, when they really, really

Richard Ng: care about the thing you're working on, you have a real sense of, you know what this founder is just gonna do absolutely whatever it takes to kind of build this thing. [00:28:00] Um, and I think she's doing really cool things. 

Amardeep Parmar: Yeah. Love, love to. Well, I know Nikita obviously, but love to meet the other guys as well, like, sounds amazing.

Amardeep Parmar: Then the next one is, what can people listening right now reach out to you for help about? 

Richard Ng: So if you are thinking. About either the angel investing side like I was talking about. I'm actually super passionate about it and increasing opportunities for people to do that. So if you are considering angel investing and you wanna figure out like how do you get started, I'm super, super happy to chat about that.

Richard Ng: Uh, if you're also someone who's like thinking about being a founder or maybe are a founder going through that process of maybe thinking about raising, invest. As someone who's been on kind of both sides of that, I'm also really, really happy to chat about those things as well. 

Amardeep Parmar: And then on the flip  side, as you said, you've got a huge mission.

Amardeep Parmar: Is there anything that people listening right now could help you with? 

Richard Ng: So it'd be brilliant if people could follow us and amplify our message, and if they can think of anyone who might be interested in these jobs. Uh, you know, there's really surprising backgrounds sometimes where. We had people go through our course who, for example, they were a nurse for 30 years, but now they want to work in green [00:29:00] jobs.

Richard Ng: Or someone who actually was a UX researcher now wants a green job. And so it can really surprise you sometimes to people who are interested in green jobs. So it'd be, think about anyone who might be interestedm send them our way and also follow us and can share our things so it can reach as many people as possible.

Amardeep Parmar: And been  amazing to chat to you today. Have you got any final words for the audience? 

Richard Ng: I would say climate is something which is really important. And even if you're someone who's not identified previously with the kind of climate theme, it affects all of us. And, and just in the UK for example, in 2022, we had um, you know, all these kind of heat waves.

Richard Ng: There are heat waves in China. Floods in Pakistan. Uh, it's such an important issue and, and so I would ask people just to kind of be aware of it and kind of to have back in mind like what's their role they can play and, and sometimes that's in one of these green jobs, which we're trying to help people into.

Richard Ng: But also it can be found, it can be working for a company, working for a startup.

Amardeep Parmar: Hello. Hello everyone. Thank you so much for listening. It, it's a huge amount to us [00:30:00] and we don't think you realize how important you are. Because if you subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you leave us a five star review, it makes the world of difference. And if you believe in what we're trying to do here, to inspire, connect, and guide the next generation of British Asians, if you do those things, you can help us achieve that mission and you can help us make a bigger impact.

Amardeep Parmar: And by doing that, it means we can get bigger guests, we can host more events, we can do more for the community. So you can play a huge part. So thank you so much for supporting us.

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