Jobs of tomorrow, solutions for the planet

Unreasonable Impact, created by Barclays and Unreasonable Group, is a programme centered around scaling growth-stage ventures across the globe that are well positioned to create thousands of jobs while solving our toughest societal and environmental challenges.

This international network of accelerators provides resources and support for entrepreneurs who are scaling business solutions for some of the most critical challenges facing the planet. The 35 participating entrepreneurs in last year’s inaugural programme have already impacted over 150 million lives across 170 countries. Their businesses are hacking solutions to communications, food production, environmental management, supply chains and similar issues. Here’s a quick update on a few of those groundbreaking companies.

Alesca Life, a Beijing-based company, was started by former investment banker Stuart Oda. The agricultural technology venture has developed weatherproof, cloud-connected farms to enable local food production globally in an effort to democratise access to safe and fresh produce. Alesca Life's pesticide-free commercial farming systems require over 20 times less the land, water and fertilizer compared to traditional agriculture. The company has deployed their systems in China and the United Arab Emirates, and is in discussions to expand their production capabilities into functional foods and nutraceutical products.

Altaeros invented an economic and environmentally friendly way to accelerate the delivery of last-mile telecommunication services to over 4 billion people without internet access. “It's been an amazing experience," says Ben Glass, CEO/CTO and founder of Altaeros, about the Unreasonable Impact programme. “It's a combination of awesome people, an enthusiasm to genuinely follow up and help, and content that's actually useful".

Desolenator is a UK based clean technology venture that provides one of the first real solutions to the global water crisis. By 2030, it is estimated that half of the world’s population won’t have access to clean drinking water. CEO and founder William Janssen created a technology that is accessible to everyone, that can transform the oceans or contaminated sources into clean drinking water.

With a holistic approach to the challenge, working across public, private and third sectors, it has the potential to expand to multiple markets and improve the lives of millions of people in a profitable and sustainable way.

Alexei Levene, Co-Founder of Desolenator said about his experience at the program, “Unreasonable Impact is at the very forefront of empowering high impact entrepreneurs around the world and has been a huge boost for Desolenator as we look towards the future of the company.”