Starting a business at age 66 with Paul Tasner

11/20/19 • 54 min

Innovation For All - Diversity in Tech and Business

Paul Tasner, Co-founder and CEO of PulpWorks and more recently, Co-founder of Sort, has more than 40 years of operations experience. He has held leadership positions in ventures ranging from start-up to Fortune 100. For the past decade, his focus has been on sustainability. Paul’s corporate affiliations include The Clorox Company, Clif Bar, Method Products, and Hepagen Vaccines. He has authored numerous papers and presentations on supply chain sustainability and currently lectures on this subject in the MBA Programs at San Francisco State University and Golden Gate University as well as the Packaging Engineering Department at San Jose State University. He holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Boston University.

In this episode you will learn:

How PulpWorks manufactures packaging for consumer goods using fiber waste
The story of Paul Tasner starting his first business at age 66
The perks of being your own boss as an entrepreneur
The specific challenges PulpWorks faces in securing new customers
How to pursue investors in the competitive city of San Francisco
Critical questions to consider for people nearing retirement that want to start a business
How recycling is an answer but not the answer
Why Paul is envious of the millennial mindset
How rejecting plastic can make a difference
What Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is and how EPR regulations could impact society
Paul’s new tech-based recycling business

Get shownotes for this an every episode at innovationforallcast.com or find us on Twitter @inforallpodcast.

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/innovation-for-all/message
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/innovation-for-all/support

In this episode you will learn:

How PulpWorks manufactures packaging for consumer goods using fiber waste
The story of Paul Tasner starting his first business at age 66
The perks of being your own boss as an entrepreneur
The specific challenges PulpWorks faces in securing new customers
How to pursue investors in the competitive city of San Francisco
Critical questions to consider for people nearing retirement that want to start a business
How recycling is an answer but not the answer
Why Paul is envious of the millennial mindset
How rejecting plastic can make a difference
What Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is and how EPR regulations could impact society
Paul’s new tech-based recycling business

Get shownotes for this an every episode at innovationforallcast.com or find us on Twitter @inforallpodcast.

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/innovation-for-all/message
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/innovation-for-all/support

Previous Episode

Voice Recognition for Kids with Kaveh Azartash of KidSense.ai

Kaveh Azartash holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from University of California, Irvine with a focus on Vision Science. Kaveh's career has been focused on innovating software applications in the neuroscience and now artificial intelligence domain. He co-founded KidSense.ai in 2015 after realizing children are unable to effectively communicate with the technology around them through voice.
In this episode you will learn:

The story of how KidSense.ai was started
Kaveh's professional and academic background
The key components of voice recognition software for kids
How AIs can recognize changes in kids' speech patterns over time
How KidSense.ai's model can be applied to other challenges in voice recognition, like speech impediments or non-native English speakers
How KidSense.ai maintains privacy and data security
The data collection process required to develop complex AI models that mature overtime
Both the acoustic and language components that are behind a voice recognition software
Why these new AI technologies are considered valuable
The future business goals of KidSense.ai

Get shownotes for this an every episode at innovationforallcast.com or find us on Twitter @inforallpodcast.

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/innovation-for-all/message
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/innovation-for-all/support

Next Episode

Open access for academic research with Erica Stone

Erica Stone works at the intersection of writing, teaching, and community organizing. Through collaborative projects, she creates opportunities for scholars, students, and community members to engage in conversations and civic problem-solving with the hope of building a more equitable and participatory democracy. As a researcher, Erica is passionate about making academic scholarship free and accessible. In her 2016 TED talk, she critiques the academic publishing industry, urging academics to engage with popular media and include communities in their research. Erica is a doctoral candidate in the Technical Communication and Rhetoric program at Texas Tech University. Her research centers on public engagement in composition classrooms and academics’ role in their surrounding communities.

In this episode you will learn:

The reality of who has access to academic research
Erica’s experience during her TEDx audition process
What engaging in academia means beyond teaching
What the publication process looks like from start to finish for academic research
The cost of academic subscriptions
The concerns Erica has about popular culture publications translating academic research
How different TED chapters and franchises operate
How academics are trained to make things complicated and how that impacts public understanding
The historical reasoning for tenure and complications of tenure today
How to include open access publications to count toward tenure
Resources for democratizing and translating research
How for-profit companies are hopping on the idea of open access research