[Music]
[Applause]
when I was a little kid my dad taught me
how to fly kites even out before I was
big enough to hold them and when I was
in fourth grade I was tasked to will
build my own kite and I built it out of
wood and paper but instead of just
making a single like kite like everybody
else mine had to have two lines so I
could steer it and when I was 15 I
really wanted to impress my mom and
grandmother by making a huge jump
so I took my biggest kite and went down
to the beach on a stormy day one of
those days where the sand is bleh
blowing in your face and this is clouds
are just rushing by and I had my mom
hold down the kite while I ran down to
grab the handles and as soon as she let
go I was in the air flying quickly I
released landed but only had smaller
bruises but the kite continued down the
beach and one of the handles wrapped
around a flagpole
smack instalay it was in the ground and
it continued into the trees that was
when I learned about the power of the
wind why is it that all our kites ends
up in the tree as kids what if we could
what if they could fly by themselves so
they don’t end up in a tree well if I
was a seven year old that’s the question
on my mind what would it take to make a
chi that could fly by itself luckily
that question has answered been answered
by me 28-year old engineer so first of
all you want to be able to steer by
itself and you want a kite is able to
take off and land by itself and for the
first challenge it really needs to know
so where it is accurately in the sky and
to do that this kite is over there it
has GPS and ton of small sensors the
same sensors you find in your smartphone
and using all this information it can
figure out accurately where it is in the
sky the next step is to figure out the
path and we pre-programmed the path into
the kite and then they can use the same
algorithms that you used to steer ships
and trucks on the ground but now to
follow a path in the sky and it has such
a big brain that I could do these
calculations hundreds of times a second
much faster than a seven-year-old who
would crash the kite I’m sure if you try
playing with kites that you run you try
to there’s not enough wind so you throw
up the kite and you run backwards well
that’s no fun
so we added small propellers on the kite
so it can take off and land by itself
and that also means that it’s able to
fly when there is no wind well in here
we are inside there is no wind want to
[Music]
so as I grew up so did the kite inside
this kite there’s sensors and algorithms
and computers and has less knows more
yes
[Applause]
so this this is the quarter-sized model
and the real version will be four times
larger and this one can fly four minutes
at the time and our next goal is to fly
for 24 hours it’s mobile flexible and
convenient and it’s actually designed to
work just like a kid’s kite in this
sense that is time to break and to be
fixed very easily
it’s not a toy anymore so now imagine if
it could be used to harness the power of
the wind so we have this beautiful kite
that’s able to fly all by itself when
there’s a lot of wind but how do we get
the energy out of it well amazingly the
same propellers we use to take off and
land can be used in Reverse so just like
an electric car when you brake you can
recapture the energy so Kaz can these
propellers and they actually work like
small wind turbines just spinning much
much faster so if we can keep a kite in
the sky we can get energy from it it may
be strange to think about a kite being a
power station but consider this the
full-sized version will be able to power
500 Kenyan households so truly is a
power station in the sky but it can do
more it’s not just light smart phones
and TVs renewable energy has made
tremendous progress in the last 30 years
and is now economically viable to put on
the grid but it’s still confined to the
grid and the grid doesn’t move this one
can fly anywhere but it solves in
another important problem – ironically
renewable energy is actually more
expensive if you’re poor and that’s
because it’s much more expensive to
finance when you don’t have any money
and these kites being mobile means that
completely new financing possibilities
will be possible and the people that
need them the most will be able to
benefit
them another thing most of us don’t like
to think about is mining but mining is
really a necessity for a future
renewable energy infrastructure electric
cars batteries even solar panels and
wind turbines they need raw materials
and these mines are often located far
away from the grid in remote areas using
large arrays of diesel generators and
these kites are in a unique position to
replace much of this diesel making the
transition to renewables much cleaner so
this is a quarter-sized model it’s much
more practical to test and show you all
but one of the big challenges when this
one is flying through the sky is these
lines that goes down to the ground they
actually create a significant amount of
air resistance and that resistance is
just wasted energy so what if we did
something only a seven-year-old could
think of what if we put two kites on the
same line so most people thinks it’s a
crazy just to make work with one kite
that flies autonomously so two kites is
completely outrageous but I wanted to
prove that it’s not so difficult and one
of the most amazing discoveries is that
not only do you get double the amount of
power but you get four times the amount
of power so double the kites half the
resistance quadruple the power it is
difficult but impossible no we are the
first company in the world to fly two
kites on a single string
[Applause]
but has also been been tough and a lot
of people don’t think this is even worth
getting into even my my parents think
it’s a pretty bad idea I’ve been
spending almost two years by now and I
mean it’s not a well-paying job for sure
but also industry experts I mean you
would be met with skepticism like I know
how heavy the cable inside a normal
Tower is I mean this thing is never
going to fly or how is it ever going to
be cheap enough or reliable enough I was
ever going to make sense
pretty much every experts at least in
the step is when industry says no but
this kite is only a thousand dollars and
I’ll use less than $100,000 for two
years of research its small its scalable
and it’s simple it’s really the power of
small and the power in the right place
this is mobile renewable energy the
future of wind energy it’s all very neat
in a way I’ve been flying solo until now
but I would love if I could exchange I
for we I’ve come so far with so little
costs and so little funding but the
impact and innovation has been huge but
I need new flight partners to make make
this really take off and together we can
make simple clean cheap energy to the
people and places that needed the most
I need investors partners and engineers
to help this big idea really take flight
do you want to come and make kites with
me what would you say if you were seven
you [Music]
[Applause]
when I was a little kid my dad taught me
how to fly kites even out before I was
big enough to hold them and when I was
in fourth grade I was tasked to will
build my own kite and I built it out of
wood and paper but instead of just
making a single like kite like everybody
else mine had to have two lines so I
could steer it and when I was 15 I
really wanted to impress my mom and
grandmother by making a huge jump
so I took my biggest kite and went down
to the beach on a stormy day one of
those days where the sand is bleh
blowing in your face and this is clouds
are just rushing by and I had my mom
hold down the kite while I ran down to
grab the handles and as soon as she let
go I was in the air flying quickly I
released landed but only had smaller
bruises but the kite continued down the
beach and one of the handles wrapped
around a flagpole
smack instalay it was in the ground and
it continued into the trees that was
when I learned about the power of the
wind why is it that all our kites ends
up in the tree as kids what if we could
what if they could fly by themselves so
they don’t end up in a tree well if I
was a seven year old that’s the question
on my mind what would it take to make a
chi that could fly by itself luckily
that question has answered been answered
by me 28-year old engineer so first of
all you want to be able to steer by
itself and you want a kite is able to
take off and land by itself and for the
first challenge it really needs to know
so where it is accurately in the sky and
to do that this kite is over there it
has GPS and ton of small sensors the
same sensors you find in your smartphone
and using all this information it can
figure out accurately where it is in the
sky the next step is to figure out the
path and we pre-programmed the path into
the kite and then they can use the same
algorithms that you used to steer ships
and trucks on the ground but now to
follow a path in the sky and it has such
a big brain that I could do these
calculations hundreds of times a second
much faster than a seven-year-old who
would crash the kite I’m sure if you try
playing with kites that you run you try
to there’s not enough wind so you throw
up the kite and you run backwards well
that’s no fun
so we added small propellers on the kite
so it can take off and land by itself
and that also means that it’s able to
fly when there is no wind well in here
we are inside there is no wind want to
[Music]
so as I grew up so did the kite inside
this kite there’s sensors and algorithms
and computers and has less knows more
yes
[Applause]
so this this is the quarter-sized model
and the real version will be four times
larger and this one can fly four minutes
at the time and our next goal is to fly
for 24 hours it’s mobile flexible and
convenient and it’s actually designed to
work just like a kid’s kite in this
sense that is time to break and to be
fixed very easily
it’s not a toy anymore so now imagine if
it could be used to harness the power of
the wind so we have this beautiful kite
that’s able to fly all by itself when
there’s a lot of wind but how do we get
the energy out of it well amazingly the
same propellers we use to take off and
land can be used in Reverse so just like
an electric car when you brake you can
recapture the energy so Kaz can these
propellers and they actually work like
small wind turbines just spinning much
much faster so if we can keep a kite in
the sky we can get energy from it it may
be strange to think about a kite being a
power station but consider this the
full-sized version will be able to power
500 Kenyan households so truly is a
power station in the sky but it can do
more it’s not just light smart phones
and TVs renewable energy has made
tremendous progress in the last 30 years
and is now economically viable to put on
the grid but it’s still confined to the
grid and the grid doesn’t move this one
can fly anywhere but it solves in
another important problem – ironically
renewable energy is actually more
expensive if you’re poor and that’s
because it’s much more expensive to
finance when you don’t have any money
and these kites being mobile means that
completely new financing possibilities
will be possible and the people that
need them the most will be able to
benefit
them another thing most of us don’t like
to think about is mining but mining is
really a necessity for a future
renewable energy infrastructure electric
cars batteries even solar panels and
wind turbines they need raw materials
and these mines are often located far
away from the grid in remote areas using
large arrays of diesel generators and
these kites are in a unique position to
replace much of this diesel making the
transition to renewables much cleaner so
this is a quarter-sized model it’s much
more practical to test and show you all
but one of the big challenges when this
one is flying through the sky is these
lines that goes down to the ground they
actually create a significant amount of
air resistance and that resistance is
just wasted energy so what if we did
something only a seven-year-old could
think of what if we put two kites on the
same line so most people thinks it’s a
crazy just to make work with one kite
that flies autonomously so two kites is
completely outrageous but I wanted to
prove that it’s not so difficult and one
of the most amazing discoveries is that
not only do you get double the amount of
power but you get four times the amount
of power so double the kites half the
resistance quadruple the power it is
difficult but impossible no we are the
first company in the world to fly two
kites on a single string
[Applause]
but has also been been tough and a lot
of people don’t think this is even worth
getting into even my my parents think
it’s a pretty bad idea I’ve been
spending almost two years by now and I
mean it’s not a well-paying job for sure
but also industry experts I mean you
would be met with skepticism like I know
how heavy the cable inside a normal
Tower is I mean this thing is never
going to fly or how is it ever going to
be cheap enough or reliable enough I was
ever going to make sense
pretty much every experts at least in
the step is when industry says no but
this kite is only a thousand dollars and
I’ll use less than $100,000 for two
years of research its small its scalable
and it’s simple it’s really the power of
small and the power in the right place
this is mobile renewable energy the
future of wind energy it’s all very neat
in a way I’ve been flying solo until now
but I would love if I could exchange I
for we I’ve come so far with so little
costs and so little funding but the
impact and innovation has been huge but
I need new flight partners to make make
this really take off and together we can
make simple clean cheap energy to the
people and places that needed the most
I need investors partners and engineers
to help this big idea really take flight
do you want to come and make kites with
me what would you say if you were seven
you [Music]
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