009: Saving the Rainforest One Cell Phone at a Time with Topher White
A Sustainable Mind - environment & sustainability podcast
Marjorie Alexander
4.6 • 588 Ratings
🗓️ 8 October 2015
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Topher White is an engineer with a background in physics and kinetic sculptor. Little did he know that visiting the rainforest as a tourist would spark an idea as to how to help save it. Since 2013 Topher has been working around the clock designing a device out of used cell phones to thwart deforestation in real time. This interview offers a TON of great tips for anyone in tech or science looking to contribute to real world problems and for entrepreneurs in general.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A Sustainable Mind, Episode 9. |
| 0:05.0 | This is A Sustainable Mind podcast, where we delve into the minds behind today's most impactful environmental campaigns, organizations, and startups, inspiring the environmental changemakers of tomorrow. |
| 0:18.0 | I'm your host, Marjor Alexander. |
| 0:26.3 | Today, Ijorie Alexander. Today I am incredibly excited to have on the show someone that I think is doing truly amazing things for our planet, Tofer White. Tofer is the founder |
| 0:32.1 | and CEO of Rainforest Connection. You might have seen his moving and informative TED Talk, |
| 0:37.4 | where he |
| 0:38.0 | discusses the challenges of protecting the world's forests from illegal logging and the device |
| 0:42.3 | that he created to solve that issue. Tofer also has a background in web-based communication |
| 0:46.9 | and kinetic sculpture. So, Tofer, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks so much for having you, |
| 0:51.6 | Marjorie. It's really cool to be here. I love what you guys are doing, too. |
| 1:13.6 | Thanks. I've told the audience a tiny bit about you, not too much. So why don't you go ahead and fill in the gas a little bit for us. Give us some more detail as to your background. Oh, well, so when it comes to me, actually, I guess I can just sort of say that I like to build things. I've always been sort of that type of person. And so this project is particularly, particularly great. And I'll sort of get into that in a moment. |
| 1:11.7 | It's particularly great because I get to build |
| 1:15.3 | stuff that people can use in all sorts of different sorts of ways around in the forest or in the |
| 1:20.6 | forest to here in the United States and elsewhere. But really, I guess my background is in physics when it |
| 1:25.6 | comes to study. And then, of course, as you sort of pointed out, since then, that's led me to a lot of different micro careers |
| 1:32.7 | before this one, including, it's a kinetic sculpture, communication, things like that. But no, |
| 1:38.8 | I think at the very base, I just sort of find myself as engineer and always sort of led back to that |
| 1:43.6 | no matter what sort of area I get into. |
| 1:46.1 | So I think what a lot of people want to know is they want to peek a little bit behind the curtain and understand the mind behind the projects. |
| 1:54.2 | Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood and how environmental sustainability or earth-conscious living played a role in your lifestyle growing up? |
| 2:02.2 | And if so, how? |
| 2:04.0 | I think it's a great question because I think a lot of people who get involved. |
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