(Datar Sahi | Photos courtesy of Economic Development of Central Oregon)
Economic Development for Central Oregon, or EDCO, hosted the first PubTalk of the new year on January 22. Professionals from a multitude of industries gathered over beer, food and good conversation at Bend’s Worthy Brewing.
This PubTalk saw a range of topics addressed by the array of scheduled speakers. David Rodrigues pitched his company, CarbonBright, and explained how the increasing environmental impact of global supply chains and product production can be addressed easier than ever with AI. After gaining plenty of experience in the Central Oregon tech industry with his role at G5, Rodrigues found himself wondering what would be next for his career. He found himself focusing heavily on the effects of climate change, especially here locally. From forest fires and air quality to water scarcity and even this particularly warm winter, he wanted to do something to help.
CarbonBright is an AI-powered Lifecycle Assessment that can generate data-driven results in minutes, helping companies large and small better understand their environmental impact, from raw-resource extraction all the way down to shipping to the customer. This helps those companies reduce impact and meet sustainability goals/regulations.
Datar Sahi pitched his company, SuperSenses, and spoke about the importance of tracking one’s brain performance across all of our senses, in order to better address issues such as cognitive decline, dementia and Alzheimer’s. Sahi stated that he founded his company after his mom forgot his birthday. Despite having smell, taste and vision problems for years, those problems were not tracked or presented collectively, overlooking the connection they had to greater brain-related issues.
SuperSenses is a company that provides sensory-testing kits and an associated app that is designed to track all of an individual’s senses, compiling information that can help address cognitive decline before it becomes an issue. Sahi says that around 50 percent of decline is overlooked, meaning that there is ample opportunity to stay healthy that billions of people are actively missing. By regularly tracking changes to an individual’s five senses, SuperSenses helps people stay on top of their brain health for longer, fuller lives.
The keynote speaker of the night was Alisha Hemmingson Runckel, the vice president of eCommerce at Blueprint, a science-driven company that provides nutritional supplements designed to help people live longer lives. With more than 15 years of scaling direct-to-consumer brands, her insights into eCommerce were indispensable for the companies she worked with, as well as many of the Pubtalk guests who got the chance to learn from her expertise.
Runckel spoke about the fundamentals of eCommerce, including how to decide if eCommerce is the correct choice for any given type of business, where to start, and how to determine profitability.
For eCommerce, she said to prioritize products that are light and dry, standard in size, and shelf-stable. Products that perform well in eCommerce often have a long shelf life, and they conveniently fit into standard sized boxes or packages. Without those factors in place, business owners are going to have much larger hurdles to jump if they want to succeed in eCommerce.
Overall, she said the goal of her talk was to help businesses feel informed and empowered before they make the choice to move forward, or stay where they are.
The next EDCO PubTalk is scheduled for Thursday, February 26 at Open Space Event Studios.
