Megan Bettilyon: Leader in Sustainable Development and ESG Strategy; Innovator; Bringing to market advanced technologies and delivering sustainable and positive social impact

This week, Stephen Ibaraki has an exclusive interview with Megan Bettilyon.

Megan Bettilyon has focused her career on the intersection of technology and social development. She is a leader in sustainable development and ESG strategy with extensive experience in product development and directing complex programs in the climate change, energy, healthcare, nutrition, and conservation fields. In her career she has developed innovative technology for emerging markets and with a goal toward maximizing global impact. She has a strong background in bringing to market advanced technologies and delivering sustainable and positive social impact.

She is the Chief Technology Officer for AdAstral Lab part of a new impact venture studio focused on creating businesses that can develop sustainable products that provide tangible positive social impact while also generating sizeable financial returns across the human and planetary health continuum.

Prior to AdAstral, Megan led a portfolio of climate and health initiatives at Global Good, a collaboration with Bill Gates to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Her programs included a first-in-class model of the US Electrical Grid based on real-world data that is being used to provide decision support to organizations like Breakthrough Energy, and multiple state governments. Additionally, she directed a new platform centered on executing co-funded initiatives with US government agencies to develop a remotely deployable lung ultrasound system, as well as a super-donor assay, and a next generation lyophilization device. She developed a pilot program to develop, deploy and test the Arktek, an innovative passive vaccine storage device capable of holding vaccines at their appropriate temperatures for over 35 days without electricity. This device enables vaccines to be safely administered in remote regions of the planet and has been part of the Ebola vaccine delivery program since 2014. Additionally, she led Global Good’s collaborative efforts with multiple UN agencies to rapidly develop and deploy new products into developed and emerging markets.

Megan found her passion for exploring the intersection of humanity and technology as an archaeologist working in the Mediterranean and Middle East on excavations ranging from Neolithic/Chalcolithic to Bronze Age with a special focus on the evolution of groundstone tools and ceramics. She then went on to earn her master's degree in Climate and Renewable Energy from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and subsequently managed two university technology centers aimed at developing food and fuel from photosynthetic sources and instructing a new generation of clean technology scientists and policy makers. Additionally, she has managed two separate research labs: a BSL3+ facility with a vivarium focused on kidney organogenesis; and a BSL 2 facility focused on indoor and outdoor algae cultivation for biofuel and food.

TO WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW, CLICK ON THIS MP4 file link