Greetings All, Jonathan Knight, Uprise Cofounder and CEO here.

I’m writing to share my experience in Abu Dhabi at the World Future Energy Summit as a part of the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

Uprise was selected as one of the Top 10 companies shaping the Future of Energy and was sponsored to attend the show to present our mobile wind turbine as a part of the Climate Innovation Exchange (CLIX).

I travelled by myself, leaving Friday the 11th of Jan and returning on the 18th. In short, I would say the show was a huge success for Uprise.

As many of our followers know, I’ve been to a number of these types of events recently and the quality of the other companies in the Top 10 was as impressive as any. Despite the inspiring cohort, Uprise was a standout that garnered a significant amount of attention. In fact, throughout the 4 days of the show, there was hardly any downtime and often a line of people waiting to speak with me.

This level of attention was both a blessing and a curse. There were a number of companies that I was looking forward to meeting but given the activity at my booth, it was unfeasible for me to leave to walk the show floor. Nevertheless, at one point or another throughout the show, each of the top companies that I was hoping to engage with visited me to learn more about the mobile wind turbine.

Masdar, a Mubadala company, was the title sponsor of the show and the #1 company I was looking forward to meeting. I gave a pitch on the CLIX stage and immediately following, a Sr VP from Mubadala came to talk to me about what a perfect fit our mobile system is for Masdar, as they are focusing on mobility and electrifying remote locations. This meeting was followed by 3 separate groups from Masdar that came to our booth to specifically learn more about our system. These conversations went very well and I see significant opportunity with Masdar in the future. One of the people from Masdar told me they were interested in featuring Uprise in their monthly tech journal prepared by Lux Research that is circulated amongst the Masdar leadership and influential people in the Energy industry. Yesterday, I did a 1.5hr phone interview with Lux in Amsterdam and we will be featured in the March edition.

Speaking with the UAE Minister of Energy and Industry

UAE is an interesting market as they have little wind and very low energy prices. Despite this, when the Minister of Energy for the UAE was touring the show, he stopped at our booth, and eloquently told me all the reasons why a mobile wind turbine such as our makes sense. We proceeded to have a delightful conversation, all the while dozens of cameras were pointed at us. He took our info and promised the right people would be in touch.

I met people from every country you can think of with an emphasis in the Middle East. I made good contacts in Bahrain, Oman, Palestine, Jordan, India, South Africa, Qatar, Israel and the list goes on. I made a couple promising contacts with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where they’ve expressed interest in being able to manufacture the product in their country.

Since I was unable to leave to my booth throughout the day, I would arrive to the show early so I could walk the floor a bit. During one of these walks, I noticed a UN booth that was highlighting some of their humanitarian work, so I introduced myself. Before I could finish my introduction, the gentleman I was speaking with said “Uprise? San Diego, right? You guys have the 10kW mobile wind turbine, right?” “Yup, that’s us” I said and he proceeded to tell me that we were at the top of his list of companies he wanted to speak with and he had already scheduled a meeting with me (the show had an app with a Business Connect service). I went on to have two meetings with him and his boss, and again, left with a lot of promise.

I could tell story after story but I think you’re probably getting the flavor. I came home with a stack of business cards 3” tall and I’m going through the follow-up with them all. I did have a very positive engagement with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) that stood out and I also met a few companies with add-ons like portable battery boxes and lighting systems for our wind turbine.

Overall, it was a great show and a tremendous honor to have been selected as one of the Top 10 companies in the Future of Energy.

Here’s a video I took of the CLIX section of the show: