4 minutes with…Ariel Scaparro, President, ALS Bioenergy

Tell us about your organization and it’s role in the advanced bioeconomy.

Our company is engaged in the research and development of new technologies and its integration in the given markets. We have what we believe are the best technologies for producing Biodiesel and sub products with very high added value that can subsidize the Bio itself. Our R&D now it is focusing in developing new feedstocks without land and water

Tell us about your role and what you are focused on in the next 12 months.

We are on the final ramp of lunching a Bio Platforms that produce our own feedstock. We are talking the most disruptive technology ever seen on the Biofuel fields. We are not only talking about obtaining feedstock to produce Biofuels but also a whole new range of molecular products aimed to provide feasible solutions to the Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Industry. We are also looking into medical applications, functional food, etc.

This research came from a scientist with a vision of a better world based on actual climatic change. We are talking about “urban agriculture”, no need for land, water, pesticides, etc. We are producing them in Bioreactors within a laboratory facilities. In other words from Feed stocks to every industry to food components. Coming next year we will open the first Biorefinery and looking for best possible sites and investors that want to take this to the next level. We have in place a very good team of professionals with proven experience in all these fields.

What do you feel are the most important milestones the industry must achieve in the next 5 years?

Break the politician resistance to accept climate change. Obtainig new ways of access to cheap and abundant feedstock. Lower the Capex for easy acces to new capital dedicated to our industry.

If you could snap your fingers and change one thing about the Advanced Bioeconomy, what would you change?

I would make United Nations claim the rights to rule that the planet it is on a catastrophic path and declare a Global Environmental Emergency. All countries should be obligated to convert their trash on energy.
Break the politician resistance to accept climatic change as a fact and act upon it at once.

Of all the reasons that influenced you to join the Advanced Bioeconomy industry, what single reason stands out for you as still being compelling and important to you?

As we see every day, climate change it is a fact, and won’t disappear, we must do something about it. Maybe it is too late, maybe not but for sure we can start getting ready for the challenges ahead. Living in Sweden was a experience that tough me that everybody can do something about it, and why not me..? So I create a company to deal with it.

Where are you from? 

I am born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, moved when I was 12 to a resort city 400 km south Bs As, were I grow up and had my first two childreen and by the age of 21 moved to sweden were I lived for 20 years before moving back to Mar del Plata. Since two years ago I live in Panama, but we are now focusing in the possibility of moving to USA.

What was your undergraduate major in college, and where did you attend? Why did you choose that school and that pathway? 

In Sweden you have the freedom to build your own mayor degree, including courses from “the Swedish model”, Rhetoric and the Natzi Propaganda, and focused in Economics. Thereafter I did a Post grade in Health and Sports with a major on soccer where I become a UEFA certified Coach. I even was a soccer referee.

Who do you consider your mentors. What have you learned from them?

My main mentors were my mother and father. My father came alone in a boat to Argentina with Aristotle Onassis and together in order to survive started selling handmade cigarettes in the streets of Bs As, Onassis later on left and my father started a business to export live cattle to Europe, he understood that cattle need it food too and therefore he started a business with both products. Soon after a ship sank and he lost all the shipment. He woke up nex day and started all over again.

When my father died the Argentinean Military Junta took everything we owned away and my mother had to start from scratch and short time after I have too to start helping her selling bread on a little truck. That teach me that no matter what, you never give up. Never. She still beeing a source of inspiration for me by pushing me to new limits. Known people like, Steve Jobs, Elan Musk, Donal Trump, Mark Anderson, Jef Bezos and many more are seen to me as role model and from the new Bioeconomy Howard Janzen

What’s the biggest lesson you ever learned during a period of adversity?

That persistence and patience together are matchless. People resistance are a big turn off but at the same time their generate rebeldry on people that believes that nothing is impossible. Detractors of your ideas and goals within your organization, they are people that cannot overcome their own fears.

Then you realize this problem came from people that may seems that you depend must. then you must evaluate if it is time to have patience or as Donald Trump and even Elon Musk says: Get read of all those individual that they are not prepare to change in the peace you set, because they will become a extra weight that you don’t want to carry on the rest of the trip. Get Positive people that add spice not only to your business but also to your own personal life. A young team mixed with a good experienced professionals it became an unbeatable team. Debate is good up to a point. Get people that share your philosophy and that are not afraid of failing. People with positive energy.

What hobbies do you pursue, away from your work in the industry? 

I love to play, coach and watch soccer games.Recently went with my older son to the WC in Brasil. An event that everybody must attend once in their life, especially if you shared with your son.

I like also to play Poker with friends or main live events, recently I make it to the LAPS Panama final table, was very fun.

What 3 books would you take to read, if stranded on a desert island?

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield, The Alquimist by Pablo Coelho and The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley.

What books or articles are on your reading list right now, or you just completed and really enjoyed?

The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind by Michio Kaku, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Erik Brynjolfsson and the one that I am about to read it is Synthetic Biology: From iGEM to the Artificial Cell by Manuel Porcar and Juli Peretó.

What’s your favorite city or place to visit, for a holiday?

Mar de Plata to a long holiday, Florida for a Family Holiday and South Asia were I am planning to have a 6 month trip solo, just with a backpack and a credit card…