Anna Luísa Bessera - Monumental Goals and Life Ambition

Question yourself always. What is your legacy? What is something that after you leave this world, you want to look and say, wow, I was someone that made a difference. I made a difference for the society. I made a difference for the planet. I know I choose a difficult, very difficult path, but it was something that after some years, it's clear that It was the right way to do it.

Our featured speaker today is a LinkedIn top sustainability voice and CEO of social and environmental impact startup SDW for All, who has dedicated her career to solving sanitation problems and giving access to

clean water. Inna, it's a great pleasure to have you back as our featured guest today. Thank you so much for being willing to take the time to share this light of your journey with us.

Thank you so much, Nancy Spencer. It's really an honor to be here again today.

So when you and I first met at bootcamp, it was so clear to me like what a passionate and fun person you were and intelligent and creative. But understandably, you struggled with your confidence speaking English and expressing your ideas. And in watching some of your videos presenting the problem you're solving, how it impacts us all and how articulate you are about your solution, it's really clear how hard you've worked to get to that point. Can you tell us like what it took for you to get to that point and if there were any particular people or events that happened that you really feel like aided you in that?

Yeah.

Well, that's one of my biggest challenges always, or how to speak in public. Even in Portuguese, it's a big challenge for me. Speaking English is even bigger. The three things that I did that make me advance in this journey, the first was accept every opportunity as opportunity to practice and to grow. The second was to collect feedback from the others. So, every time that I had the opportunity to talk to someone that was listening to me, I was getting into their feedbacks and understand what should I improve. And the third is every time that I speak, I'm speaking also to myself. This is, I guess, one of the biggest challenge because I try to pay attention in every details like my moving, how fast am I speaking, because when I'm nervous, I also speak faster than I should. And then it's even harder for people to understand what I'm saying. After a lot of years, I've been probably more than a thousand times speaking in events. I also consider some meetings that I have to pitch for some partners, clients, people from my team.

Every opportunity counts. It's an opportunity for me to test myself and to understand what do I need to improve. I still don't consider myself as a perfect speaker. It's not natural for me to speak in public, but once I compare the videos from the beginning of my journey, even the middle of my journey, I became very happy to see how far I got, how I could improve in different situations. And now I'm happy in the position that I am. I feel that I'm good, good journey as a speaker too.

Absolutely. It's lovely hearing you talk and you do talk slowly and clearly and eloquently. We've had probably 200 people on now, and I know I definitely, if I get nervous, I start to speed up the way I'm speaking and make it harder to understand me. And I know there are other people who do the same thing, but I think you talk exceptionally well.

Oh, thank you.

Obviously, we've talked with you about the technology that you originally created before, and so we have a good understanding. But just for anyone else listening, would you mind taking us through the basis of your technology and where you've taken it to get to sort of the last time we spoke to you?

Yeah, I should bring the technology, we have a mini version. I know that some people that won't be able to see it have a prototype that is a little bit broken, but I can illustrate how the technology works during it. What we call the process solar water disinfection. So we basically use the sun, mainly the UV light from the sun, to kill the microorganisms in the water using a recipient that is, as you can see, a little bit thin, so the water will be exposed in the maximum as possible sun in this way, and we have a cover. The real cover is made of glass, this one is made of plastic, just to illustrate, but we can open the lid and close to clean, and we focus this technology on places where the rural communities don't have access to clean water. So they use rainwater, they use river water, water from different sources, and the main problem of this water here in Brazil, the northeast of Brazil, is that it's contaminated in a microbiological way. So, when we put an exposition to the sun, we kill the microorganism and then the water can be taken out. There is an opening here where the beneficiary can collect using a bucket and they will have a water that is safe to drink. The process takes some time, but two of the main differentials we have with this kind of technology is that it has the biggest durability, it has 20 years of durability, and the only maintenance need is cleaning with water and soap. So we don't use any chemicals, we don't need energy, and we don't need to use these plastic filters. We need to, every six months, to change the filter itself so it can continue to filter the water. In this process, we just need the sun, and the sun is available for everyone for free. So it's much more easier for the people that are in very isolated places, without any access to store or anything like this, where they can have a second option, how they can clean the water.

Thanks for going through that. I really love that you have a mini version that you can bring around now for presentations. That's excellent.

When I present it's so hard to understand the technology because it's not something that we see. It's a very unusual concept on how you can treat the water.

Yeah, it's like so simple, but like what you explain it very, very well. And I realized a big part of what you do probably is education. I was curious, I know the pandemic really changed the way the world saw the importance of proper sanitation. Do you feel like that's had any lasting impact on how people understand sanitation or on gaining support for SDW?

Yeah, definitely. The fun or not so fun part was when we finally started the operation of the company in November of 2019. We have just one experience on the field before the pandemic, so we could understand much more the importance of having a washer, a lecturer, other beneficiaries, and how the pandemic made them more aware of the importance of the hygiene and the quality of the water, because they were focused on COVID. With that, they understand that there's so many contamination that they can't see in the water. And if they don't treat it, it will make them sick. This is a very important part of our social, environmental, and the washer lectures that we present. With that, we can make it a little bit easier to change the culture of people that sometimes for generations have been drinking unsafe water without making the connection of, okay, I'm sick, my head is sick. It's because of the water. They usually don't make this connection. They think that is a lot of things, but not the water.

Absolutely. Now, I believe you went on to Shark Tank Brazil. Is that correct? Yeah. Can I ask about what that journey was to get there And then what the impact of going through that experience was for you and how that went?

This experience for me was, again, one experience to be live in a very big audience, talk about my startup. When I got the you are invited message, I was, okay, there is no investor that has a fit for me.

I was preparing just to present and I was accepting that I wouldn't be making any kind of deal with no investor at all. And I was confident about it because I don't want an investor that doesn't make sense to my startup. But then some days, just some days before we go on stage, we receive the information about which investor will be in our episode. And then I saw Monique. Monique is an impact investor. And so, wow, finally, an investor that has some kind of connection with our work. And so I started to prepare myself to make a deal with her. It was great because she was the only one interested in making a deal with us. And at the end, we closed the deal with her. It was a very good and surprised opportunity from the place where we didn't want to close the deal with any investor. And then when we were preparing some mentors that told me, okay, what if this guy wants to make an investment with you? That's okay.

If he accepts our valuation, we can maybe close. But if he didn't accept, I won't be making any conception with him because money for money, it doesn't make any sense for us. But at the end, we close with the perfect investor that is helping us with our strategy, with some connections, and it has been an amazing opportunity to be a part of the Shark Tank Brazil.

And seriously, congratulations. I think that's really telling that you tempered your expectations, like you knew that just to be able to get an opportunity to present on that show would be so good for your cause. I'm so glad that it worked out, that there was a suitable investor. I'm sure it hasn't just been smooth sailing since then, but that's a really exciting development. I also wanted to ask you about another development. Congratulations on joining forces with Purificadores and the Alas for 40 campaign. Well, you can tell us how to properly pronounce it and then And I was wondering if you could kind of give us an update on how the mission is going to bring water to families in some of those remote areas. I think you said there were 35 million Brazilians included in that number without access to clean drinking water.

Yeah. The first thing is this number has been stagnant since maybe 2010 and hasn't been changing at all.

It means that the government, the private sector, no one is making enough efforts for people to reduce this number so more people can have access to clean water and sanitation that the number is even bigger, is 100 million people. The campaign started when, I'm going to translate the number, the name is to make it easier to understand as Europa Water Futures. They were making an anniversary, 40 years anniversary of the company. And they wanted to make something impactful from this anniversary. And the same month that they made the anniversary is the World Water Day and the World Water Woman's Day, Women's Day in March of this year.

And so they use this as a link to make a campaign that could connect everything. They're willing to impact people with access to clean water, the World Water's Day and the Women's Day. So we brought women that have some kind of impact work with sustainability, or that are inspirational voice in their communities, nationally speaking. To have this kind of campaign to bring attention to the importance of clean water and to collect funds that would, at the end, make more families have access to clean water. Not only have access to clean water, but to change their life because of it. We will be getting 40 units of Aqualuz. It's not a big, big campaign, but it's a campaign that if you consider that it will be 40 families that will have access to clean water for 20 years, it's a very, very impactful campaign. This campaign is a grant funding campaign that the Europa Water Futures will also contribute. I guess the most important message is to connect with a lot of women that they have important work in Brazil, but they don't understand the importance of clean water. And now they do, and they are spreading this voice.

With that, we hope that not only will we be benefiting the four families, but in a more medium term to long term, more people will be interested in doing other kind of projects to help more people have access to clean water. Unfortunately, we'll pause this campaign right now because of what is happening in Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. I'm not sure if you heard some news what is happening. we have a climate crisis where almost the whole state, it's in the south of Brazil, the last state is with floods. So people are dying. A lot of people are without their houses and some people are dying because they don't have clean water, also because the state lost the water, energy, the clean water, of course, because the state is full of water. That's the problem. The whole country is now connected to help the state, sending donations, sending operations to save the people that are still stuck in the houses, animals. But it's a very sad and it's a big crisis. The worst part is we know that it won't be the first and the second. Last year it happens in other states. It's something that will continue

to have happened and we are not prepared, not only as a country, but as society. It's just a result of the climate change. And as the world is not doing much, not doing enough, I know that the impacts will continue to grow. So

sorry about that. It is something that I do know some of the people working on climate crisis and they're some of the most intelligent people I've ever met, but it is something that, as a society, we need to work towards, for sure.

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One thing I've been thinking about and it relates to both climate change and what you work on specifically is how to do societal level good in the world, how you can have that sort of impact. And your mission, as I understand it, is to try and make clean water a universal right.

What we are analyzing of the situation now, as never, is that we are in a world where people still focus on money. And as we can't make sustainability in a lot of sectors cheaper than the other option that is making the climate change worse, we are not moving faster enough to solve the problem. That, I guess, is the main problem. We are a society where people still focus on how can I save money to have more money and I'm investing in some kind of projects. In our case, we are an impact startup, so we focus on the impact, not on the money. And the company that invests on us, they always try to make us as cheap as possible so they can just have the impact to show that they brand ESG brand, but not focusing on the quality of the project. Sometimes we even don't close with the company because they prefer to close the deal with another company that will make they seem good, but the impact in the community won't be as good as it could be.

For example, we with Aqualuz will make an impact for 20 years. Sometimes they invest in a project that people have access for just one or two years, but they will be able to have much more people impacted. By the end, what they really like is to show, okay, with this money, I invested in a million people, but if they invested on us, it would be half of the impacted people. Again, if they're considering long -term, it would be sometimes for 20 years, not just two. This is just an example of what we as a society still need to advance, not only in the private sector, but also with the public sector, the public policies. We still need to, for example, don't give tax exemptions. Here in Brazil, probably in the whole world, some bad for the world companies have some tax exemption, while the companies that are good for the planet doesn't have. So it makes it even cheaper for the public that will buy the cars or something like this. Their product will be cheaper than the option that is more sustainable. So it's so, so complex, the world. Sometimes we know that we need to focus on our battles. So I understand all about this, but I can't change it. I need to focus on impact just in the water sector, but it's something that is connected. We know that everything is connected.

And what you're saying, you know, makes a great deal of sense to making sure that there is incentive to purchase sustainable solutions. I we have some of that in the US, but just the logistics of making it cheaper, it really is difficult. So it really has to be, you know, more about like people like yourself who can really articulate the mission and people having that heartfelt connection to it. And I do see that change happening in the US, but you know, when people are scraping by, I think it's, it's difficult for them to make choices that are sustainable. I mean, clearly you've developed a product that can have so much positive impact, not just in Brazil, but in the world. And to me, it seems really scalable. Do you envision SDW expanding outside Brazil anytime soon? And if so, do you have like any specific vision or plans regarding that?

Yeah, so Aqualuz is a technology that is already in Ecuador. We have a pilot in Ecuador. For us, as a company that is still small, Brazil is so big, right now we're impacting 27 ,000 people, while there is 35 million people. So we've impacted just a very small quantity of people. It would be difficult to internationalize, to have operations in other countries and still be impacting Brazil in the quantity of people that we wanted to impact. So again, we need to focus first here, as there is a lot of people that we can help, but sure. And definitely if we have opportunity to deliver the technology on Africa, Asia, other countries in Latin America. We wouldn't say no, but it's not something that we would expend too much energy and then taking out for the energy that we do need to apply here to amplify our impact in Brazil.

Absolutely. And figuring it out there at the full scale is going to make it easier to scale into other areas as well. Now, can you talk a little bit about the pivots you've had to make as you've been taken through the lifespan of SDW from very early on, how many big changes have you had to the product or the operations or things like that?

Okay, so in our journey, I will give some important dates so you can understand the journey we've passed so far. So I have the idea of Aqualuz when I was 15 years old. It was 2013. So, 11 years ago, I started to develop Aqualuz as a technology that would only need the sun to treat the water. But I didn't have any financial support, so it took me some years to finally have a version that could be implemented on the market. The other problem was I had just a vision as a scientist, not a social entrepreneur. So, when I was 17 years old, I got into college here in Brazil and I discovered the world

of sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Then I started SCW in 2015, so two years after, as a startup that would make it possible to deliver Aqualuz on the market. The first time, for me, it was clear that it would be a technology for the government to buy and to deliver to the communities. At least here in Brazil, we have public policy for water. It's strong, but not effective. For me, it would be a way to make it more effective. But it wasn't easy, mainly because as I didn't have financial support and couldn't implement the technology on the field, the government always tell me, okay, what results do you have to show me that it really can improve the people's life? And at the same time, I was like, how can I have results if no one is investing in me at all?

It's something that doesn't make sense. Okay, I needed to try to find money so I could make it happen. And I try to gain some awards, some recognitions, and make it maybe to show the government, look what I'm doing, look who is trusting my impact, my work, like UN, UNESCO, MIT, is trusting the impact that I've been doing. We were able to have this number of 25 ,000 people this year, and right now, by the beginning of last year, the government started to see us as a possibility to expand their work. So 2013, just 10 years after in 2023, the government started to see us. By this middle of journey, we've been with private company that invests in small projects with us, so they can again show the impact data as a part of branding of marketing campaigns and show the world that they are ESG companies. We do think that the way that we can scale our impact is definitely by the government buying our technology and implementing not only technology, but our social methodology, where we can prove that with the workshops, lectures, and the monitoring of results, in fact, people can really show how the adults can improve their productivity as now they have access to clean water, but also because their kids are not sick and their mother, for example, doesn't need to stop their work to take care of the kids or to go with them to the health center to treat the waterborne disease. And for the kids, they will have improved education as they are not spending one third of the year sick because of the unsafe water consumption. So that's what the government needs to understand and implement. And they will save money with that because they are the ones paying for the health, mainly, and the public education. So, if they invest in safe water, they will save money in the other way of the equation. Right now we have very good numbers, that is, every dollar invested in our projects saves $27 in the society as a total of the economic benefits, the health and education. For that would be enough data to show how important it is to invest, but still we haven't be able to fulfill our partnership with the government, everything is so slow. I don't know if this year will be our first year of partnership or if maybe this will just happen by next year.

I really admire your steadfastness in this. And I think part of what blows me away is just how long it takes to even get their attention. I mean, you were talking about, you know, individuals that have been living in generations not realizing that the water is a problem. And you know, my brain thinks, of course, the government realizes the importance of this and like, how much more productivity they would have in their society and how much more support they would have from their people for providing this, but I know it is not so simple. So I appreciate that you're willing to stay honest with them. I want to pivot a little bit though Congratulations on becoming a mother and happy Mother's Day to you and also on your recent move to San Paolo

So we often ask guests How they find that work -life balance and I'm really curious to hear, you from such a busy person like how has that changed yours? How are you finding your work -life balance now?

Definitely after Luna was born, I became more aware of the importance of having a personal life, mainly because now I'm responsible to educate a new person for the world and she definitely will be a continuation not of my work. I don't really need her to continue my work, but my understanding of the world and our personal mission to be someone useful for the society. I just want her to be someone useful. Sometimes I get very afraid of, okay, I put another person to suffer in the world with everything that is happening, the climate change, but at the same time I think, okay, she will be important to help solve this crisis. It's much more better to have someone helping than if she wasn't born at all and maybe she will be someone that will make the society better. So far I still have some struggle of disconnecting the world. When I'm with her is like she doesn't allow me to work at all because she requires attention. But at the same time, I become more productive as I know that, OK, I need to finish this by this time because I will need to be with Luna. I'm able to to accomplish the goal or if they are tidy schedule. So, yeah, it will be a mixture of I need to be an example for her.

Absolutely. That's brilliant. Thank you so much. You've been working on this, Aqualuz, for 11 years, I think you said, which is not quite, but pretty close to half your life at this point. Yeah. Can you see a vision of when you think you'll be done with it? Like, when do you think success has been achieved and you can move on to maybe other things that you're happy with or other priorities for you?

Well, at the beginning, when I was having the idea with 15 years old, I thought that was required maybe five years at maximum to be able to fulfill the dream that is making everyone have access to clean water and the sanitation, not only in Brazil, but worldwide. As far as I how big, how complex is the problem And how complex is the society in terms of wanting, willingness to solve this big issue? I understand that maybe it would be something that will require my whole life. So now I'm not sure if I'll be able to have a next dream of a next problem that I want to solve. What understand is I do need to focus my life on solving this. If I'm good enough and the world cooperates with it, if we have more people invest in their time, their energy on solving this crisis, maybe I will be able to retire and everything will be solved. SCW, for example, won't need to exist anymore because we won't have this problem happen anymore.

And I like what you said too about, you know, seeing the next generation kind of make change, you know, through their lens, not that your daughter would have to necessarily like run your company the way you've run it, but that she can be part of the

change

and, and continue that too. Cause I do feel like, you know, maybe that's a way to define success too. You can let me know as your daughter grows older. So, with all the experience that you've had, at this point, do you feel like there's certain like character qualities that you really have to have as a founder to stick with a cause like this and be successful in your mission?

A lot of qualities, but the one that I understand that is the most important of every other is resilience. It's understanding that we won't have the success as fast as we want. The way that we plan our journey will never be the journey that we need to take to advance in this dream. The resilience makes you understand it and also understand that the mistakes you do in the process is also necessary for you to learn the way that you don't need to do it. It will make you closer to the best way to do it. Even when we talk about social entrepreneurship, I this resilience is even more essential. I feel like being a social entrepreneur, we pass with more challenges than being just an entrepreneur because of the way the world is capitalist and doesn't understand the importance of doing good and maybe being capitalist while doing good. Why not?

We benefit more people, company that is profiting by doing good than the ones that is just profiting by just destructing our planet is something that I guess Maybe Luna's generation will be the ones realizing and implementing it, but I'm not sure if my generation will see this happening in the world.

I think each generation is operating a bit better. When you look at old, old history, it's very clear how things have improved. And I think we're younger and younger generations are trying to do more and more consistently good. I think there's some statistics about Gen Z cares more about doing good in the world than probably any other generation before. So I think you're right that it's something that's changing and going to change, but how soon that'll be is unfortunately still up for debate.

Yeah, I'm Gen Z also.

Okay, well, perfect, that's a good example. We are five minutes to the hour, and we have a particular question we like to wrap up on, and I want you to interpret this however it makes the most sense to you. But basically, what words of wisdom do you want to leave us with today? This can be a takeaway from a personal experience or life lesson, something someone else has told you, something you've seen on your favorite TV show, you know, whatever sort of resonates with you best.

I guess continuing talking about resilient is something that when I see myself at the beginning, I

see a young girl, a young Latin American girl, every time she tries to receive attention or try to receive support to continue her mission to make the world a better place, particularly with water. She receives the way the world sees her as a person, very young, that doesn't know what she's doing. It's just plain to be a scientist, it's just plain to be a social entrepreneur is not someone that can be taken seriously about her work and I start to grow and understand that I need to dance the world dance, how the world moves and try to look like more serious, try to look more professional, more trustable. Winning awards is something that makes it a little bit easier, but this is something that changed her as a professional. And at the same time that she lost her teenage personality, it's clear that if she's not the one doing this, and she's not the one dancing the way the world's dancing, to help solve this problem, maybe the situation will just get worse. She understands that. She's not doing this by herself, but she's doing this for the good of people that most part of the time she even doesn't know.

The takeaway and the message that I wanted to say is question yourself always. What is your legacy? What is something that after you leave this world, you want to look and listen, wow, I was someone that made a difference. I made a difference for the society, I made a difference for the planet. I know I chose a difficult, very difficult path, but it was something that after some years it's clear that it was the right way to do it.

I really appreciate your ability to reflect, and that's such a beautiful analogy. You're right, because no one can dance like you can dance, you know, and it's imperfect, but it's beautiful.

And you continue to learn and get better as you practice. Thank you so much for taking this time with us today, and for sharing your thoughts and your wisdom. and yeah, we really appreciate it. But thank you again for taking this time with us and please keep us posted on how we can support you in the next leg of your journey. And in the meantime, if you want to nominate anyone that you think would benefit from this experience or would have interests, we very much appreciate that.

And for our listening audience, you can find Founders Voyage on your favorite podcast platform. You can also find us on Patreon if you want to support us continuing as a podcast. But in the meantime, thank you, Ana, and thank you so much for everyone that joined us today. We hope you have a great day and evening ahead.

Thank you so much, Nancy. Thank you, Spencer. Big pleasure to be here today.

It was a pleasure talking to you.

Bye -bye. Thank you. Take care.

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