As a team at Tech Collective, we never really consider customising our energy plans, or for that matter thought this was possible. Maybe this is why Electrify caused a bit of a stir in the virtual office we use. A bit of research later, we started to understand a bit more about this industry. We’ll let Julius educate you further on why companies like Electrify are changing the energy space for everyone.
Read about blockchain in the energy sector here.
Julius has a lot of experience in the energy sector. He started off as a research engineer at SERIS or the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore, and also had a stint as the Head of Energy at Sunseap, the largest solar energy company in Singapore.
Fresh off a US$30 million raise through an ICO, Electrify is poised to take the energy world by storm.
If you can’t Julius in his office, he is most likely engrossed in a book or at the gym. If he’s got the time, he might be skiing ot sailing around the world in sailboat.
Find out his story below.
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Sell us your company/service in 300 words?
Electrify aims to remove all barriers to the production, consumption, and trading of energy. Through our platform, we aim to bring full transparency and liquidity to power markets, enabling anyone to produce, sell, trade and consume energy with minimal friction. Right now, we are Singapore’s first and only marketplace for retail electricity. Through customising energy contracts, our clients enjoy upwards of 25% savings on their monthly power bill.
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What is stopping you from having the largest company in the world?
Our focus is not so much on the company’s size and market capitalisation. What’s most important is the product that we deliver and the impact that we bring to our community and users. I think driving real value through one’s product or service is the ultimate determinant of size.
The more lives you impact, the bigger you are as a company.
The only thing stopping me from having the largest company in the world is that I do not necessarily want the largest company in the world. I believe I speak for many business owners when I say that a company should be measured by the lives that it enables – the value it adds, and not only by the zeroes in the bank.
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If you could change one thing about the tech industry in Southeast Asia, what would it be?
I suppose the environment in which most of us are brought up in encourages the somewhat risk-averse behaviour. Consequently, we are less willing to innovate, create and take risks in our careers or even just in simple, daily routines. We need to have more people who understand that if you take a bold step and fail, it’s not the end of the world. In fact, one can actually gain more out of the entire journey. The harder the journey, the more you learn from it. These lessons are then yours to keep, assets that stay with you forever. We need a greater appetite for failure and experimentation.
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Name one person in the region, who is making a difference in Technology?
I would have to say that Jun Hasegawa, CEO of Omise Holdings, is right up at the top. He is doing an amazing job in the blockchain technology scene with Thailand-based online payments gateway OmiseGo and is playing a key role in developing the Plasma protocol, a project to bring the Ethereum network to the next level of scalability and speed. Hitherto, a commonly debated pitfall of blockchain technology is its inability to scale, rendering it unrealistic for implementation in many sectors or even in reality, for that matter. This scalability solution will be instrumental in helping blockchain technology achieve viability in real-world applications.
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What would you want people to remember you for, 100 years from now?
It will be nice to be known as someone who played a part to improve the energy market for the benefit of consumers, regardless of geography and income level. Many consumer markets suffer from a lack of understanding and awareness of the energy space. This ignorance spills over to lesser consideration in the consumption of something so fundamental to all of our activities – power. I would like to enable consumers to be more cognizant, more aware.
About Julius
Julius began his career in the Singapore energy market as, first a Research Engineer at the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS), before moving on as a trader and Head of the Energy at the largest solar energy company in Singapore. During his time there, Julius built and developed the company’s retail arm, now a dominant independent electricity retailer in Singapore. Identifying a gap in the market, Julius, and his business partner, Martin developed ELECTRIFY.SG with the aim of bringing the e-commerce concept to the market for electricity plans. Through ELECTRIFY.SG, they bring greater choice and savings in time and cost to consumers as well as greater clarity on electricity packages. Julius has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cambridge.
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Views expressed by the interviewee are not necessarily shared by Tech Collective. Some minimal editing is done for clarity’s sake.
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