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A Solar Punk Future with Mat Yarger, Co-Founder of DigitalMRV
Mat describes how data can help us overcome climate change and the future we can work towards together.
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Mat develops strategy and solutions around the use of data with DLT based innovations. He focuses on enabling flexible and privacy centric data and value transfer within the public sector for use in places like Smart Cities, critical infrastructure, environmental and energy systems, and mobility focused data industries such as connected and autonomous vehicles.
Mat served as a US Army Combat Veteran, Cyber Security Analyst & Operations Planner at the National Security Agency, & Digital Forensics professional at the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center, Head of Sustainability and Smart Cities at the IOTA Foundation, and is now leading a sustainable impact verification focused venture with more information coming in the near future.
He’s a regular speaker and contributor on decentralized and distributed innovations. Those include OpenAI, OpenData, DLT / Blockchain, Distributed Systems Theory and real world implementations with multiple existing pilots and projects.
Mat is a strong advocate for enhanced privacy and policies around data and data management. Involved in global initiatives to create data and metadata standards and raise awareness on how data can be structured and distributed on both a hardware and software level.
He’s involved in Smart City Data policy and project and product designs and development with a home base in Austin, Texas, and works heavily with the Austin community and local organizations from a non profit, for profit and government perspective.
This episode of Over the Edge features an interview between Matt Trifiro and Mat Yarger, co-founder of DigitalMRV. At Digital MRV, Mat develops strategy and solutions around the use of data for environmental and energy systems, including smart cities and critical infrastructure.
In this episode, Mat describes how data can help us overcome climate change, what systems need updating, and the future we can work towards together.
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Key Quotes
“With data, there are just so many different things you can do. It applies to every sector as we’re transitioning into digitization and automation. We see the huge uptick of AI right now and everything around that. But data security and trust in data is really paramount to building the right systems moving forward.”
“One area that was the most open to [new tech] because there is a high, high need for transparency right now, is climate. What I’m doing is still very tied to everything I’ve done in the past: like cybersecurity, protecting the data, compartmentalizing it, enabling trust in the data, those kinds of things. But the space that is the most ready to scale that out is climate and environmental impact.”
“The big problems are how we can take that analog process, and look at the standards that are out there. Let’s digitize all those different standards, or pick the ones that have the most impact and progressively digitize them. How do we implement them into the facilities that are getting built or ready to transition and earn these carbon credits or new incentive models?”
“I’m sure you’re familiar with the cyberpunk future of how things can go and Blade Runner and all that kind of stuff. But I think if we do this right, we’ve got this really cool solar punk future where it’s super high tech, super futuristic, we’ve got trees growing on all of our buildings and we’re sharing data, and I’m giving you energy from the energy that I’m creating from my solar panels, and it’s just a really fluid utopian society like I know that’s super optimistic and positive, but I think if we do it right and we get the right people involved and we don’t step on the common person and their data, then it’s achievable.”
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Show Timestamps:
02:18 Mat’s journey into tech
05:27 How Mat got into his field
07:46 How tech ties into climate
09:45 The problems Mat’s trying to solve
12:57 What is the carbon market?
13:54 Circular emission tracking
14:52 Why data is useful
18:38 About Project Iota
24:48 About Project Alvarium
29:06 How Mat’s business was formed
35:17 What Mat sees for the future
37:30 The climate we’re striving for
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Sponsor:
Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies to unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions. From hardware and software to data and operations, across your entire multi-cloud environment, we’re here to help you simplify your edge so you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting DellTechnologies.com/SimplifyYourEdge for more information or click on the link in the show notes.
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Links:
Follow Matt Trifiro on Twitter
Follow Matt Trifiro on LinkedIn
