The Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst List 2024

The 16 inventors, entrepreneurs, visionaries, activists and investors who make up the class of 2024.

Profiles by Jennifer SondagIllustrations by Matija Medved for Bloomberg Businessweek

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Catalyst: “An agent that provokes or speeds significant change or action,” according to Merriam-Webster. What better way to describe the 16 inventors, entrepreneurs, visionaries, activists and investors who make up Bloomberg New Economy’s class of 2024 Catalysts? They’re trying to turn visions of a better world into reality. —Erik Schatzker

General partner of HealthCap Africa

Nigeria

Investing in African health-care and fintech startups

A medical doctor, Brown has long worked to improve the health of Africans. In 2011 she started Flying Doctors Nigeria, a company providing emergency transport and medical services in more than 100 countries. At HealthCap Africa, the venture capital firm she founded less than a decade later, she’s seeking to help Africans access affordable health care and financial services. The firm has provided capital to more than a dozen startups devoted to these causes and is approaching the close of a second fund.

Founder and CEO of Eon Institute

Mexico

Promoting responsible technology development and adoption

Del Pozo’s think tank focuses on how society can adopt new technologies, especially artificial intelligence, with humans at the center. Her group’s research, projects and policy recommendations look at how to protect privacy, safeguard children and promote equity. “We’re committed to making tech’s benefits accessible to all, not just a privileged few,” she says. On a practical level, that means sharing AI policies with Mexico’s newly elected leadership and testing potential regulation in Mexico and Uruguay.

Founder and CEO of Air Protein

Creating food from elements of the air

In the 1970s, NASA scientists came up with a novel idea to feed astronauts in space: take their exhaled carbon dioxide and turn it into food. Decades later, Dyson revived this research and made it a reality. In 2019, Air Protein created its first food, “air chicken,” made from protein-rich flour created with air, water and energy. By scaling production, the company next seeks to offer an alternate path to producing food and ingredients that doesn’t rely on shrinking natural resources or traditional supply chains.

CEO of Mombak

Brazil

Reforesting the Amazon

The only way to keep the planet from getting hotter is to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and Fernandez says Mombak is pioneering “humanity’s single largest opportunity” to do this. He sees Brazil becoming the world’s largest provider of carbon removal credits and wants the company to play a big role. Moving toward that goal, Mombak reforested an area half the size of Manhattan with 100 native Brazilian tree species and reached a deal with Microsoft Corp. to provide 1.5 million tons in carbon removal credits.

CEO of ClimateAi

Climate-proofing food and water supply chains

While most people concentrate on the weather forecast for the coming days or week, farmers need to look much further out and be able to act on that information. A climate change expert, Gupta co-founded ClimateAi to use multiple global forecasting models to predict the risks and impacts of extreme weather coming not just in two weeks but in 20 years. He’s also developed playbooks for farmers and agriculture companies to help them prepare. Having more time to act saves money and livelihoods, Gupta says.

Founder and CEO of Elle International

South Africa

Addressing the women’s health gap

At 23, Hornby invested her savings of $27,000 to start Elle, a nonprofit aimed at destigmatizing menstruation and providing reusable period products to underprivileged schoolgirls. After participating in Elle’s education programs, schools saw a 50% increase in attendance during menstruation, and a majority of girls reported feeling more confident in dealing with their health. Hornby is expanding those programs to cover additional areas of women’s health with a mobile app.

Co-founders and directors of Good-Edi

Australia

Creating a waste-free, edible cup

Hutchins and Rahebi are tackling waste one cup of coffee at a time. Relying on their experience in the food processing industry, the pair developed a cup made of oats and grains that holds liquid for as long as eight hours and can be eaten once used. (They say it tastes like a waffle cone but a little less sweet.) If thrown out, a Good-Edi cup will break down naturally in less than two weeks, far quicker than the billions of plastic-lined cups that wind up in the garbage each year.

Co-founder and CEO of Courageous Land

Brazil

Using a data-driven platform to reforest the Earth

Recognizing the opportunity for carbon removal in Brazil, Courageous Land helps organizations manage and finance agroforestry projects. Kauders, who worked in private equity and technology before starting the company, says his mission is “to reverse climate change while creating health and abundance for life on Earth.” That means designing forest systems that remove carbon in perpetuity and improve biodiversity while providing economic benefits in the form of carbon credits, fruit, timber and spices.

President and CEO of Axelspace

Japan

Creating cost-effective microsatellites

Nakamura built his first nanosatellite as an aerospace engineering student before starting Axelspace in 2008 with the goal of bringing down the cost of launching a satellite. Axelspace’s microsatellites are cheaper to build than traditional ones, which also makes them less expensive to launch and operate. And their smaller size can make them nimbler in delivering targeted data back to Earth. Nakamura sees use cases across agriculture, urban planning, environmental monitoring and disaster management.

Founder and CEO of Food 4 Education

Kenya

Providing nutritious and affordable meals to African children

When Njiru started Food 4 Education at age 21, she was using a makeshift kitchen to feed 25 kids in her neighborhood. Today her organization provides meals to 450,000 schoolchildren daily and plans to expand to 3 million in three countries by 2030. More than half of the nonprofit’s 3,500 employees are parents of the children the program feeds, and for many it’s their first formal job. “Our ambition is insatiable,” says Njiru. “We’re developing a blueprint that can be shared and adopted across Africa.”

Founder and CEO of Nsano

Ghana

Processing payments across Africa

Owusu-Nhyira is on a mission to democratize how money moves. Through Nsano, he offers financial services to address three major obstacles he sees holding back economic growth: limited financial inclusion, security concerns and high cross-border transaction costs. By expanding into underserved areas and encouraging intra-African trade, “we can unlock the potential of millions of Africans and contribute to the continent’s economic growth,” he says.

Co-founder and president of Institute 2100

Devising solutions for overlooked global problems

After coming under government pressure, Patiño recently left Venezuela, where he worked with vulnerable communities suffering from extended food and water shortages and frequent power outages. He’s looking to use this experience, and a background in public policy and peace studies, to encourage citizen participation in addressing some of the most pressing social challenges around the world. Areas his group is tackling include migration, food security and the impact of AI on economic opportunities.

Founder and director of Afforestt Eco Services

India

Restoring native forests to balance ecosystems

An industrial engineer, Sharma worked at Toyota Motor Corp. before becoming a full-time conservationist. He applied his training and knowledge of production systems at Afforestt to design self-sustaining ecosystems that foster indigenous flora and promote biodiversity. Sharma says the company’s approach grows forests 10 times faster than other processes. Afforestt makes its methodology publicly available, resulting in a global tiny-forest movement that’s helped create more than 3,000 forests.

Co-founder and executive director of Huella Local Foundation

Chile

Encouraging local development by uniting public and private sectors

After working for a nongovernmental organization to help families in extreme poverty and in a leadership role within Chile’s housing ministry, Vial founded Huella Local to link up communities with the government and other institutions that can improve livelihoods for the most marginalized people in the Latin American country. According to Vial, Huella Local’s infrastructure projects have helped more than 1 million people living in the most vulnerable areas of Chile. He’s now looking to scale his model to other parts of Latin America.

Co-founder and CEO of i2Cool

Hong Kong

Developing electricity-free ways to cool buildings

Zhu’s startup takes its inspiration from the Saharan silver ant, a species of insect with a protective coating that allows it to survive scorching desert temperatures by reflecting sunlight. Using that principle, i2Cool has developed a paint for roofs or exterior walls that can lower the temperature inside a building, reducing energy consumption and costs. Zhu points to a case study in which i2Cool paint was applied to a building in Hong Kong, and room temperatures dropped by an average of 3C (5.4F).

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