Priyanka Bakaya
NationalityAustralian-American
Occupationentrepreneur
Known forPK Clean

Priyanka Bakaya is an Australian-American entrepreneur. She founded PK Clean, a clean energy company which converts plastic waste into new products, and served as its chief executive officer.[1][2][3][4]

Early years

Bakaya grew up in Australia, where she attended Lauriston Girls' School.[3][5][6] Her mother worked as a CPA and her father was a financial services entrepreneur.[3] Bakaya is of Kashmiri descent.[7] As a child, she developed her interest in science through interacting with Percy Kean, an inventor who developed solutions for clean energy and was close to her family.[1][6]

Bakaya attended Stanford University for her undergraduate education in economics and technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology for an MBA.[8]

Career

After graduating from Stanford, she took a position as an energy research analyst at Lehman in New York City.[1] Kean died in 2007; around the same time, oil prices rose by twice their original price.[1] Bakaya decided to apply Kean's discoveries and found PK Clean in 2009,[3] applying to MIT to give her the skills necessary to found the business.[1] The company's name was derived from Kean's initials.[1][3] She started working with co-founder Benjamin Coates in 2011, when they were Lightspeed Venture Fellows in California.[9]

In 2012, PK Clean moved to Salt Lake City, where it set up a facility with the capacity to convert 20,000 pounds of non-recycled plastic to 60 barrels of oil each day[3] and zero toxic emissions,[10] using the depolymerization process.[11] The company was awarded MIT's Clean Energy Prize[12] in 2011[13] and third place in the Rice University Business Plan Super Bowl.[14]

Recognition

In 2011, Bakaya was the recipient of the prize for female entrepreneurs at the Rice Business Plan Competition.[15] In December 2012, Bakaya was featured by Forbes as one of its 30 Under 30 in the Energy category.[16] In 2013, Fortune named Bakaya as one of its 40 Under 40 to watch.[10]

Bakaya was the North American Laureate for the Cartier Women's Initiative Award in 2013.[17] In 2014, she was featured in Marie Claire as a One Woman Genius and in Elle Magazine as 12 Genius Young Women Shaping the Future.[18][19] In 2015, she gave a TEDx talk on the Power of Waste.[20] In 2016, she won money from Steve Case as part of his Rise of the Rest Tour.[21]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Priyanka Bakaya | Cartier Women's Initiative Awards". www.cartierwomensinitiative.com. Retrieved 29 May 2016.
  2. ↑ "Texas smackdown: The winners - Third place: PK Clean (4) - FORTUNE". archive.fortune.com. Retrieved 30 May 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Lee, Jasen (4 May 2015). "Women innovators leading by example". DeseretNews.com. Retrieved 30 May 2016.
  4. ↑ "Turning Landfill Into Black Gold". Inc.com. 23 April 2014. Retrieved 30 May 2016.
  5. ↑ "From Lauriston to Forbes Top 30". Lauriston. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  6. 1 2 Lee, Jasen (19 March 2014). "Utah firm making crude oil from discarded plastic". DeseretNews.com. Retrieved 30 May 2016.
  7. ↑ "Sundance business and technology conference encourages failure | ParkRecord.com". www.parkrecord.com. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  8. ↑ "Solving the world's plastic problem". MIT News. Retrieved 30 May 2016.
  9. ↑ "P3 People Podcast with Priyanka Bakaya of PK Clean". P3Utah. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  10. 1 2 "40 Under 40: Ones to Watch, 2013 edition". Fortune. 19 September 2013. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  11. ↑ Grady, Barbara (13 October 2015). "VERGE Accelerate winners: Where are they now?". Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  12. ↑ "From waste to oil - Indian Express". archive.indianexpress.com. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  13. ↑ "Meeting the Next Generation of Energy Entrepreneurs at MIT Showcase". Energy.gov. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  14. ↑ Winston, Andrew (6 June 2011). "Our Future Business Leaders Are All About Green". Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  15. ↑ "10 Reflections On 2 Business Plan Competitions". Business Insider. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  16. ↑ Helman, Christopher. "Priyanka Bakaya, 29 - In Photos: 30 Under 30: Energy". Forbes. Archived from the original on 30 December 2012. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  17. ↑ "Cartier Women's Initiative Awards 2013". Cartier Women's Initiative Awards. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  18. ↑ "One Woman Genius". Marie Claire. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  19. ↑ "Mind Game". Elle. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  20. ↑ "The Power of Waste". TEDx. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  21. ↑ "Steve Case". BeehiveStartups. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
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