Portraits of Changemakers at START GLOBAL 2025

Here are a few portraits of folks who really inspired me that I met at START Global 2025 in St. Gallen.

All of the photos were taken with a Canon R6 Mark II and a Canon RF 28-70mm F2 L USM lens. While really felt the weight of the lens by the end of the day, it was still the right choice for the event, as the lighting could often be quite dim.

Mike Schälchli of Nutrai

Mike's Nutrai startup uses computer vision to help hospitals provide better nutrition for patients and to help airlines waste less food.

I really liked seeing a use of non-LLM AI to address a combination of business, health & sustainability needs in an integrated way.

Mike was also so good at engaging visitors to his booth. I have a higher standard to meet the next time that I'm on booth duty.

Maximilian Lehmann of fainin

Max's fainin service helps reduce overconsumption with peer-to-peer equipment rental and sharing.

I loved how fainin makes an old behavior of smart, sustainable communities — sharing resources with your neighbors and friends — easy, scalable & cool.

I was stunned at how good Max was in front of the camera and he was so casual about it that I didn't find out that he had professional modeling experience until I visited https://www.instagram.com/max_lemn/.

Hippolyte Bruguiere & Younès Boual of Maa Biodiversity

Maa Biodiversity helps protect the biodiversity of forests with a unique combination of technology and landholder incentives.

Incentives are the most difficult part of biodiversity initiatives and Maa's approach that pays farmers to implement their solution is brilliant.

My favorite shot of the day was this one of Younès. While I didn't initially think that the combination of overhead fluorescents and the black hoodie against black drapes would work, I'm pleased to have been wrong.