Priyanka Bakaya

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]

Priyanka Bakaya
NationalityAustralian-American
Occupationentrepreneur
Known forPK Clean

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. "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. 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. 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. "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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