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Catherine Weetman talks to Barry O’Kane about software, one of the key enablers for circular economy solutions.
Barry O’Kane founded HappyPorch, a software engineering specialist and consultancy (and now a certified B Corp) in 2015. Catherine met Barry a few years ago when he asked her to help him find examples of software that was supporting circular economy strategies. Barry interviewed a few of those companies for Happy Porch Radio, and has featured many more software-related circular businesses on his podcast.
Barry outlines the trends he’s seeing, as businesses and developers start to build software solutions to support circular economy business models and recovery systems. Barry explains the importance of context-specific solutions, and outlines some of the software related barriers that are making it difficult for bigger businesses to adopt circular systems and processes.
He also explains how software can help you get a much better understanding of the current system, and what the possibilities might be.
They discuss the potential uses of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, including visual Machine Learning, and about blockchain, and Barry shares his lessons learned from seeing businesses trying to get started with circular solutions.
Barry talks about infrastructure software, which in this context means software to help business organizations perform basic tasks such as business transactions, supply chain management, workforce management and other internal services and processes.
Podcast host Catherine Weetman helps businesses use circular, regenerative and fair solutions to do better, with less.
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Read on for more on our guest and links to the people, organisations and other resources we mention.
Links we mention in the episode:
- Happy Porch: https://www.happyporch.com/
- Happy Porch Radio – focusing on circular economy software solutions https://happyporchradio.com/
Barry O’Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barryokane/ - Tom Harper – Unusual Rigging – episode 3 https://www.rethinkglobal.info/tom-harper-circular-asset-management/
- Reath https://reath.id/ and Happy Porch Radio https://happyporchradio.com/season-5/episodes/e19-building-digital-infrastructure-circular-economy-claire-rampen-emily-rogers/
About Barry O’Kane
Barry says: I founded HappyPorch (now a certified B Corp) in 2015.
HappyPorch is a software engineering specialist and consultancy. We work with entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs to accelerate the transition to a circular economy, turning technology into action. Together with our clients and partners, we develop concepts into solutions that impact people’s lives, their business and the planet for the better.
The company also embodies two other values that are important to me: we’ve been fully remote and distributed since the beginning and we operate a radically transparent and open culture. That has allowed us to build an incredibly talented, aligned and inspiring team. It is humbling and an honour to be part of it.
Outside work I travel a lot and enjoy good whiskey and outdoor adventures. I’m also a charity trustee.
Interview Transcript
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If you’re new to the circular economy, you might like the ‘getting started’ playlist. There’s also an interactive podcast index, making it easy to find episodes on each of the key circular economy strategies or for a specific market sector. And to dig deeper, please check out Catherine’s award-winning A Circular Economy Handbook, published by Kogan Page.
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