SXSW Pitch Finalist: Sapient
The Forrest Four-Cast: January 28, 2020
If Sam Parks, CEO and co-founder of Sapient Industries, weren’t working for his startup, he’d be working as a scientist, using his background in nanotechnology as an applied physicist.
Instead, an idea for smart outlets, conceived while he was still a student at University of Pennsylvania, evolved into Sapient Industries, based in Philadelphia, Penn., and launched in April 2017.
One of 50 finalists for SXSW Pitch, Parks will pitch Sapient in the Smart Cities, Transportation & Logistics Technology category, (9:30 to 10:30 am Saturday, March 14), aiming to impress a panel of expert judges and a live audience with their skills, creativity and innovation in emerging technology.
The Sapient plug load analytics system is a commercial deployment of smart outlets and smart power strips that measure and control electrical sockets. Using machine learning, the system can be used for plug load reduction, demand peak shaving, preventative maintenance, anomaly detection, machine diagnostics, sub-metering, occupancy tracking, and space optimization.
As Parks told the Philadelphia Citizen, “Think about how cool it is to know how much it costs to run your home entertainment system and be able to switch it on and off — now do that for 3,000 devices in a building, and then hook that up to a dashboard for a facilities manager and then on top of that, equip it with a bunch of really cool machine learning tools, and suddenly you have more control and insight into your building than anyone has ever had before.”
Winners in each of the 10 categories will be announced at the Pitch Awards Ceremony, at 6:30 pm Sunday, March 15. SXSW attendees are also invited to Meet the Finalists from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Monday, March 16. All SXSW Pitch events take place at the Hilton Austin Downtown.
In advance of SXSW Pitch, Parks answered some questions about his startup experience.
What problem does Sapient Industries solve?
Operational inefficiency due to lack of information and control.
Who does it serve?
Commercial real estate of all kinds.
With the exception of Sapient Industries, what tech trend is your team most excited about?
Long Range Wide Access Network (LoRaWAN) technology, more frequently known as “LoRa.” Sapient will be using LoRa (or similar technologies) to expand to three more countries in 2020 because it allows us to remove the need to use customer WiFi networks to connect our devices in a seamless and inexpensive way.
Which living person do you most admire and why?
Genuinely, Sapient’s other co-founder, Martin Koch. Martin is one of the most hard-working and selfless people I have ever known, and I’m thankful to be building something great with him. Beyond his personal character, I try my best to model my own professional character after his. Everything he does, he does with impeccable precision and deep, comprehensive thoughtfulness.
What has the startup experience taught you about life?
A balanced combination of 20% expert input and 80% of my own brute-force calculations is the only way to make decisions if I want to be able to sleep at night. I think taking the time to fully convince yourself of the right decision before you commit is an underrated exercise. Let your mentors point you left, right, up, or down, but beyond that, learn how to navigate your own problems manually instead of relying on opinionated startup cookbooks.
What motto or quote do you live by?
Everyone speaks with authority, but only some have earned it. Practice learning.
Look for more interviews with other finalists in this space between now and the start of SXSW Pitch on Saturday, March 14. The first installment of this series covered Intvo, an AI-software designed to improve traffic safety.
If you are an entrepreneur, check out the SXSW 2020 Startups Track, which runs March 13–17. This track brings together founders and funders and showcases exciting new companies, products, services, and business models across different verticals and industries.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
