Are you looking to build a startup but unsure what steps you need to take to make it happen? Have you started building a startup but are facing challenges in its development? Are you wondering how you could possibly fit building a business around your work or studies? Want to hear from someone who was in your exact position, and is now runs a hugely successful startup that’s saving the planet? Join us as Dr Olivia Ahn, co-founder of Planera, and Imperial alumni, draws on her experience building a startup to give you the info you need to know to develop your idea.
Dr. Olivia Ahn is the CEO and co-founder of Planera. Her indignation at the current femcare industry and a recent eco-convert makes for a good co-founder and a bad dinner guest. Olivia founded Planera as a result of mounting frustration with companies forcing the burden of waste onto us as individuals. She believes that a well-designed product should be intuitively simple to use and dispose of in a sustainable manner. Here, the flushable and biodegradable sanitary pad was born and three years of research and development later, Planera has launched the world’s first and only certified flushable and 100% biodegradable sanitary pad. Planera’s pads have a similar impact to toilet paper and give back the guilt-free choice and freedom to the consumer. Planera will be bringing a range of personal hygiene products to the market from 2021.
Olivia, along with her co -founder Aaron, is an alumni of Imperial College London and started Planera (formally called WithLula) in the penultimate year of her Bachelor of Medicine degree. Olivia won the WE Innovate programme (then the Althea Programme) in 2017 and went on to win the Mayor’s Entrepreneur Competition in 2018. Planera was featured in the latest issue of D/srupt. You can read the teams story here.
This event will be held virtually on Zoom. Meeting details will be sent nearer to the date of talk.
All of the above activities will support your progress towards the Imperial Award.
Agenda:
13:00 – Presentation
13:30 – Q&A