A new What if Instead? conversation with professor Evelina Van Mensel joined by, former student of hers and CEO of Enthela, Martin Nedev on how to reach a world-changing alignment.
Guests:
Evelina Van Mensel
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evavanmensel
Martin Nedev, CEO of Enthela
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/enthela
Hosts:
Alejandro Juárez Crawford
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/alejandro-juarez-crawford
Miriam Plavin-Masterman
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/miriam-plavin-masterman
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Episode Introduction
In this episode of What If Instead?, Professor Evelina Van Mensel is joined by her former student Martin Nedev, now CEO of Enthela. What kind of collaboration, they ask, enables people to create solutions that address pressing problems around them? When asked about Enthela’s award-winning endeavor to keep more nitrogen in the soil using bacteria, Nedev argues that he’s doing this now only because of a window Van Mensel helped open for him. The two explain how this window opened up possibilities not only for him, but also for innovators around the world taking on the toughest problems human beings face. Strikingly, they focus less on their own endeavors than on what it takes to open that window for more of us. What starts as an inquiry into how to collaborate with people from other professional backgrounds, quickly opens up into a vital conversation relevant to people anywhere who want to tackle the crises around them.
Tune in to discover how intentional collaboration can lead to unexpected yet transformative outcomes, and shift
who
gets to shape the future.
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Resources
Effectuation: https://effectuation.org/
Melodies for Palestine - RebelBase: https://app.rebelbase.co/project/3614
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For more podcast stories from What If Instead? Podcast with Alejandro Juárez Crawford and Miriam Plavin-Masterman, visit: https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/alejandro-juarez-crawford and https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/miriam-plavin-masterman
Mentorship & Collaboration: The Alignment That Changes The World | A Conversation with Evelina Van Mensel and Martin Nedev | What If Instead? Podcast with Alejandro Juárez Crawford and Miriam Plavin-Masterman
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (00:00)
Sometimes when you read an article about collaboration, whether it's an article in the education press or the business press, when you read an article about people collaborating, it often has this feeling that they all subscribe to the same ideas and you almost imagine them making the same jokes and being from the same place. But Evelina, I shared a moment with you and people in
I don't know how many 15 countries, 20 yesterday. That made me think very differently about what alignment is in a collaboration. Because when we collaborate with folks who have distinct training, they've learned to use their brains in a very different way. They're from a distinct place. Their jokes have different references.
Then there can be sometimes an even more powerful flow with these very different people. Have you been thinking about that, too? It was that moment yesterday that really got me on this.
Eve Van Mensel (00:53)
You mean the moment where everyone was speechless and no one could even leave the room after the meeting was over? Is that the moment you referred to?
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (01:00)
Yeah, which sounds like a funny example, right? Because what kind
of a collaboration is that? But these are folks who had worked together for 12 plus weeks. They had worked across countries and disciplines to develop these experiments and solutions. And then when we had signed off, we played an outro, for goodness sake. It's like closing music. We thanked everybody. It was so clearly the end. No one left.
Eve Van Mensel (01:22)
Exactly.
Yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (01:28)
Had we all been in a room together, maybe someone would have suggested drinking some tea or something else. But what was happening there? I've never seen that in the thousands of video conferences I've been on since COVID-19.
Eve Van Mensel (01:32)
now.
In fact, people can wait for the Zoom meeting to be over so they can sign off and be gone and be done with it.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (01:46)
Yeah, exactly.
you're you're sitting there just chomping at the bit, aren't you?
Eve Van Mensel (01:50)
Exactly. You can't wait. You're counting the minutes. But here, I think what makes it different is the higher purpose of this group. Bringing it together, in this case, every Monday. And you're looking forward to meeting these people that you know, they are so different from very different backgrounds. Very different than you. And some of them, as you said, different training, different reasons to be there. But in the end, the higher purpose, this goal that we're all together.
working towards. It makes all the challenges worthwhile. And in fact, you don't even feel them that much anymore. It's really magic. It's all electricity and cables, but only Bulgarian listeners know what that means.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (02:17)
Mmm.
It's all electricity and cable at that point.
But this is an amazing right because for me a electricity and cable sounds you know a bit old tech right but even more that expression doesn't really register and yet I've learned from you that that means what
Eve Van Mensel (02:44)
It means that it's all good. It's all perfect.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (02:47)
Yeah, it's like copacetic. It's flowing. It's right. So I'm sure every culture has experiences for this. And in Toisan, there's this idea of smooth to the hand, right? In if you really love someone's food in Turkish, you might say health to your hand. These are just random expressions for it's just right. It's flowing. But what I want to ask is you talked about this shared higher purpose and
Martin, you as an entrepreneur, I'm curious. I know you were telling me about meeting with a group of entrepreneurs and a group of scientists. And to me, those are just different kinds of animals often, right? So what allows that sense of shared purpose to happen?
Martin Nedev (03:27)
from my perspective as I mentioned, like having to work with different people with different mindsets, I believe that the thing which kind of combines them all into this flow of getting them in the same direction is the vision. And I believe that having the common vision between those groups of people can kind of unify them.
completely agree with the electricity and cables thing, which was mentioned, the bogey phrase. It's really sometimes like that. gets into the, when we get into the
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (03:57)
you've got me thinking about what gets everybody aligned, right? And we have that classic image of everyone paddling together or rowing together. folks are different and Evelina, in your example, they're from all different cultures and they're in different stages in their education. In your example, Martin, they're they're scientists and entrepreneurs, right? So so what gets that shared purpose to happen? We know organizations are always trying to make it happen and often struggling in your
What has enabled that to flow, especially when it's a surprise?
Eve Van Mensel (04:28)
in my case, I think it is the drive and the willingness to help, to be of use, to change the surroundings or at least empower those who are able to change them, to inspire. I think it's this mission that brings us together and binds us. And it hasn't been only at the last day that it happened. It's since the first day we get to know each other and we know we're there.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (04:40)
Mm-hmm.
Eve Van Mensel (04:52)
as a community of practice. So it's this shared goal of helping others, of making their world better.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (04:54)
Mm-hmm.
Eveline, you ever been in
sorry to jump in, have you ever been in an organization where people talked about that and they were like, here's our shared mission. And everyone was like, didn't really believe it.
Eve Van Mensel (05:05)
No man, constantly.
Constantly. As maybe you probably know, I'm wearing a few hats. So I've been able for the many things that I've done in my life to see whether there's this alignment that we talk about. And all my life I had this dream, okay, I would like to have this moment in time. Work with the people that would make me feel like, if you've seen this movie, when the enigma code was broken.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (05:19)
Mm-hmm.
Eve Van Mensel (05:29)
And then swear this has been my dream regarding work. It was really regarding work. I hope I end up working something that gets me with people that together we get to this moment. And physically I know the scene in my memory and physically I wanted to feel this.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (05:30)
Great
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (05:41)
huh.
Right, let's paint
that scene for people. They're all, working to break the code. They're working really long hours. They don't know how to solve the problem. So most of the things we think we want, right? Not to be working too hard to be with people that, well, we kind of know what to do when we do it. Actually, there's something distinct. Is that what you're referring to when you mentioned Enigma?
Eve Van Mensel (06:05)
Exactly,
exactly. After all the struggles and after all the team problems, as you mentioned, so different, fists being exchanged and everything, luckily not in our then in the end, it's totally worth it. You forget the struggles.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (06:16)
And so.
hoping we can dive into where you have found that and where you haven't. And if you'd actually tell the story a bit and see if we can get at the difference. then Martin, for you as an entrepreneur developing solutions, working with interdisciplinary groups, I'm hoping we can ask the same question.
as we open up and get into this episode of What If Instead?
Mim Plavin-Masterman (06:41)
So for our listeners, have the distinct pleasure of being joined by two wonderful guests coming to us live from Bulgaria. I can't say that every day. And I'll start with Evelina. All electricity and cables, they're all working as designed. So Evelina van Menzel, as she alluded to, she wears many hats. Among her hats, she teaches the American University in Bulgaria. She teaches in the Open Society University Network.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (06:51)
So all the electricity and cable.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (07:06)
program and has done that as well. She's done work in marketing. She's done work in social entrepreneurship, in experiential and project-based learning. She's run projects for Fortune 500 clients across the world. mean, she's got extensive experience training hundreds of employees in how to do this work. So she's got a lot of street cred, as we might say in the States, for what's working and what's not working and getting folks to work well together. But she's joined today by a really interesting
guest who's a former student of hers named Martin Nadev. And Martin is actually the co-founder of a startup in Bulgaria that's actually working in sustainable agriculture. And so I spent a fair amount of time trying to make sure I said this exactly right. And I hope I got it right. That basically it's a, it's a company that makes microbial bacteria that helps keep more nitrogen in the soil. My hope. good. Okay.
Eve Van Mensel (07:57)
That's brilliant! I mean...
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (07:57)
Wait, Mem, are you not a scientist? Is this happening?
Mim Plavin-Masterman (07:59)
I am not a scientist. I'm not
a scientist. I was very stressed and reading this over. had to read it like five times. I'm like, okay, think that's what they're saying.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (08:07)
Yeah, but there's lots of street cred in that,
right? I mean, it's kind of soils, cred, and I'm getting corny here, but go ahead.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (08:14)
Right.
Right.
So one quick shout out before we get into this conversation is for those of you who are really interested in sustainable agriculture, we do have a two part episode that aired a few months back with Hunter and Trevor. So I encourage folks, if they like this and what we're talking about, to go back and check that out because they're talking about some of the same topics in ways that intersect kind of in a cool way. So my little plug for other episodes. Okay. So thank you guys for joining us today.
Eve Van Mensel (08:44)
Thank you very much for having us.
Martin Nedev (08:45)
Pleasure. Pleasure. Thank you.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (08:47)
We got so much street cred on this episode. Watch out. So I'm Alejandro Juarez Crawford and you've just heard from my brilliant co-host Mim Plavin-Masterman. And we're on a mission here to make creating experiments of your own, such as the ones that Evelina and Martin have already referred to and we'll tell you more about as normal as watching videos on your phone. Welcome to What If Instead, the podcast.
I wanted to actually open up in this idea. It's one of those things. Everyone, when you see it, you get it, right? That sense you're talking about of alignment and flow between folks who are really different. But I wanted to ask each of you to talk a little bit about some of these examples that you referred to and, specifically starting with you, Evelina, when you folks have been
acting as if there's a shared mission and shared purpose and it's just not there. It's not, it doesn't go in, it go deep versus when it emerges off into one surprise. Can you tell some stories that paint that contrast for us?
Eve Van Mensel (09:54)
Definitely because I've had both experiences and I think what made the difference I've thought about it many times because we We are essentially leaders in our everyday life Not only in our at our jobs, but every day we need to be leaders in separate situations So I'm thinking I was thinking to myself does this experience really go back to the leader of the experience? Is it so important because shared mission is one thing?
really drills down to. But since I've had other experiences working with people on shared mission and it not always led to the same effect, so I got to thinking, okay, but this also needs a glue. It also needs a certain type of leadership to make this happen. And it needs to have the fun element. I think we in life, as we get adults and we deal with serious problems and issues, we forget to have fun.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (10:35)
Hmm
Mmm.
Eve Van Mensel (10:42)
And I think this inhibits us from our true potential. think one thing that sets this.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (10:45)
So wait, we can't just be doing chores. We can't just be working
and sweating into this shared mission. We have to be sort of playing our way through it. Is that where you're going? Help us out.
Eve Van Mensel (10:54)
I feel like judging by myself, for me this really holds true. Judging by the other co-instructors, as we call them in the global group, I see that for them it's the same. It's getting out of your everyday chores, everyday life and being able to dream a little bit. So open your eyes and transcend those boundaries that you have set around you, your everyday surroundings, your everyday chores in life, and start thinking about other people's expressions for electricity and cables. For example,
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (11:15)
Mm-hmm.
Eve Van Mensel (11:19)
something different. Put yourself in someone's brain. Let them take you somewhere that you've never been and think in a more abstract way as opposed to your everyday, very practical type of thinking and doing. been...
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (11:32)
I want to
fixate on this phrase you use, let them take you somewhere that you've never been. Because it implies discovery. It implies exploration and expedition. And there I've talked in this on this podcast before about the fact that all of us as children.
we are often in an explorer state as psychologists call it and that we learn as grownups to really live in an exploit state where we know how to do it, we can do it efficiently, we get to the goal. And what I'm hearing from you is that the exploration is key, but what I want to ask you and then Martin, I want to hear your experience with this is.
What allows us, as we're discovering how someone else thinks, to still get the work done? Give us a little bit of more detail on the example you're giving, because it's an example filled with logistics and coordination and deliverables and work. How is it that this exploration is able to be together with all that needs to get done?
Eve Van Mensel (12:26)
think in my opinion, we got it all wrong. We think if we get all the skills and the training necessary, and that's the most important thing, and then the experience and all the hard work, the harder we work, the better it's gonna come out. And then the least time for some team bonding, for getting to know each other beyond what we all do in our everyday lives, what really matters for us. So I think if we try to spend more time on the ladder, really to get to know each other and what's important for each other.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (12:41)
Hmm
Eve Van Mensel (12:54)
then we would be inclined in a very short amount of time to get everything needed and the resource we need to get the job done together as opposed to vice versa how we normally do it.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (13:03)
Mmm mmm so
Huh, so there can be an efficiency, paradoxically, get it to doing this play that then aligns us to much more naturally get somewhere. And maybe it's not even the place we thought we would get, right? Because of what we discovered through that, that is it's a lot more direct route to what we really want. That's very fascinating. I hope we pick up on that in a few minutes. I wanted to just turn to Martin before we do and
Eve Van Mensel (13:27)
Exactly.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (13:33)
ask you not first about Anthella and your experience right now as an entrepreneur working with scientists on soil, but first you were a participant in the experience Avelina is talking about. And can you give us some color because listeners may know that it sounds kind of cool, but not know what Professor Avelina is referring to.
you as a participant in it, I'm so curious, did it seem the way Evelina is describing it? Was there a sense of discovery for you? How does that relate to your experience now as someone actively in your professional life, working to innovate and to ask what if instead things worked differently in
Martin Nedev (14:16)
Getting a couple steps back from your question before we started the introduction, I would like to kind of present my case in terms of evolutionary point of view. If you look at the perspective for human evolution, people have been getting together to change the world for like the past decades or whatever, thousands of years and
I think that the most important motivation for why different groups of people are getting together in the same direction is because of changing the world, like having the mission, having the vision,
Of course, I completely agree with Eva that one of the most important factors for gluing the group, sticking the group is the leadership. And I also like want to share a personal example of mine. Most of our team is like kind of remote. Everybody's working from home. Everybody's doing his thing. And I'm seeing that now this specific week, we are kind of together in the office right now.
and it's like we're having fun, we're kind of getting to know each other, we're having team dinners and I see that this is currently affecting us really positively, like getting to know each other, spending some time together, having fun, while believing in the mission, the vision, like while changing the world. So I completely agree with what Evo is saying about like the, on the topic of how can we glue these groups of people.
from the perspective as a student who came from that way, would say that being a student entrepreneur and being like entrepreneur in the real world, it's really different, but in all cases, there are a lot of common ground.
example, the teamwork, like getting different people into a team, which we did in one of the courses of the social entrepreneurship class in AUBG. It's basically the same principle as getting different scientists into my current team. from this perspective, it's really important. I will personally say from my experience with the course, it was really important to have a
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (16:02)
Hmm.
Martin Nedev (16:11)
like a common goal, which was obviously get the great, get the job done and then have the kind of distinctive responsibilities for everybody.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (16:22)
So I wanted to pick up on something that Martin had said and something that Eva had said. So, and I'm hearing you guys talk about this. What I'm hearing are that there are certain behaviors that people have to demonstrate that make the groups work better. There are certain sort of structural things about the groups that make them work better. And then there's sort of individual traits that make the groups more or less successful. So I think of them in those three buckets. And when I hear about this, I'm hearing the mission, like knowing what we're doing, knowing why we're here.
really important. But then I also think there are behaviors that people have to do. Like you don't want someone on your group who won't do their work. You want folks who show up and take it seriously, who turn their work in on time and it's quality, right? You don't want to be redoing somebody's work all the time. But then I also heard from Eveline in particular, this idea of what I would call sort of psychological safety, like the ability to be playful, to let your guard down, to do that thing. There's something happening in the group that kind of creates that space.
for people to feel comfortable making the silly joke or doing something and knowing that they won't be sort of embarrassed or something if they take a risk and it doesn't work. But then I'm also hearing through this last piece from both of them, both Martin and Evelina about this idea of relationship building, letting someone take you somewhere that you weren't planning to go. So not just being all about the work.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (17:34)
Hmm.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (17:35)
because there's a lot of evidence in group research that you need this relationship building behavior to make the group really work. People who care, like, I want to hear about the cables and the electricity or whatever the expression is versus people who are just like, no, I just want to get my work done. Like you would think those are the best performing teams, the ones who just want to get the work done, but that's not what research says. It says it's all this other stuff that Martin's talking about, the team dinners, the relationships, the li...
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (17:51)
Mmm.
Mm.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (18:02)
safety of like being yourself that kind of pushes the team into that new space.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (18:07)
It's all electricity and cable.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (18:08)
It's
all electricity and cable.
Eve Van Mensel (18:09)
Exactly. Very,
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (18:10)
Bye bye.
Eve Van Mensel (18:11)
exactly, very scientifically put. Perfect frame, perfect frame to what we were saying.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (18:14)
Yes, yes.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (18:14)
It says it all. It's
become one of my favorite expressions.
I do want to give listeners just a bit of
Martin is an entrepreneur who took a course that Evelina taught. Can y'all give us a little more just scene setting so we know first of all Martin in the introduction that Mim gave we found out what you're doing but give us a little more on what it is that you're exploring and experimenting on now and similarly that course you talked about
So you went to the university and read a textbook about entrepreneurship or what? Give our listeners some context for both if you don't.
Martin Nedev (18:53)
Yep, absolutely. So when I was in my third year in university, I took, I believe it was just simple entrepreneurship, right? It's not that entrepreneurship is simple, but this was the course, right? Yeah. Yeah. I took entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship and those were the classes which really stood out from the business sector in the university. So this is why I decided to do them.
Eve Van Mensel (19:02)
Simple. This was a simple one,
Martin Nedev (19:18)
And I already had some initial interest in entrepreneurship from before that. anyway, yeah, both courses are kind of project oriented, which means that for the three months semester, which was back then, you were supposed to form a team, you were supposed to generate an idea, which is solving a real life world problem, and then kind of create a business around it.
So the whole thing was creating the business from zero to one and then presenting it on the final demo day of the project. So this was the whole course and it was the development of the final presentation, the business building part was through different kind of different courses, I would say small courses within the whole program about like the different types of
different parts of the business building journey. example, identifying the problem, identifying your customers, identifying your target persona and whatever, like going through every part of the business building venture journey to presenting it and potentially going through with it. So these were both... Yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (20:19)
Mmm.
Martin, just one question before I don't lose your
next thought, but just for context. So were you an undergraduate when you were doing that in a business school or doing a master's program? And was it just students in Bulgaria or beyond?
Martin Nedev (20:40)
Yeah, I was an undergraduate. was doing my bachelor's degree in the university which I was then. I believe that both of the courses were with international presence, which meant that at some point of the week, we had two meetings. The first meeting was with like the global room where we had participation from like more than like
I don't remember the number of the countries currently, but it was really a lot of international students who were kind of creating the same project as you, but let's say in Asia or in the States or whatever. So it was really an interesting perspective to see different types of people and how they develop their different projects in terms of the problems they're solving, which are culture relevant, regional relevant and whatever.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (21:23)
Wait, let's not just skip
over that piece. That's very interesting. So you're sitting in Sofia, working with people who might know something about problems you don't know about. We've been talking this whole time about our culture and the metaphors we use unconsciously or the expressions we use that might have context. But it sounds like you're also bringing up this question of inventing ways things could work differently, which depend on people being closer to having their hands now metaphorically.
Martin Nedev (21:32)
Yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (21:50)
in the soil of other kinds of problems. Am I hearing you right?
Martin Nedev (21:54)
Yeah, absolutely. It was a really interesting experience because you were able to experience somebody else's problem who is really far away physically, but at the same time really close to you in terms of communication and in terms of like knowledge. And we were able to see what are the problems from everywhere around the world, which is really interesting for me. It was really like, how should I say, cultural and reaching for
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (22:13)
Mm.
Martin Nedev (22:17)
not just me, but all of the teams which were part of my class. I think that this is a great opportunity for you to kind of like open your consciousness about different types of problems, about different types of issues which are going on around the world, which I don't think you can do if you're not directly communicating with these people, because these are the people who are experiencing those problems from firsthand, right?
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (22:17)
Mm.
Mm.
hear how that then infuses your work as an entrepreneur, trying to solve very specific problems, but also do you have a critique of what you've encountered in terms of traditional approaches to innovation and entrepreneurship that don't always go? The data shows that most of the time we select for and invest in a very narrow swath of people.
most of them in just a couple of countries, most of the time, a very narrow segment within those countries. Can you talk about your experience as an entrepreneur and then add any critique you might have of that?
Martin Nedev (23:12)
I think that in entrepreneurship you definitely have to be able to see different point of views and I think that having the reach to communicate with different type of people can give you these views so you can deliver different solutions. In this point I really believe that
our startup ecosystem in Europe, maybe in the States is the same, needs a little more diversity in terms of supporting people from different type groups, they can work on their solution. And I think that there's
a of people who don't get the chance to work on what they really want to work on just because they're in a certain group of people without reach to let's say funding, without reach to mentorship knowledge. So I think that we should be definitely looking in a direction to allow these people to support them.
in their journey in working for these problems, especially because I saw a lot of the problems which my colleagues from the courses were kind of solutions for and they were really important. I can give a couple of examples of really important problems which need to be solved, but at the current ecosystem status, I don't think they will be given the opportunity to.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (24:24)
Can you give those examples?
Martin Nedev (24:26)
Yeah, I think that Professor Romero can correct me here if I'm wrong, but I think one of companies which won the competition in the social entrepreneurship course, the Disrupt to Sustain, was a startup which was creating something which was connected with like a music platform for people who were suffering the war in
I really believe it's something which really had the impact to make those people feel better in terms of their suffering. And I think that the solution which they were delivering was really the melodies for Palestine. Exactly. This was really inspiring in terms of
Eve Van Mensel (25:01)
for Palestine.
Martin Nedev (25:07)
the story, how they come up with a solution for a specific problem. And it was something really interesting and amazing from my point of view. But I'm not really sure that there are a lot of investors who are invested in those type of regions. I'm not really sure what is the status over there. of the examples.
Eve Van Mensel (25:24)
there is a lack of funding for social entrepreneurs, for example. And in fact, if students want to continue working on their projects after class, after the course is over, this is very challenging for them. And then you can imagine that you have the drive to do it in some months, couple of years, but then at the end, if there's no support, or if there's a bustling ecosystem, but that only supports high tech companies or
Martin Nedev (25:28)
or definitely
Yeah.
Eve Van Mensel (25:48)
then
you get left out. That's what happens. You show up at a few competitions because Martin is of course very, he's not sharing all the prizes that they won since the one year that they graduated. So like they have been on all possible events where they could pitch for prizes, for funding. So they won many first winner awards. But then of course, this is a very...
Martin Nedev (25:50)
Yeah.
Eve Van Mensel (26:11)
thorny journey into trying to hanging out there. And especially those innovations that we talk about that are going to change the world. They take time, they take a lot of money, they are huge risk. But if we don't embark on this journey, then we also never stand a chance.
Martin Nedev (26:21)
Yep.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (26:26)
to note, and I know Mim has a question that we want to get into next, that Melodies for Palestine was a project, I think initially conceived by Christina Nastas. And she worked with a team that include Allah Abuhilal, Kais Shafar, and Shadi Hamid in the course with you, Martin, to create this concept.
We can, for those who want to look more into their vision for using music for suffers from war to just help folks who are going through that incomprehensibly horrifying experience, you can go look it up. You can just search melodies for Palestine on Rebel Base, or we can post a link.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (27:05)
So when I was doing the preparation for this, saw that Anthela was selected among a bunch of other startups by Agriventures and they're working with startups from Hungary and Austria as well. So can you talk a little bit about that program and kind of maybe a little compare and contrast of like, yes, you're in a different stage than you were in when you were working with Professor Evelina, but
how do we think about the sort of collaborating with and learning from others, especially in this case where they're all in this agroventure space?
Martin Nedev (27:34)
I just want to contribute a little on the last point because I really see a huge problem with the difference between that. Like the world currently needs innovation to solve the problems which obviously need sustainable solutions. But on the other side, nobody wants to invest in something which is high risk, high reward. So this is a great problem, which me and Eva have been talking about like for the last couple of months because everybody wants.
sustainable solutions until it's time to invest in those type of solutions. And I think that we should kind of change the narrative into, maybe it's okay to invest a little bit more time and more funds into something which can create a more meaningful solution, just like a simple note. So I think you were asking about the Wave Accelerator, So the Wave Accelerator, it's...
It's a really different program from what I've seen so far and I've been through a lot. It's an impact driven startup accelerator. And I can tell you that the competition is fierce. There's a lot of interesting ideas. All of them are connected to sustainability in some kind of way. all of the startups have really huge problems. What I'm going to say from my perspective is that
The content over there, the workshops, the mentors, everybody is in some way involved with sustainability and green startups. And all of them share my vision and I believe Eva's vision on working towards sustainable solutions. Of course, they're like huge professionals. They have a lot of knowledge to share. But I would say it's really different from what I've seen so far, because I've been through a lot of startup competitions, a lot of accelerators and
I think that there's going to be a lot more programs like WAVE, such as WAVE, which are going to be emerging in the next couple of years, obviously this is the future, sustainable solutions for agriculture, for clean energy, for whatever.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (29:22)
So your point about the timeframe and the mindset of the funding space, I think is really important. And I think that you're bringing up a I guess I would say a really interesting contradiction or paradox in the sustainability innovation space, which is people want to invest in a solution that is sustainable, yet they want a quick payback. They want a lot of money. They want it to work really quickly and work the same way everywhere.
and it feels like those things are kind of in conflict.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (29:52)
And it also relates back to what you said, Martin, 10 minutes ago about needing to go to people who understand problems that may not be the problem of the day. There's a lot of evidence that when larger investors get interested in a company, they pull it out of its local soil and they bring it to Silicon Valley, for example. And they say, if you bring it here, you'll get several million dollars to develop this.
and you're the entrepreneur, what are you going to do? Turn down several million, but you lose touch with the local version of the problem, right? And you lose all the jobs that were being created locally.
you talk about an ecosystem, Martin. There's all this interaction and development that builds this rich local ecosystem that when you're pulling the solution, the entrepreneurs out.
can't happen. as we're looking at these skewed dynamics, I just wanted us to think about that big picture. We often talk about investors as if investors think a certain way. They do it this way. But actually, there are paradigms that lead investors to pursue certain models. And there are concentrations of capital that aren't the only way. Most of the capital in the global economy, and I'm going get off my soapbox now, but most of the capital out there
is latent. It's not being invested in new ideas at all. So what could we do differently is a question for all three of you.
Eve Van Mensel (31:12)
I'm not sitting on that whole lot of capital to be able to answer that question. I mean, it's just because I'm so prone to giving that I don't think for me financially, that's not the I'm investing a lot of my time and efforts to be able to
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (31:17)
Evelina, why aren't you investing your billions
But that is capital.
Eve Van Mensel (31:32)
That
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (31:32)
That is capital.
Eve Van Mensel (31:33)
is my capital and a lot of my energy and enthusiasm and ability to inspire so that at least one student out of the classroom will be like Martin and go out of there and change the world. Or at least one student be like him when every time I walk out, I would see him sticking out because Martin, you don't see it, but he's quite tall. He's like twice as tall as I am. So I would see him sticking out wherever he would be on campus and he would be on the phone.
typing, calling people, and I he's very active. And I've had many students, but he is quite an exception.
for me it became important, to find a way to connect it to the people who need it. So like Martin. And not all of them would be taking advantage of it, but it's about activating contacts that I would never do it for myself, for example. So it's funny. You as a person,
You all of a sudden, and there's a term for academic entrepreneurs, you know we have this course about social entrepreneurs who change big organizations. There are also academic entrepreneurs who are trying to change the way how academia works from the inside.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (32:38)
And you're spelling it with an I instead of an E, right? Like an intrapreneur in the sense of an internal entrepreneur.
Eve Van Mensel (32:42)
like an intra, like an internal
one. So not someone who's engaged in technology transfer and all those fancy patents and intellectual property, but in fact, someone like me who would be pushing the boundaries within the academia, but to be able to build this ecosystem for people like Martin and other students who have taken those courses that we're discussing, who don't immediately have the means to do so.
So we can never underestimate the power of the network and how disadvantaged are those who don't have mean, even today, I was mind blown by the fact that one of the co-instructors in South Africa had to pay for access in an internet cafe for his cohort of aspiring entrepreneurs to be able to join our course. Of course, through their mobile phones. For me, this is mind blowing.
I mean, hats off. And this is what we should be doing around the
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (33:29)
Yeah, he's been a guest on this.
to note that has been a guest on this podcast to whom Eva is referring, and he actually has raised money to make those things possible on an expanding basis in South Africa. Martin, if you want to reflect on anything that Eva has been saying and then.
I know, Mim, you have another question on deck, as we say in the U.S. baseball-driven idiom.
Martin Nedev (33:55)
I want to tell you a quick story which has been stuck with my mind since it happened. When we were having the Entrepreneurship Course, my first Entrepreneurship Course in AOBG, we were doing a collaboration with a cinematography course, I believe it And the whole idea was that people from the cinematography course were supposed to create short films, short movies of the entrepreneurship journey.
And after the course ended, entrepreneurship course ended, we had like a small screening of the movies, like presentation of the movies and kind of presenting the work which the other co-students have done. I showed up there. I was like kind of eager to see what's going on over there.
after like the whole screening was over. was I think I was the only present student, right? Yeah, I think this was the case. And there was some like people from the administration. It was like a small theater. You can imagine it with the red seats and stuff. And we're like 10 people. And people from administration are kind of like getting their feedback on the movies and stuff. And then Professor Van Meso is kind of
Eve Van Mensel (34:47)
Exactly.
Martin Nedev (35:02)
going to the site and asking me what do you think about the movies? what do you want to like say as a feedback? But before that, the interesting thing was that she said, I just want to present you with a student of mine who's going to be really successful and I believe in everything he does and stuff. And I think that the most important thing which Eva has done for me and for the teams I've been working in is believing. Because there's a lot of people who are not believing.
who can easily not believe in what you do when you're kind of trying to change the world, but there's not a lot of people who are actually believing and sincerely and honestly believing and supporting you through the journey. I'm not even mentioning the fact that whenever I need some kind of a contact or some kind of a networking stuff, I'm still calling her and I'm like, hi, can you please give me the number of whoever and she's still there, you know, this is helping. And
Yeah, this is on like personal level. And on the other side, there is Eva who is working on the ecosystem as general working on kind of implementing some more practicality in academia entrepreneurship, which is really important for me. And I believe that this was something really important, even at the course back when I took it, the practicality of the course kind
advising us to go out in the real world, be like, okay, this is not just a course, go do it for real and you can learn a lot. And I think this is the most important thing which the whole course is kind of giving students and by the whole course, I mean, behind the courses, obviously Eva. So I think it's like on one side, personally, Eva has done a lot for me and on the other side, Eva is currently doing a lot for the ecosystem and for the development of the whole entrepreneurship thinking
Mim Plavin-Masterman (36:41)
So that actually sets up my question pretty well. when I was talking about this network and this idea that not everybody has a network and that basically she's trying to build the network for you and show you how to build it. So when we think about these networks, I just want to make one quick connection back to what we said and then I'll ask my question. For a lot of the innovation ecosystem, you need to be in the network to get in front of the funders. Like they need to know who you are in order
to feel comfortable hearing your pitch and funding you. And so when we think about network building, I guess the question is really for both Eva and Martin, how are you thinking about connecting to that funding ecosystem space because you need to get these people kind of in that network for the funders to give them a shot? Or are you creating a whole separate space that's sort of funding and capital and availability?
Eve Van Mensel (37:32)
It's so easy when you're in academia because they're, it's so easy because they're so eager to come to class, for example. And for a fact, we have in Bulgaria more capital available than their ideas. So I've had cases where they come to class and they want to pick out students to work on something. so we have been heavily doing this. I have to be honest. And even after Martin was done with the course and I would have an investor in class, I would like
Mim Plavin-Masterman (37:34)
Hahaha!
Eve Van Mensel (37:57)
call him and say, hey, this guy is coming. Would you like to come to class because he will be there and you can talk to him. So we've been doing some of these tricks. So I think it's important. then some research even shows that for social entrepreneurs specifically, if they show a powerful cooperation with an institution that's credible, like a university, then they get more chance to get funded. So it's for some.
For some academic institutions, but even other organizations, sometimes it's just as easy as showing legitimacy to a certain team or a certain idea just to signal to investors that this team is worth it. It's really so many little things we can do.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (38:33)
Evelina, I'm fascinated to ask you about ways in which you have multiplied what you do. It's very powerful what Martin says about what you do. But I know that you have mentored other instructors doing this in other parts of the world repeatedly. Can you talk to us about how you work with them? What gets transferred? What gets learned? Can you talk to us about
Are there methodologies that are more replicable, which is not to take away from the brilliance of Evelina Fundamental. But if we wanted to do what Martin talked about that you do for a million Martins around the world, Martin, I know there's only one, right? But for other people who might not be as tall, no, I'm just kidding, who are solving their own problems, much as you said, Martin.
Eve Van Mensel (39:12)
Yes, of course.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (39:21)
Right, you're solving a specific problem, but there are so many problems that could be solved. What would you do, Avelino? Or what are you doing? Or what can be done?
Eve Van Mensel (39:29)
It
goes back to my Enigma moment with that international team on that global digital platform that we use. So all of a sudden, instead of just having a class of 10 students, 15 students, you get a class of more than 100. And ideally, this becomes available to everyone in the world and doesn't have to be necessarily a student in a business school, in fact. someone who has to be
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (39:52)
who else could it be? Go on.
Eve Van Mensel (39:56)
get funding to get internet in an internet cafe, well, that person most definitely needs to have access to these tools that Martin had access to so that the next time they think of an idea, do it without trial and error. open, they have access to the platform and they look at it and they say, step number one, have to first do my marketing research right now to get out of the building a bit, speak to some people and see if there's market for this idea.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (39:59)
Mm-hmm
Mm-hmm
Eve Van Mensel (40:21)
all the way to follow the steps. So I was able to have a class of 100 students. And I want to have a class of everyone that we can make this available for, co-instructors included.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (40:22)
Yeah.
Yeah.
And
what would it, I wanna ask two questions. What would it take to replicate what you're doing with a hundred? And I hear part of it is this system of cohorts where you're also working with the BNLson program and those entrepreneurs who this year made the top five projects just the way in the same sort of competitive forum Martin talked about. But I'm also fascinated with
your point that it can be distinct types of organizations. I know that there's been this experiment you've been a part of to bring Bangla-speaking plastics recycling entrepreneurs in Cox's Bazaar, this incredibly long beach, sometimes said to be the longest sea beach in the world, which is covered with plastic and to bring them together with EMBAs.
in Dhaka, in the city, it's a different city from Caspzar in Bangladesh, and what happens when, and others around the world, we heard so powerfully from someone from Caspzar saying, hey, we're working together to solve these problems. So it's maybe more complex than just where we started, which is people need to build their own solutions. It sounds like there are interactions here. Is this what we mean by the ecosystem?
Eve Van Mensel (41:38)
There are so many interactions across geographies and when we talk to access to mentorship, well, this can be an access to mentorship from across the world now that Martin has. He doesn't have only me now, but he has all the rest of this global team that he can go to.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (41:55)
So an ecosystem doesn't just have to be in Sofia, Bulgaria. It's possible for an ecosystem to be sort of digitally coherent. Now, folks listening to this may be thinking, yeah, but wait a minute, right? Digital interactions are so limited. You don't have the elements that we started with. You can't just stop and have some tea with someone after a session, right? That's why we were so struck with that opening moment.
Eve Van Mensel (42:17)
Well, no.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (42:21)
What makes that possible when we've used the digital space so effectively for consuming and trolling and all these other things? Can you break that down for us in your experience doing this over the last four to five years?
Eve Van Mensel (42:33)
Well, if that's true what you're saying, how is it possible that the best friends I've met in this life are part of this global group that I never met before in person? it is quite possible to have this emotional connection and even our own ecosystem that we build around this course, even as the fact is true that we never met each other. And I have another story because...
Some people would say, Martin, he's an entrepreneur at heart. That is how he got into this course. And we spoke with him before. I didn't inspire him to become an entrepreneur. He walked into this course already very entrepreneurially oriented.
I want to give an example of someone I had in class one year ago and took this class now this semester again. So she also had the easy entrepreneurship first, which was very local, on the ground, typical course that we would do. And I will never forget, she was a very nice, timid girl. She was very shy.
She spoke to me a few times about her team because her team was a very top performing team and everyone was really on top of things and their project was always the best. Every deliverable was perfect. And she always felt like she wasn't good enough for the team and she wasn't getting along with the team because they were already formed and they were friends and she was an outsider. So she was this very timid girl. And now this semester she joins the global course. All of a sudden...
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (43:34)
Mm-hmm.
Eve Van Mensel (43:51)
the Stimmed Girls who has fear of presenting. She is now pitching in front of a hundred people when it's her team's time to present their project, right? And I see her, okay, getting better through the course, not immediately because I had meetings with her team. Remember, we're mentoring teams from across geographies. And so this was a team that was working in Bangladesh. So all of a sudden, the student of mine,
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (43:59)
Huh? Huh?
Mm.
Eve Van Mensel (44:14)
joins an international team and she starts working on how to solve the plastic challenge in Bangladesh. And I see her gaining confidence through the course and through our mentorship meetings with the team. And at the end of the course, they get nominated in the top five to pitch for the final prize. And then what happens on pitch day, this team wins the final prize. And I see this girl, the same girl pitching like...
She's been doing this her whole life and she's born natural. I swear to God, this is one of those moments where you're like, my God, this is exactly what I'm doing. This is my enigma moment happening. This right here, right now.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (44:49)
Yeah, how
much of the future is lost, like the way the world could work, because she never had that.
butterfly from caterpillar experience. how often is the world being made up?
by these people with just decrepit ideas, just ideas that make it less responsive to our needs and keep us burning fossil fuels and keep inequality from increasing and all these things that make life worse. They expand what Mem and I call life in cattle class. Right. And what if these other people could create the solutions? I know that's not an easy
I'm so curious in the way the capital, to what extent the capital problem we talked about, the work that Martin, you ascribe to Evelina is actually part of that solution. Because when you're learning to network or when the young woman that you talked about, Evelina, is having that experience with the plastics challenge in Bangladesh, when that person gets into a position where they can make that connection and present their ideas, then I know it's not the same as
You know, I roomed with somebody at Harvard Business School necessarily, but are we starting to close that gap?
Martin Nedev (46:04)
the development of technologies, obviously the digital communication and everything, it is becoming far more accessible to find those gem ideas and to support these people to present their ideas. I personally see how entrepreneurship itself is helping those type of people solve problems or at least try solving problems.
I definitely see some positive impact in the direction, but I think that being more open to seeing different points of view from global perspective, it's the key takeaway here.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (46:38)
And maybe that connects directly to what Ava, you said when you used these words, we'd never met each other about the people to whom you feel closest.
I think that business about we never even met each other relates directly to what you're saying, Martin, about those unexplored opportunities that we could draw from the digital age were we to use it the way you're describing.
Eve Van Mensel (47:02)
turning those inefficiencies into efficiencies, turning those challenges into opportunities, in fact, seeing the silver lining and everything that we get to deal with.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (47:13)
We have time just for a parting shot here. If any of you had something you didn't get a chance to say that you just really want to hit, I'm so appreciative of this conversation and the way you haven't just made me think, but you bring me back to life, right? Like a cartoon character that's been flattened by a piano.
in an old cartoon and they regained their shape. It really brings back where we started with those teams being aligned, but also given that, you've given that to me today.
Eve Van Mensel (47:44)
gave an example of something I forgot to mention about what brings the magic of this collaboration apart from the shared mission, helping others, the leadership which takes you somewhere else but also truly appreciates you and shows you exactly what is being appreciated. So I think for each of us, going back to remembering more what...
motivates us as human beings is really being appreciated for what we do, which is very often being neglected in our everyday lives. Especially the social entrepreneurs burnout is really a thing where you're facing problems and challenges every day and very rarely have a chance to sit back and have someone really appreciate what you're doing. So I think this is extremely
Martin Nedev (48:28)
I just wanted to say like kind of pick up on the last part on whatever said about kind of stop being in a rush sometimes take a look at what you've done so far. I think it's really important for all types of entrepreneurs not just social entrepreneurs to sometimes sit back and kind of take a look at what you've done so far and
be satisfied with it for a moment so you can understand that you're making the change, you're doing everything you can do and at the end of the day this is the most important thing. Just like a closing remark.
Eve Van Mensel (48:57)
be satisfied for a moment. I love this. This is so counterintuitive for us.
Martin Nedev (48:59)
Yeah. Yep.
Yeah. You know...
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (49:06)
Mem, was there one piece
here that blew your mind and sets us thinking in a new direction?
Mim Plavin-Masterman (49:11)
I guess I would say that mentorship and support, sort of that empathy built into the problem solving process is a really powerful tool and that we should be using it as much as we can.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (49:21)
I want to thank both of you, Evelina van Mensel and Martin Nedev for conversation that just got my synapses firing. So thanks to you for that.
Eve Van Mensel (49:32)
Thank you very much for having us. a pleasure.
Martin Nedev (49:34)
Thank you for having us.