Marisol Guzman – Principal Explorationist at Equinor and a philanthropist

Meet our new gal who is a philanthropist and wants to introduce the human approach to tech.

Marisol Guzman was born in Colombia. She graduated from the National University in Colombia as a Petroleum and Civil Engineer. In 2000 she moved to Canada to pursue studies on physic oceanography and ended up working for Schlumberger as a seismic engineer. She has also worked in various countries as a data analyst for Petroleum Geophysical Services (PGS). In 2006 she graduated from Heriot-Watt University with a master’s in management engineering.

Marisol is a game-changer and altruist, with a passion for emerging technologies and data-driven innovation. Currently, Marisol works at Statoil / Equinor Exploration. She has led the ideation program in renewable energy, participated in the “Young at Equinor campaign” and collaborate at digital academy at Equinor. She has also been an advisor to innovation corporate, ventures and the digital center of excellence.

In 2017, Marisol was main Judge for the Latin America energy Forum and the previous year she founded the Chamber of Commerce Norway- Colombia. In 2018, lead an organization for Social solar microgrids and co-founded H2H Group, a Norwegian-Colombian start-up, real-time data- distributed DLT solutions. Featured in 136 countries as Top 10 Women Game Changers in Emerging Technology, she’s a global Speaker on emerging tech and microgrids.

Marisol’s mission is to inspire the creation of bottom-up human-centric tools into sustainable value chains. She also encourages diversity as a driving force for suitable disruptive innovation both in technology as much as in new business models and finance. And she believes strongly human empathy should be the seed for building a link between technology and a more humanistic future society for the years to come.

In a Nutshell: Tell us a bit about your job and what role technology plays in it?

I am a civil engineer by background. This field is luckily very broad, which fits perfect with my curiosity for nonmonotonous and predictable work when adding data modeling into trying to come out with solutions that create value. My sector has always been energy, so I started with offshore work in seismic looking for oil, then production and optimization of oil field, follow by exploration then a full shift into renewable engineering and digitalization data streams. Once you embrace a mentality of correlation of streams of data to create better automation of process, that is when innovation happens no matter the technology solution you are creating.

Where did your professional journey start and how did you get to where you are now? How did that affect your philanthropist mindset?

My mission, holistically, perpetuated from an early stage in my Life. I was born and raised by a loving and nurturing Family in Colombia, who always supported community and equality above everything else.

From an early age, My Dad would take me along to help him build gadgets and find solutions for water sanitation. His ideas were expansive and encompassing, however there were very little ressources to implement them. Such a childhood developed in me a sense of duty towards impact, respecting everyone’s contribution and the power of co-creation with our own hands.

At the age of 16, I studied petroleum engineering, later diversifying my education in the likes of civil engineering in hydrology and hydropower. To further expand my horizons, I also obtained a Master’s Degree in physics and seismic engineering. While implementing these various streams of education, my main focus was on being able to harvest solid particles from the atmosphere and incorporating them into usable elements for energy .

As the years passed by, my mission gained greater clarity: help with engineering to harvest the micro-resources for our own existence, while simultaneously keeping a balance of coexistence. A real life example of this would be plants and their provision of oxygen for us, in a symbiotic relationship.

Another prime example revolves around electromagnetic energy and the resonance of pressure waves within. The natural frequency of these waves can generate communication networks, yet can coexist in a mutually exclusive setting. Essentially, in the grand scheme of things, there is so much power in physics which could be bestowed upon the living in a beneficial manner, as long as that potential is harnessed in the right capacity. In totality, this is a prime example of how nature works perfectly within the confines of small ecosystems.

Unfortunately, by the time I became an engineer, the job market had a predilection for large corporations, so I spent 20 years of my life working for firms which plan and build big energy projects.

It was just 6 years ago, on my beautiful Daughter’s Birthday, I decided to create CO2 Coin, with the intent of crowdfunding our own harvesting of CO2. Another project of mine was a startup in which I utilized a solar transactive grid and distributed cloud computing for free telecommunications to all. However, regardless of my ambitions, I again felt like I was under the control of corporation and the holistic game of goverments, speculative stock markets, and technology not being able to scale without large investments backing the network effect.

I am not a person who follows the main stream, as you’ve probably guessed, so I continued developing these ecosystems, with the sole purpose of them harvesting autonomously in full balance, yet integrating with other ecosystems. This time, with the help of @⁨Marc Jarrett⁩, we founded the “Fabulous Futuristic” group. We are now a constituent of 156 members strong, all of whom are pioneers in engineering and sustainable business models for the future. As legal representatives, a very impressive team of individuals @damarys, @fredrik @ameth in alignment of our mission, We founded MAGWAV8 which is the first community share crowd owned company in the world to act as legal representative of this movement.

Although we are based on technology, our approach is vastly different. We look at the process, the function, not the commodity, not the individual as a sole entity. We use the foundation of technology as a service to the ecosystem itself.

The explanation again, and this is a question back to all in this network: What creates nature, the atoms or the process?

An example of process, in this instance, would be heat, motion, etc.

What if, instead, we utilize technology to harvest the process? We would then be left with an environment in which the ecosystems get the service as well, not only the humans. Unfortunately, the persistent human belief is that technology should serve us. That is something that needs to change, for the betterment of this planet.

This long term vision holds the ideology of helping communities realize they are a process of nature itself and technology is simply a conduit to exchange resources back and forth.

From all the development in technology in the past 100 years, how much of that really went to the 70 percent of people who live in the fields and marginal areas? Little to none.

What happened with the microtechnology constructed with our own hands and those gadgets we learned to build in school, such as producing electrical fields out of saltwater?

Be philanthropist, technologist. Learn how the economy model of the world works, get few wallets of social impact, gain new knowledge 3 hours per day.

Another aspect of this revolves around the economy. How much of the Global GDP has been accounted for the communities who never used a bank account or money to survive? The economy is layered, yet communities continued on the barter of services and products .

Fabulous futurists vision is to generate a balance between the pre-existing fallacies of communal sustainability and the utilization of future technology to bring about an equilibrium, erstwhile facilitating with the Fabulous Futuristics the co-creation of microtechnology in the service of micro-ecosystems, essentially communities with microgrids. From this, we will create new bonds and a trading model based on equilibrium.

All in all, we allow things to happen organically based on the optics. However, once we incorporate the metrics and scale what we’re able to accomplish at an upper echelon level, this is truly just the tip of the iceberg.

What is the greatest transformation in technology you’ve witnessed in your career?

Development of transactive grid and microgrids.   For years, the energy industry have been selling energy as a commodity control by a trading system control by big generators.   Digitalization share economy and microfinancing has spin off business models allowing everyone to get involve in energy trading while benefit from it.  Iot, smart meters connected direct to distributed energy sources for me have been a personal goal which I set back in 2014 when I created c02 coin to crowd found renewable residential solar farms, follow by the first pilot to connected smart meter to a transactive coin through distributed ledger IOTA in Colombia.

When you think about ‘women’ and ‘technology’ what comes to your mind first?

We still bias. Sectorized. There are so many initiatives, as woman in tech, women in investment, women in etc. The only thing we need to do, is to create a cultural shift in which we don’t feel as minority, yet we can mobilize all our forces into the sectors which have not been our niche of operation. Women investment still focuses on beauty and health, what about robotics or machinery. We all need to shift from the niches of the past which stereotyped women work force into other not so stereotyped ones.

We always hear there are not enough women working in Tech. What needs to happen to change that, which steps should be done to achieve gender equality in tech?  

It depends what you consider tech. Not everyone must be a coder or video gamer to be considered in tech. Business models are part of tech, architecture is part of tech, customers value is part of tech. As I said. We just need a cultural shift to the interest of the markets we like. I am letter learning about cars, horse raising, video games.  Ai, block chain, machine learning, will become common knowledge or even plug ins which we can shop from a marketplace like GITHUB.  We need to understand how technology change lives and how the market evolves with such changes.

Which was the best decision in your career?

Having kids, make me younger, motivated me to see the future through their eyes. And become more empathetic to create technology that matters to save them from so many issues, humans have not managed to eradicate, such human traffic, hunger, literacy.  Yet seems some only focus in our phones and making money with data. 

If you could go back in time, what advice would you give your 14-year-old self?

Focus on adding value rather than on creating a value for you.

Be philanthropist, technologist. Learn how the economy model of the world works, get few wallets of social impact, gain new knowledge 3 hours per day, focus on adding value rather than on creating a value for you.  Also speak up. Technology should over all increase the wellbeing of all children in this planet, the rest comes after that.

Marisol Guzman was born in Colombia. She graduated from the National University in Colombia as a Petroleum and Civil Engineer. In 2000 she moved to Canada to pursue studies on physic oceanography and ended up working for Schlumberger as a seismic engineer. She has also worked in various countries as a data analyst for Petroleum Geophysical Services (PGS). In 2006 she graduated from Heriot-Watt University with a master’s in management engineering. Marisol is a game-changer and altruist, with a passion for emerging technologies and data-driven innovation.

Currently, Marisol works at Statoil/Equinor Exploration. She has led the ideation program in renewable energy, participated in the “Young at Equinor campaign” and collaborate at the digital academy at Equinor. She has also been an advisor to innovation corporate, ventures and the digital center of excellence.

In 2017, Marisol was main Judge for the Latin America energy Forum and the previous year she founded the Chamber of Commerce Norway- Colombia. In 2018, lead an organization for Social solar microgrids and co-founded H2H Group, a Norwegian-Colombian start-up, real time data- distributed DLT solutions. Featured in 136 countries as Top 10 Women Game Changers in Emerging Technology. Global Speaker on emerging tech and micro grids.

Marisol’s mission is to inspire the creation of bottom-up human centric tools into sustainable value chains. She also encourages diversity as a driven force for suitable disruptive innovation both in technology as much as in new business models and finance. And she believes strongly human empathy should be the seed for building a link between technology and a more humanistic future society for the years to come.

To inspire a more technology – humanistic movement , she has taken action as CEO in three Movements

1. Emotional DNA into TECH. She purchased the IP of a Movie script character. “JANE” She/he is an AI that comes from the future to capture the lost emotional DNA of this society.

2. Fabulous Futurist- The first crowd source platform open source for disruptive technology. where all technologist philanthropist- students-genius-inventors- co- create a future with focus in the ecosystem and the deployment of tech into the communities.

3. Angels Cities- The creation of global cells communities of 10.000 people where communities have all basis needs.

See more interviews of our amazing Gals.