Bold Dream #1: Patricia Bernasconi, CEO and Co-founder of Kairn ⚡
Welcome to the first part of our Bold Dreams series where we interview exceptional people from all walks of life who have one thing in common: a bold dream and the drive to make it happen. Our goal is to inspire you to think bigger so that no dream is ever out of reach.
My name is Sarah, Content Manager at eFounders, and for this first edition, I’ve interviewed a special guest, Patricia Bernasconi. Patricia is the CEO and co-founder of Kairn: the task manager to rock your days. Kairn’s mission is to empower its users to go from dreaming bold to doing big by allowing them to focus on the tasks that truly matter.
And as you might expect from someone who founded an app aimed at making you achieve amazing things, Patricia has a pretty awesome bold dream:
Tell us about your bold dream…
In fifty years, if all stays the same, the beautiful corals that add color and life to some of the world’s most stunning places will be gone. And they’re incredibly important to our oceans, they’re among the most diverse ecosystems on earth and a huge amount of marine species rely on them for food, shelter, and breeding. But sadly today, overfishing, and the increasing acidification and pollution of the oceans are driving coral reefs into extinction.
I’d love to put an end to this.
That is most definitely bold. How would you go about it?
I think that there are three ways I could this:
- Living a sustainable life. I could stop consuming plastic altogether, minimize waste and live a highly sustainable life. It’s an amazing way of living, and I try to do my part, but it requires a huge amount of effort and the impact is, in the end, limited as it’s on an individual scale.
- Growing corals. I could also regrow corals locally. So that each coral unit that is lost has the opportunity to grow again and get recreated. This obviously creates a more direct and longer-lasting impact.
- Do nothing. Also a viable option but (very) far from a bold dream and that’s just not how I roll!
You’ve probably guessed it already… The way I would go would be to go local and start regrowing corals. More concretely, my bold dream is to build my own coral restoration program. It also has a greater impact beyond just hosting a program in a tropical area in the world as I’d be able to:
- Contribute to the sustainability of one of the richest ecosystems in the world by growing corals.
- Create jobs for people locally via the restoration program.
- Educate local people and tourists about the importance of a healthy coral ecosystem. I could even host a volunteering program where foreigners could come and spend a few months learning about corals and contributing to their growth.
Why this specific bold dream? Why corals?
Well, growing up, I had the opportunity to spend some time in the Philippines and try my luck at lots of water and ocean activities. I snorkeled for the first time when I was five years and I remember then spending a LOT of time in the ocean, getting curious about its every corner. One of my highlights was night sailing with my family from Manila to other islands. When I was fourteen, I passed my first PADI certificate. But it wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I fully got into scuba-diving and really found my passion. Since then I’ve had the chance to go scuba-dive in far and wide places like Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Panama, Hawaii, Egypt, and Jordan.
It doesn’t get better than scuba-diving to discover the dizzying beauty of corals. The infinity of colors, the uniqueness of each coral… It’s pretty incredible! But crucially, that’s how I came to realize how fragile they also are. And I’ve seen this first hand. There’s someplace I’ve been going to for 10 years and I can tell that each and every time I’ve gone there, there are fewer colors, fewer fish, and fewer corals. While complaining is an option (short-term mindset with over-tourism, overfishing, plastic love…), I am way more into finding inspiring solutions and getting things done!
For instance, Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park in the Philippines is a marine protected habitat and has been a model for coral reef conservation. In Belize, the Lion Fish is an invasive species that is destroying the ecosystem and so volunteer programs have popped up across the country to spearfish them out of the ocean. On top of these programs, communities have been built with new income sources, driving not just better conservation but also a long-term solution.
Have you already thought of where you’d have the coral restoration program?
Yes! It’ll be somewhere in the Coral Triangle. At the intersection of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea. It’s an area known for having the best marine life diversity and some of the few corals that have proven resistant to climate change. I’m specifically thinking of the beautiful northern Palawan island, in the Philippines.
How are you going to get to your bold dream?
I’ve already got a pretty solid plan 😁 Being the CEO and co-founder of Kairn (a task manager for teams), I really believe in the power of setting achievable and realistic goals. Restoring our world’s coral is obviously a massive undertaking and you have to break it down in small attainable tasks to get there. That’s how I make crazy bold dreams feel like they can happen! The power of a task lies in making bold dreams possible.
Step 1:
Learn, learn and learn. This guy produces content on all things coral restoration (but also check out these guys!). He’s currently building a coral restoration project in Papua New Guinea and walks his audience through it by sharing every little detail on the behind-the-scenes of his coral restoration projects. I’m getting up to speed on everything thanks to him.
Step 2:
Understand how it works, concretely. Content is great but so is getting your hands dirty! I bought a 170L aquarium to regrow corals, far away from the ocean, and even the sea, in the middle of Paris. As you can imagine, it’s taking quite a lot of space in my tiny Parisian apartment but hey it’s worth it! Corals first! I’m trying to recreate the perfect environment to regrow corals in the aquarium, from understanding the complex chemistry behind coral growing, getting to the bottom of phosphate, nitrates, alkalinity, and other chemical elements… I’ve even got a fancy light system to reproduce the perfect lightning, as well as a wave system.
Step 3:
Grow corals. Corals are notably incredibly hard to grow, and as you can imagine, especially in an aquarium. They require close and constant care and a thorough understanding of the chemistry. I’m pretty proud to say that I’ve already managed to grow three different ones, a few Acanthastreas, a very pretty flash green Scolymia, and a bright yellow candy cane.
Step 4:
Identify the right areas to have the coral restoration programs. As I said, I’m thinking of North Palawan in the Philippines but I need to go explore, talk to people, and understand the landscape. I’m obviously waiting for the pandemic to end so I can get started on this task!
Step 5:
Identify the right corals for the chosen area, set up a team, get the local authorizations, and then start with 100 square meters of coral regrowth. This is quite a long-term step and I’m putting a realistic timeline on it, I’d say it’ll happen in about 10 years. Until then, I’ve got a lot of work to get done (oh and run Kairn too, my other side project 😉 )
And so, what have you checked off your list so far?
Already, steps 1, 2, and 3. Getting there 😏! One task at a time.
