Posts tagged climate unchange

As a sendoff to #missionclimate we decided to hit the blue lagoon as our goodbye…

The geothermal springs heat one of Iceland’s true wonders. The pools are surrounded by lava rock and are one of the best things you can do for you skin…

This trip to Iceland has been absolutely amazing. As we wrap up the trip we want to extend a huge thank you to all our supporters and let you know that our work on Climate Unchange is far from done….

A huge thank you goes out to the gentleman who coordinated all of this, Wempy Dyocta Koto from the global consultancy Wardour And Oxford; the Climate Unchange project was his brainchild and has coordinated everything from our flights with IcelandAir, to the press releases naming Matt Wilson and Matthew Dieumegard-Thorton ambassadors to Climate Unchange.

Another huge thank you goes out to Sigurdur Bjarni Sveinsson, the 25 year old entrepreneur and CEO of South Iceland Adventure. He and his guides provided first class accommodations for us and showed us things about of Iceland we could have never seen if we were just there on a normal holiday.

Be sure to be on the lookout for the final cut from the film crew at Bladesman Productions and a series of articles sponsored by Climate Unchange at Under30CEO.com, challenging young entrepreneurs to go out and build businesses that are both rich in profit and in social good. We promise #MissionClimate will be an actionable initiative for years to come and this trip is just the start of our endeavors…

…Experiencing the untouched world is something few people get to do. Unless we protect our planet, this could all be gone in the blink of an eye…

This morning we started our expedition to the center of Iceland.  Our guide from South Iceland Adventure shared a ton of stories with us about this trip going wrong.  100 mph winds, people venturing from the car and freezing to death, snow-blindness and white-out conditions can happen this time of year near the Hofsjökull glacier.  The forecast looked promising, but we did see temperatures swing from -15*C to +15*C in one day.

Hofsjökull is the country’s largest volcano.  

We started the day with some traditional Icelandic food.  Our guide Siggi told us it’d give us lots of energy for the mountains… after we told him how good it was, he told us it was horse…

Hanging out with our Swedish mountain guide Emma…

Untouched terrain towards the Hekla fissure volcano…

Crossing a cravasse…

As we rolled into camp with one final river crossing to go, we saw the sunset over the mountains and the Northern Lights- Aura Borealis at the same time.  It was an unbelievable show by mother nature…

To recharge the batteries and swap out some members of our crew at #MissionClimate, we hit Reykjavik for the weekend.  It was an important part of the trip, as we got to experience a lot of culture in a short period of time.

Reykjavik is the world’s northernmost capital city and they both work hard AND party hard… we celebrated a week of really quality filming and remembered we were all here because of how passionate we are about what we do.

“Make your vacation your vocation,” as tattooed on our filmmaker Archie Brooksbank. 

A random Icelandic Horse parade through downtown…

Of course, our mission to Iceland was for Climate Unchange on behalf of Wardour And Oxford and South Iceland Adventure but Matt Wilson of Under30CEO couldn’t resist checking out the entrepreneurial climate as well.  Here is his first hand account…

Traveling solo and being part of a global startup community can be a pretty powerful combination.  A few days after the press release went out that I’d be Ambassador for Climate Unchange and was headed to Iceland, I got a tweet from Bala Kamallakharan a startup investor in Reykjavik. 

I hopped in his car within 5 minutes of meeting him, after hearing the country’s largest business plan competition was going on at the University of Iceland. It was entirely in Icelandic, but met some amazing people I got the feel for Startup Iceland quite quickly.

After hanging with their student project management team, I ended up hitting a snowboard competition after the event, drinking champagne at the Innovit technology incubator, having dinner at one of the best restaurants in Iceland with the team, and hitting downtown Reykjavik for the afterparty with a bunch of awesome Icelandic entrepreneurs.  I was extremely impressed with the companies and the entrepreneurial spirit of this small island in the North Atlantic. 

A huge thank you goes out to Startup Iceland, Innovit, and University of Iceland for making me VIP for a day.

Svali-Svali!