Ep 17: Harnessing Innovation to Create Change with Amy Simpkins

Amy Simpkins has an engineer’s brain and a poet’s heart. Her life’s work has been centered around the integration of seemingly unrelated things and the subsequent solution of wickedly hard problems. Ms. Simpkins is a speaker, author, and thought leader in innovation. She facilitates massive leaps forward, helping individuals and organizations birth big ideas into reality so they can change the world with their unique magic. She believes that innovation is for everyone and holds the key to both personal fulfillment and lasting global change. She has been helping innovators implement their ideas since 2013 and is the author of Spiral: A Catalyst for Innovation and Expansion. Ms. Simpkins is also CEO of the renewable energy startup muGrid Analytics. muGrid solves problems at the edge of energy technology and economics using math and modeling, and is dedicated to creating a sustainable energy future for the planet, one project at a time. As a young, female executive in the tech/entrepreneurship world, she puts her theories about disruptive innovation and bringing your whole self to work into practice every single day. Previously, Ms. Simpkins designed, integrated, and operated spacecraft at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. During her 10-year tenure as an aspiring Spacecraft Systems Architect, she contributed to diverse programs such as Juno, Stardust-NExT, Orion, and Space Radar, and worked in dynamic idea incubation groups for advanced aerospace innovation. Ms. Simpkins holds an SB in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an MS in Astronautical Engineering from the University of Southern California. She is a messy chef, a world traveler, a taekwondo green belt, a mom of three innovators, and a tough cookie in the Colorado backcountry. You can read more about some topics I normally speak on at https://www.amysimpkins.com/speaking/ You can check out my renewable energy company here: https://mugrid.com/