Ricky Schoeman

Background

About Ricky Schoeman

Born in Namibia, grew up in eSwatini, Malawi, and South Africa. After studying Environmental Science and Economics, I made it my mission to travel. I spent 8 years doing freelance yacht work - 4 Atlantic crossings, 1 Pacific crossing, and multiple trips around the Mediterranian and Caribbean Seas, and the entire East coast of the USA. Besides the places and cultures visited, the most valuable lesson learnt from those times at sea is living and working with a variety of people in small quarters and sometimes high-stress situations. It's an intensive crash course on how to manage your emotions when you're halfway across the Atlantic and things are going wrong. Always having an interest in solutions to environmental issues, and in response to the start of South Africa's energy crises, I co-founded Halon Energy in 2014 - an energy efficiency company operating throughout Southern Africa. We designed and implemented small-scale solar projects, and large-scale lighting and smart-metering projects across a variety of industries. After 2 years, a serious dose of itchy feet and a craving for new adventure, I found myself teaching surfing in Sri Lanka and Business English in Hanoi, Vietnam. I still helped manage Halon Energy projects part-time until 2021. In 2018, while traveling South America, I co-founded Latafrican Imports - a business focused on sourcing organic, shade-grown-in-polyculture guayusa and cacao from the Ecuadorian Amazon and selling online in South Africa. Despite the challenges in setting everything up (including my lack of Spanish at the time) it was an incredibly rewarding project - ensuring that over 300 small-scale farmers in the region had a further means of income and greater incentive to participate in regenerative agriculture. Interested in better exploring the potential of tech in solving social and environmental issues, I decided to enrol in an intensive 9 week coding bootcamp at Le Wagon, Barcelona. I love trying to understand the intricacies of various software and explaining these in a non-complicated way that even your tech-weary uncle living in the woods would understand. Check out my portfolio here: https://schoemanricky.wixsite.com/website-1