The thrill of adventure exists in its uncertainty. It's spontaneous and unpredictable, tangled with bends, twists, and plunges that delight and disrupt. Carbyon is no different. In a series that explores the heart and soul of our new-age company, get to know the people behind our trailblazing tech as they tell us what life with a startup is really like.
“Everyone is aware of the risks. We’ve been faced with the facts a couple of times, but the idea of success gets us through. Even if it’s a small chance, the impact is enormous. I would be extremely proud to be part of that.”
Girmi Schouten, Data Scientist
Our technology is the first of its kind. That's exciting, but doesn’t come easy. Innovating it takes a leap into the unknown, where theory and imagination form the only guides. Where there are no answers, we find them. In the absence of clear pathways, we forge them. If we need tools, we make them. It’s in that vein of thinking that Data Scientist, Girmi Schouten, found Carbyon. Girmi works in the software team, specifically data analysis. His software supports researchers and chemists to process outcomes of crucial experiments.
“The research team runs continuous tests on specific machines, that means processing a lot of data. Before I joined it was the manual task of one chemist.
“It took hours and the problem was, this person was the only one who knew how. If he was out of office a bottleneck was created as experiments lined up. It wasn’t sustainable or scalable, so I joined to automate the process.
“The program we’ve written means researchers now run experiments on the machine, place outputs in a specific folder which our program takes, uploads to the cloud and processes. At the click of a button a full report rolls out, after five minutes or so, with core information researchers need for further analysis.”
Cracking the code “The intellectual challenge is part of the appeal.”
The itch to answer one burning question has followed Girmi from childhood into a career of continuous learning: How does it work?
“From a young age I spent a lot of time trying to understand things. My poor parents would watch as I took machines apart and put them back together, not always successfully!
“Thankfully they were good-spirited about it. If we upgraded a TV, I’d get the old one to dismantle. I’d take computers apart to understand the hardware as I rebuilt it. I constantly looked for learning and understanding, now I do that in software.”
To create efficient code, Girmi must mine for context to write into the program that completes the cycle between experiment and result.
“One of the things I really like about Carbyon is the interdisciplinary aspect. I’m more of a generalist than a specialist. Yes, I do the software, but to write it I need the basics of how the chemistry, physics and machines work.
“That’s really nice but also challenging, you’re constantly working at the limit of your knowledge. It helps to have bright people around that can explain complex topics in an accessible way.
“Carbyon is full of people like that. In a way I think they also relish the challenge of dismantling the details of what they do to make it understandable. That’s ideal for me.”
No man is an island “I needed to form a team, even if it was one other person”
Before Carbyon, Girmi completed a PhD with the University of Antwerp. “That’s actually quite a lonely enterprise,” he says, “you’re working on your own topic, kind of an island of your own making. “I wanted to find work in a team with other people after that. I was inspired by Carbyon’s mission and culture, but when I started I was the only software guy. I thought: oh no, I did it again,” laughs Girmi, “here I am all alone again!”
Though in his element, Girmi missed a like mind. “I was looking at a really complex system. It was daunting, I wondered where to start and I had no one to bounce ideas off. Without someone to spar with, I quickly realized I was a bit in over my head.
“I communicated that to Hans, our CEO, telling him I needed someone to help with the big-picture-thinking and the long term planning. I was heard right away and Kenny was hired, whose expertise focuses more on the management side rather than programming.”
Direct communication lines with flexible teams mean decisions happen fast at startups like ours. "One became two, and two became a whole team. Having someone else there in the beginning is what got this really complex task off the ground.
“Conversations here are always really constructive, there’s no finger-pointing, we’re just focused on how to fix it. From the engineers right through to upper management, everyone is ready to dive in and help.”
A quest for a greater purpose “I saw a company trying to do the right thing”
Carbyon meant finding a missing link for Girmi, who found meaning in his studies, but struggled in his job search. “I pursued what I was good at but never asked how I could do something good with it.
“That’s why the job search was confronting. I had no affinity with most roles in my field, I thought, oh no, what did I do! I kind of had an existential crisis,” he laughs.
Hoping to find inspiration in a year out traveling, Girmi didn’t know it would find him. “I knew Carbyon because my brother and best friend worked here. After nine months of traveling I saw them open a software engineer role.
“I had three months left but I couldn’t miss the chance, the job and mission deeply resonated with me. Also because, for most of my life, I’ve thought a lot about my impact on the world.
“Direct air capture could have a huge positive impact on climate change, but it's also one piece of the puzzle. It’s also important to reduce our emissions, change our rates of consumption and think about how we treat nature.”
Core elements of Girmi “Seeing inventors was the first time I saw I could be creative, in my own way”
“I wanted to be an inventor because seeing people come up with things no one had thought of was just so mind blowing! I imagined these mad scientists in laboratories, sparks flying around, bubbling beakers. The thing is, I’m not really a creative person artistically; not really musical, can’t draw, but I love the idea of creativity. For me, being an inventor was the closest I could get to being an artist! I think it’s really important to be able to express yourself in some way. Invention showed me a way to express my creativity as a child.”
“On the weekends I go camping with my trekking bicycle, a tent and sleeping bag to spend a few nights under the stars away from everything. I’d love to immerse myself in a national park like Yellowstone in the US one day, but I'll wait for Carbyon to take off before I fly that far. In the meantime, I’m really into cycling holidays. In September I have a goal to reach 1000 kilometers, I did 750 last year from Belgium to Frankfurt. For a couple of weeks everything you own is on a bicycle, and it’s everything you need. That’s kind of empowering, but it’s also nice to dive back into your big comfy bed when you get home!”
“I spend most of my free time outside. One downside of my job is that everything happens on a screen. I don’t think humans are built for that. I live in the city center but I have a small garden and I find a lot of headspace there. I have my own chickens, Ed, Edd, and Eddy! Every morning I feed them, take their eggs, and pick my raspberry bushes. Just being in the fresh air and thinking about nothing is so nice.”
Life at Carbyon Searching for true adventure?
At Carbyon, we can’t afford to bury our heads in the sand. To change the odds, we have to face and defy them. “No one has succeeded in what we’re doing yet,” says Girmi, “and it’s not because people haven’t tried, many are trying. “It’s inherent for any startup to have growing pains, too. As we develop, so does the need for people who can organize and empower our work. We’re getting there, in the meantime we lean on transparent communication as our crutch when we hit problems.”
Expedition isn’t for the fainthearted, views don’t come without the climb. Girmi tells us scaling the rocks takes real passion, “a lot of people, me included, are invested emotionally as well as technically.
“At another job it might be easier to give up and leave when the going gets tough. Not here, because we really care. It kind of becomes part of your identity, that’s good and bad. We keep fighting for it because it means a lot to us, we’re in it together.”
