Andreas Carl Weber
Founder and CEO, Ferrum Technologies
Andreas joins Breakthrough Energy’s Innovator Fellows program from Ferrum Technologies in Vienna, Austria. Andy is a trained metallurgist with a focus on iron & steel, and he is the founder and CEO of Ferrum Technologies.
Steel is foundational to global society – this industry emits 7 to 9% of global CO2 emissions. Ferrum Technologies is committed to eradicating this core problem and making steel production CO2 free. Its world-class technical team is commercializing a specific hydrogen-plasma technology, which has never been tried before, yet has the potential to be cost-competitive with carbon-based . Through the fellowship program Andreas and his team aim to derisk the technology further and optimize it for the first stage of the scale up.
Andreas earned a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in metallurgy from the University of Leoben. He also holds a Bachelor of Science in international business administration from the Vienna University of Economics and Business. After his time at Voestalpine (a global technology leader in the field), he spent two years on the investment team of Speedinvest (the largest seed venture capital fund in Europe).
Q&A
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
If you’re not failing often, your goals might not be ambitious enough.
What is the most impactful book that you have read?
“Think,” by Simon Blackburn. It gives a well-explained introduction into the most fundamental questions of philosophy. It taught me how to not only think differently but think differently in a systematic way.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Jazz drummer