CxO of the Week: Mr Kunal Sood, Founder, We The Planet

CxO of the Week: Mr Kunal Sood, Founder, We The Planet

Kunal Sood is an internationally renowned social impact strategist, investor and entrepreneur. As founder of We The Planet, X Fellows & NOVUS, Kunal focuses on making the impossible possible by positively disrupting the human experience. Kunal explains that the foundation of the We The Planet concept is to create an exponential global movement through the #WeThePlanet campaign. Here, “We as humans must go beyond ‘We The People,’ and focus on something larger than ourselves. As a collective, we must focus on ‘We The Planet’.”

From the slums of Mumbai to the United Nations in New York, Kunal has built global movements. He believed in a commitment to impact a billion lives with social innovation and entrepreneurship. A TED Resident, he has also received numerous awards. Some big names include the World Innovation Award, the Metcalfe Prize as a Tribeca Disruptor Foundation Honoree and Fellow. Kunal is an avid public speaker having spoken at the United Nations, TED, SXSW, Aspen Institute, Forbes and the White House. With CiOL, on CxO of The Week, Kunal further talks about the importance of social impact strategy and the relationship between tech, entrepreneurship and the world.

How have you dealt with the pandemic and its aftermath? Are there any new activities that you picked?

I’ve used this time to really reflect on what matters to me the most and why? Over the last year, I’ve focused on building a golden bridge between New York and New Delhi to bridge the two worlds of east and west as the creator economy expands and grows. Our summits have been highly successful in engaging a global audience and we have been fortunate to have some of the worlds most extraordinary citizens share their voice at #WeThePlanet. We also launched We The Future (WTF) on Clubhouse to catalyze and build a community that is focused on radical collaboration and action around transforming our world for a better future.

Is there something that tech professionals, companies can learn from this outbreak?

While up-skilling and cross-skilling were something that we all had anticipated already, the coronavirus pandemic just made it mandatory, and urgent. The working class had to adapt to the new digital technologies overnight and switch to a new normal in the wake of a worldwide lockdown. I think what tech companies take away from the events of 2020 is that to survive a pandemic, a business must digitally transform itself into an exponential organism according to the new-normal customers. Our audience and workforce is online and so it’s important for professionals and entrepreneurs to digitize and optimize their sales, operational and team leadership.

How important is technology to save the world? In fact, isn't it counterproductive - Tech helping to save the planet?

Technology alone won’t save our world, it will be how we as humans, use exponential technologies and it is why we need to build the moral courage and ethics to protect and safeguard our pale blue dot. In other words, how we make use of our scientific advancements will determine our planet’s longevity and future. Scientists are already working on solutions that will help make that reality come true, we have been saving energy, conserving our resources and becoming smarter & healthier with our day-to-day choices, all with the help of technological innovation.

The new and improved ways can redefine the way we live, eat, shop, and work and by doing so, target and address the world’s most pressing problems like COVID-19, climate change, resource scarcity, rapid urbanization and economic inequality. Technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) have been quantifying and connecting machines, humans, animals to the internet as we move towards Singularity. As we continue to develop and build smart and sustainable cities; virtual reality and augmented reality by creating a social and environmental impact on society. Lastly, Blockchain and other exponential technologies like Facebook, Clubhouse and Twitter are making a huge impact on the way we will live and learn and communicate globally.”

How is 'We The Planet' helping your social cause?

We The Planet is unlike any other organization, it’s a platform of platforms that has brought together many internationally renowned leaders of today and tomorrow in order to create intergenerational solidarity and impact. Uniting the youth and elders, women and men, left and right in bringing a social paradigm shift to help elevate humanity to protect and serve something that is larger than ourselves.

With the help of this global platform, I have launched the firsts of many campaigns that have become movements in the recent past including First Woman, #NeverAlone, #WeHaveADream and We The Future (WTF) that bring extraordinary leaders in each one of them have helped me and my audience to ‘reimagine a better approach’ towards our planet and its people. We have done initiatives like the ‘Earth Day Summit’, ‘Mother’s Day Summit’, and ‘X Impact Summit’ gave a new perspective of how peace, prosperity, and partnership can protect our planet, and help nations build consensus to deal with our global grand challenges to instituting policies and solutions for the future.

Tell us about the team at WTP?

We are a team of socially-minded global leaders and icons who are doing everything in our power to create a better future by finding novel solutions to help protect and save the planet all life on land and under the sea. Apart from the extraordinary speakers that we have welcomed on our platform time and again, the co-founders – Kunal Sood (who has 20 years of experience as a high impact entrepreneur, strategist and philanthropist) and Laura Muranaka (writer, creator, and founder of several global initiatives with the best minds of the world make the power duo able to work towards making the impossible possible.

How does the future for "We The Planet" look like? Are you expanding?

WeThePlanet’s future is to architect an immersive media platform and in-person campus designed to bring more leaders on board and co-create solutions for a better world. We have plans to continue to grow and upscale #WeThePlanet, as well as We The Future (WTF) to include as many young entrepreneurs, artists, explorers and scientists as we can to help safeguard mother earth. We The Planet is focused on becoming an exponential organization that catalyzes conversations that drive solutions to drive real-world impact and I am determined to bring global citizens together to reimagine our approach towards the planet, people, peace, prosperity, and partnership and positively impact a billion lives over the next decade.

Tell us about your other social ventures.

As the founder of #WeThePlanet, X Fellows, We The Future (WTF), and NOVUS, I have been on a mission to make the impossible possible by bridging the worlds of power and influence with meaning and purpose. I want to build an extraordinary league of next-generation impact-driven leaders. I have carefully designed and curated transformational summits at the UN, NASA, TEDx and Google that have inspired the action around the world. I want to transform the world by positively impacting a billion lives in my life’s journey.

Currently, I am building a network of networks as part of We The Future (WTF) on Clubhouse that has grown to over 120,000 members and followers. This group consist of a highly curated collective of Ultra High Net-worth individuals, celebrities, innovators, artists and explorers that will become the voice of #WeThePlanet.

What is your advice to budding entrepreneurs?

Get into the arena and live life in every breath like a gladiator. Don’t give up on your dreams and only live a life that is true to yourself and in the service of others. Keep visualizing your long-term vision and get clarity around your mission by always starting with why? Stay calm through the tide, take time to reflect on your strategies and plan for a better tomorrow, make sustainable decisions, and defy the odds in a way that you make what others see as impossible possible.