Arash Aazami

Arash Aazami is here for the big change: a world where every individual has the right to harvest, use and share nature’s ever-existing energy abundance. As founder of Unify.energy, global advocate for the Internet of Energy and chairman of UniversalRight, Arash inspires future-makers across the globe to rethink energy and the role they can play in the establishment of a new 100% renewables-based, inclusive and just energy reality for all. Arash grew up in a Dutch-Persian family of purpose-driven development workers in Niger, West Africa and moved to The Netherlands before high school. He auditioned for conservatory and studied jazz guitar in The Netherlands after which he pursued careers in music -touring Europe and North America as a guitarist in the late ‘90s- and online tech -pioneering in interactivity and e-commerce.

In 2006 he became managing director at a Dutch utility and in 2010 he founded BAS (Beneficial to All Stakeholders), the first energy company with an inverted business model, earning more as it sells less energy. His revolutionary Path to Zero business model and proposition, allowing energy users to personalize their transition to energy independence, was awarded by MIT in 2014. In 2016 Arash birthed the Internet of Energy initiative, merging his pioneering experiences in internet and energy. Driven by a desire to contribute to a global fair and just energy system based on 100% renewable resources he develops future-proof design principles, AI-based peer-to-peer energy exchange models and algorithms that facilitate next-gen smart grids, self-balancing integrated energy systems, offering structural solutions to grid congestion, energy price volatility, and geopolitical energy dependencies.

His keynotes merge deep understanding of energy-related trends, geopolitics and digital technologies with the human elements: mindset, social design, values and ethics.

Arash has worked with the European Commission, the International Energy Agency, as an expert with Singularity University since 2017, IRENA, and multiple governments as well as a wide array of enterprises in energy, telco, IT, and various industries, bringing the Internet of Energy onto their strategic agendas.

He has presented hundreds of keynotes and workshops for Singularity University, TEDx, European Commission, IEA, Blockchain Summit, IFMA, Young Presidents Organization, SXSW, Tomorrowland, The Next Web and many others, and was invited by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2022 for a dialogue on energy and climate. He also developed and curated various tech and energy hackathons, as well as Europe’s largest sustainability conference in collaboration with Tomorrowland: Love Tomorrow Conference.

Arash wrote several publications and reports: From Volume to Value, Smart Multi Commodity Grid, Deltagrid 2050, and The Netherlands’ policy agenda for energy and digitalization ‘More than the Sum of all Parts’. His keynotes are widely acclaimed as insightful, inspiring, hope-giving and paradigm-shifting.