Date: Thursday, Nov. 9, 8:30-10am CT
Location: Blake campus, Dining Commons

Oliver Utne

This edition of Breakfast at Blake featured our 2023 Young Alumnus award recipient Oliver Utne ’04. During his presentation, “Building solar canoes with Indigenous communities in the Amazon rainforest, and why that matters for Minnesotans,” Oliver shared his journey to this work and discuss solar energy, conservation, cross-cultural collaboration, and how what happens deep in the Amazon impacts us all.

Oliver is the founder and executive director of Kara Solar, an Ecuadorian nonprofit that has deployed the first solar-powered boats in the Amazon rainforest. He created Kara Solar together with Achuar indigenous communities to protect the environment and provide an alternative to roadbuilding, which is the leading cause of deforestation in the Amazon. The solar boats now connect over 3,000 people in remote regions of Ecuador, Brazil, Suriname, Peru and Solomon Islands to schools, health clinics, gardens, hunting grounds and more, and are operated by skilled indigenous technicians working at locally led community enterprises. Oliver is now developing a new business model to scale the solar boat systems across the Amazon and around the world.

Prior to founding Kara Solar, Oliver worked in the Ecuadorian Amazon on aviation, tourism and education projects. He entered Blake in ninth grade and participated in alpine skiing, soccer, baseball, lacrosse and basketball. He was a National Merit semifinalist and received honorable mention for the Assembly Speaking Award. He received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University, where he studied history and a solar installer certification from the Bronx Community College. Oliver was voted “most likely to get away with anything” by his classmates at Blake. He lives in Quito, Ecuador, and loves to paraglide from Andean mountains and along Pacific beaches, play card games and explore nature with his 8-year-old daughter.