Canberra technologist and climate change advocate wins (even more) awards
Marcus Dawe with two of his recent awards
Editor Serina Bird chatted with award-winning climate change entrepreneur Marcus Dawe, cofounder and CEO of MCi, about his passion for the environment, his role as an early tech trailblazer, and why Canberra is the best place in Australia (and one of the best in the world) for innovation.
Award-winning CEO
We approached Dawe for an article after he was awarded the 2023 Pearcey Entrepreneur of the Year award. The Pearcey Foundation award was a surprise, as he didn’t know he had been nominated. And then, in the space of a week, he won another award from the American Chamber of Commerce awards.
Dawe and MCi are frequent award winners in Australia and on the world stage. MCi, represented by Chief Operating Officer and evangelist Sophia Hamblin Wang, won the COP26 Clean Energy Pitch Battle in Glasgow and then went on to be selected to be part of the World Economic Forum class of 2022. But while Hamblin Wang is more often in the media, Dawe's background and story is one of an entrepreneur with foresight and a drive to make a difference.
From writing code in his bedroom as a teenager
“We really catapulted onto the world stage with the Internet”
Marcus Dawe with ACT Chief Minister, Andrew Barr
Dawe was born in Canberra and grew up in the nation's capital. He attended school at Melrose High by day while writing code at home. He got his first computer when he was 12 and founded a software company when he was 14. His projects included writing the demonstration program for the Commodore Amiga personal computer and writing the code for Grego Bank, Canberra's first private bank.
Then, in the 1990s, the Internet happened, and Dawe made history as part of it. Dawe founded one of Australia's then-largest website development companies, eDIME. It developed Webware for Novell NetWare, the fastest webserver for the world's most used computer network operating system when sold.
'We really catapulted onto the world stage with the Internet, with our own product, which was with the web server to allow people to put up their own web pages,' he said. 'We had clients in the Australian Government and big American corporates.'
Between 1994 and 2000, eDIME put 23 Australian Government departments and agencies online. Dawe secured Prime Minister John Howard's website for 6 years and worked with big and important clients such as the Australian Electoral Commission, the Department of Defence and the Australian War Memorial. eDIME also created large databases, including digitising the photographic collection of the Australian War Memorial, the Antarctic Division and for the Government Photographic Service, the image library for Australia Parliament House.
Self-made at age 33
In 2000, eDIME was sold to Computer Sciences Corporation ‘for a substantial sum of money'. The sale was concluded two weeks before the dotcom crash in a well-timed exit.
Dawe was 33 at the time and financially set for life. He could have happily retired from IT – and he did for a while, opening up a recording studio that reflected his love of electronic music. But then he had a watershed moment.
‘I thought, well, what do I really want to do with my life?' He realised what mattered to him most was improving the lives of family and friends in his community. 'And so, I thought, I'm going to be very purposeful about what I focus on,' he said.
And that led to him focusing on using his technological skills to counter climate change. At that time, it was not yet trendy to focus on climate change. Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth had not yet been broadcast, and people either didn't realise how serious climate change was or were in denial.
Marcus formed GreenMag Group with cofounder John Beever in early 2007, which then received local Canberra investment. This helped them to win a series of government grants over the following 6 years. Then in 2013, MCi was born to build the technology.
Mineral carbonisation
At the time, the only solution being promoted to mitigate carbon emissions was Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). And while on the surface, CCS technology looked promising, Dawe felt that a key issue was that they were burying the problem for future generations.
But then Dawe had a thought: 'What if we could turn CO2, which has energy in it that's fundamental, into something valuable? What if we could transform it?'
Dawe looked around for a solution with Beever, who had government relations experience working at AusIndustry (in what is now the Department of Industry, Science and Resources). They consulted with government departments about possible solutions and decided to try mineral carbonation, which involves taking CO2 and reacting it with minerals.
'We started a journey of looking at what rocks were available. We wanted something that was highly abundant, and typically something that was quarried and that could absorb CO2 and transform it into a usable material,' he said.
MCi focused on ultramafic (volcanic rocks) and worked on speeding the natural process to capture CO2 in them. MCi conducted experiments with the University of Newcastle and by 2013, it had secured $10 million in grants from Federal and New South Wales governments. It also attracted its first investor, Orica. Orica is the world's biggest explosives producer and has a pure stream of CO2 that it captures during its process.
Collaboration and mentorship
Dawe is a successful businessman and values collaboration and surrounding himself with people who share his values. 'Who I do things with is the most important thing because it's actually about sharing and building with like-minded people. So, everything I do is through the lens of looking at how I can collaborate. That's been a part of everything I've done – it's about building great teams and giving them things to work on,' he said.
“We invent so much here, but it doesn’t always get commercialised. I want to change that. I want to see billion-dollar corporations founded in Canberra and headquartered in Canberra in perpetuity because we can.”
Dawe considers himself to be one of the founding fathers of the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN). He has been in the ecosystem for many years and mentored and collaborated with many other entrepreneurs.
Dawe feels that CBRIN has helped shape Canberra into a global innovation capital. 'CBRIN continues to be a testament to Canberra. Canberra is not a world city; it's a global village. As a global village, it has parallels to university towns and university cities around the world that are a hotbed of ideas, energy and entrepreneurship. And that's what CBRIN has done for Canberra: it's catapulted it into being one of the top sectors of innovation in the world, not just in Australia.'
'We invent so much here, but it doesn't always get commercialised. I want to change that. I want to see billion-dollar corporations founded in Canberra and headquartered in Canberra in perpetuity because we can,' he said.
“What we have is a natural collaborative network that we have been able to foster”
Passionate about Canberra, he feels it has grown into a liveable, educated city where people have a worldview rather than a community view. 'Canberra shines in international standings because it's about the dimensions of its people,' he said.
And while other Australian states and territories are now investing heavily in innovation, Dawe feels there is little risk of Canberra falling behind. 'It's not just money. What we have is a natural collaborative network that we have been able to foster,' he said. 'It’s actually about people. It’s not about money.’
Before the revolution
MCi is an overnight success 15 years in the making. People didn’t get what MCi was trying to do for a long time. ‘It’s like before Facebook came along, people asked why you want to share your information. Why don’t you just have a website? When people can’t see it, they can’t like or imagine it because it’s too far down the track of why it’s needed,’ he said.
‘They’re not thinking in this realm, but once the penny drops and they see An Inconvenient Truth or something like it that points out the problem, then they actually understand it and understand why we are doing this,’ he said.
And on climate change, everyone has a part to play. It can be hard as there is still a lot of misinformation. But he feels there is no place for business as usual, a deliberate game played by those entrenched in power and business trying to slow things down at their pace.
