Dr. Macarena Cataldo-Hernandez speaks highly of her hometown and profoundly of the dictatorship that presided over it. That hometown is Valparaíso, a city on the coast of Chile. Dr. Cataldo-Hernandez, who goes by the shortened version of her first name, Maca, was quick and eager to tell me of the brightly colored buildings, bustling seaport and the elevators that take pedestrians up the hills that hang over the city.

Hanging over the city, too, was the dark cloud of a military dictatorship that ruled Chile from 1973 until 1990. Just like how she wanted to paint me a picture of Valparaíso, she eloquently shared how the political landscape of her home country impacted her and those around her. “My generation was in transition from living in dictatorship to democracy. We're more rebellious. The generation of my family, my dad's generation, were so scared about doing anything and didn’t know what to do about it. Instead, my generation, we’re like ‘nope, not anymore.’ We are so brave,” Maca told me. 

As far as sparks for an entrepreneurial flame go, these qualities are highly flammable. Bravery, a distaste for the status quo and a sense of rebelliousness make for powerful entrepreneurial kindling. Most recently, her gusto has manifested in Vancouver-based aquatech outfit Viridis Research. Viridis’ VEOX system is a unique regenerative platform allowing for residential and industrial partners to target contaminants ranging from bacterial biofilms, pesticides and microplastics. Currently, their system is attached to washing machines to seek out and remove microplastics that inevitably end up in the wash cycle. 

Back in her youth in Valparaíso, Maca recalls a specific event that taught her about the scarcity of water. She had enrolled in a Big Brothers Big Sisters-type program and was matched with a boy to mentor. The boy lived in an unfamiliar section of the city, one that Maca needed to commute to. As she stepped out of the nearest bus stop, she was picked up by the boy’s mother and quickly informed that this neighborhood didn’t take kindly to outsiders. A newcomer must be escorted by a local. The hardships of the outside neighborhood were no match for those inside the home.

When Maca asked to use the washroom, the gravity of their living situation came to a head. The family had no potable water or sanitation. Their toilet was a hole in the middle of their home. Maca was struck by how this contrasted with her own life. She grew up in a working-class family but never thought twice about the existence of water and sanitation. This got her thinking about political influence over day-to-day life and the role that technology and innovation could perhaps play. “I noticed that water was very important and how, sometimes, it’s not about technology, it’s about governance. But, everything can be related,” Maca said. 

At the time, Maca was devoting a considerable amount of time and energy to music. She spent close to a decade in a music conservatory, a pursuit she argued was more difficult than engineering and one that showed the work ethic it takes to be successful. 

“If you're an engineer and you know that you are good at mathematics and you are good at science, you're going to succeed. But, to be a good musician, you must have talent first. If you don’t have talent, it's going to take you four times longer. As a scientist, you repeat studies so many times. As a musician, you sometimes repeat the same piece 1,000 times. But, at least with science, you might know the answer already because two plus two is always four. But what happens if you are not capable of playing something [musically]?” she shared.

With this insight in tow, Maca embarked on the path to an engineering degree—a seven-year odyssey in the Chilean post-secondary system. She focused on what she knew from her hometown: water. Spurred on by a warm reception to her water-based engineering projects, she wanted to dive deeper after she completed her degree. A Ph.D. was in order. So too was a flight to Italy. 

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Maca went to school for her Ph.D. in Turin and had some distinctly Italian experiences. Her classmates supported Torino, a top division soccer club in Italy’s Serie A, and turned up their noses at the club’s bitter rivals, Juventus. She was once taken by a professor on the back of a Vespa to a meeting. “But first, coffee” was a mantra amongst her professors, not a mere Instagram caption. Mochas were the preparation of choice.

Once the coffee was consumed, Maca worked amongst a cohort of Ph.D. students working cleantech solutions. But, she was the sole student working specifically on water. This gave her a huge amount of time with the Vespa-powered professor who also happened to be a key figure in the study of water treatment. Maca shared that scholarship at this level and in this field are marked by specific people—a helpful distinction for this staff writer with a mere communications undergrad—professors who these leaders work with branch out into essentially a scientific family tree. One such branch: Maca’s professor, who was one of only a handful to study under the researcher.   

Maca was eager to take her work to the next level and postdoctoral opportunities at UBC arose. Maca arrived in Vancouver in February—hardly Vespa weather. She also described an initial coldness amongst her peers which rivaled the chill from the winter’s constant rain. After overcoming the initial culture shock, Maca’s work began to shine and she became well-regarded around UBC. But, eventually, that entrepreneurial flame started to burn too brightly to ignore. 

Right around the time when Maca was considering doing her own thing, she met her co-founder, Dr. Ricardo Rivera-Acevedo. Dr. Rivera-Acevedo has a Ph.D. in pharmacology, one of the most difficult degrees attainable according to Maca, and was also teaching the discipline at UBC. This was 2019 when modern pharmacology was experiencing the newly legalized world of cannabis, reminding me of Maca’s quote from earlier in our conversation: “sometimes, it’s not about technology, it’s about governance.” Despite this shift to legalization, Maca sensed in Dr. Rivera-Acevedo that he wanted to explore new avenues and thought this was a perfect time to join forces on their own company. 

Like Maca, he grew up close to the water, hailing from Puerto Rico. Through this shared nautical appreciation, Maca was able to convince Dr. Rivera-Acevedo to join her in aquatech entrepreneurship—a space where even specialized fixes help the whole. “Honestly, if you think about it, all the water is connected. It's not like you have river water and that's never going to be ocean water. Water is a cycle. If you clean one bit of water, you’re basically cleaning all of it,” she noted. Viridis was born. 

Even with the best intentions and strongest passions, early-stage entrepreneurship comes with its hardships. For the pair of co-founders, the leading cause of stress was money. Maca likened it to a marriage. “In a relationship, when you have economic problems, the relationship tends to become harder. One of the main causes of divorce is financial problems within the couple. Now imagine that in a company. To do the same comparison, if you're struggling—‘Where are you going to get the money to move ahead?’—it's not an easy relationship,” Maca said. 

The $100,000 the Viridis team won in last week’s Fall Impact Investor Challenge will certainly alleviate some of this financial stress. The team won the last iteration of Spring Activator’s series of challenges to put companies with a positive impact on our world at the investment forefront. This ethos really spoke to Maca and she applauded the approach of Spring and the investors involved. She also quipped that it’s nice to know a fracking startup isn’t going to win any time soon. 

Maca not only appreciated the approach and the financial support from winning Spring’s competition. She also valued the validation she and Dr. Rivera-Acevedo received during the duration of the months-long challenge plus the recognition they received in the wake of their victory. Maca joked that she feels famous now. But, reflecting on the stories she told me of her journey from Valparaíso to Vancouver, I think she deserved to be famous a long time ago. 

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