Meet the IWD Scholarship Winner: Molly Fullee
We're so excited to introduce one of the two winners of our 2022 International Women's Day Scholarship – Molly Fullee, Founder of Climate Tech company Fulle!
We recently spoke with Molly about her journey launching Fulle, how we can better support women in emerging technology, and what the future is like for climate technology.
Congratulations on winning the Stone & Chalk 2022 International Women's Day Scholarship! Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey so far.
Thank you! I am so honoured to be part of the Stone & Chalk Family
My name is Molly Fullee. I am the CEO of climate tech company Fulle. We develop smart portable batteries to transition petrol powered equipment to full electric. Prior to the ‘Great Reshuffle’, I was a Captain in a major Australian Airline.
One of the main roles of a pilot is to be constantly assessing the weather hence becoming a real-world climate expert. Over time I got a bird’s eye view of how the weather patterns have been evolving. I flew over floods, bushfires, storms and heatwaves, noticing they were becoming more intense and frequent.
As a passionate open water diver, I have seen firsthand the devastation from the bleaching of coral reefs around the world. After the terrible oil tanker disaster on the beaches of Mauritius, it was heart breaking to see the damage inflicted on the sea life. I was born in Mauritius and watching the beaches I used to swim in as a child being covered in thick black oil was a catalyst.
Uniting the learnings from a bird’s eye view and fish eye view of land and sea, I then dove into my entrepreneurial journey. I combined all my experiences, created a team, and Fulle was born.
Through research, customer engagements, interviews, and testing, we have determined our go-to-market products that will yield the best results in our ecosystem.
We were proud finalist at Startup Victoria Climate Tech Competition.
We also featured on Ausbiz TV Show Startup Daily and now we are winners of an IWD Scholarship with Stone & Chalk.
Can you tell us about Fulle and its purpose?
Fulle is the Smart Battery Power for a more sustainable future. The software gives our customers peace of mind by offering visibility in useful battery data. They can see the vitality of the cells and accurately track their usage. Our customers therefore get extended service life and rich functionality beyond just energy.
The batteries universally fit into a number of our product range and this increases their versatility and reduces the overall cost of our customers’ transition to renewable powered equipment and solar storage. This, in turn, helps accelerate the transition of the world to net zero.
We eliminate the embarrassment faced by our customers when they have to drive their Tesla to the petrol station to get fossil fuel in their jerry can to run their petrol engine products!
The Fulle ecosystem:
- Opens up data science and AI to energy usage information
- Eliminates battery chargers, reducing price and pollution
- Makes energy management effortless
What made you decide to start Fulle?
It was the realisation that climate change is happening faster than the solutions being developed to address it!
EVs, electric planes, boats, bikes etc. are all great transitional products, however, if the batteries don’t last and if they are not recharged on renewable energy, we're just shifting carbon emissions down the powerlines and not really solving the problem.
I felt that if not now, when? If not me, who?
One of my favourite quotes is from Native American Chief Seattle, who said, “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors—we borrow it from our children.”
As a mum, viewing the world through the eyes of my 3-year-old daughter, Emily, has been a huge trigger to dedicate my life’s purpose to developing climate solutions, and promoting equality and diversity.
What was it about this scholarship that made you decide to apply?
There was an alignment of our core values that felt like a perfect match:
What advice would you give to women in emerging technology? What do you wish you had known?
Surround yourself with supportive people who can be bridge-builders to help you on your journey.
Celebrate the little wins along the way.
Building and running a Climate Tech startup is not for the faint-hearted!
To this day, women can be very underrepresented in the tech industry. How do you think we can better support women and encourage them to consider a career in tech?
- Provide mentoring, tailored resources, networking opportunities and access to capital.
- Recruit more women in the tech sectors
- Appoint more women to the boards of venture capital firms and banks
- Spotlighting climate-tech "sheroes"
How do you see the future of climate tech evolving to continue helping our planet?
We are in the era of climate innovation; the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced, to reach net zero by 2050.
A collaborative approach is required to transform entire systems. Investment in climate tech is continuing to show strong growth. Mobility and Transport remains the most heavily invested area,
As electric technologies improve, opportunities to switch and adopt clean technology should continue to expand. Businesses and households should start factoring electrification into their spending plans.
Imagine a world where all your technological devices were able to ‘smartly’ connect without human input – from smart cars to Internet of Things. Cities of the future will be powered on renewable energy and every phone, air conditioner, electric vehicle, battery, light and more are interconnected. I am sure Planet Earth is so looking forward to such clean technological evolutions!
What's next for Fulle?
We are currently at pre-launch for our batteries.
By mid-year we will have some demo days for the community to test drive our products and provide feedback for production.
We are also growing our team. We are on the lookout for a Marketing Genius and a Rock Star Software Developer, so please get in touch if this sounds like you!
You'll be able to pre-order your products with us soon and deliveries are scheduled in time to put some cool cleantech products under the Christmas Tree.
Learn more about Stone & Chalk and how you can join our community of innovative founders by visiting our website.
