With a successful career as a Vice President at Lanzatech, Dr Will Barker founded Mint Innovation (www.mint.bio) in 2016 with the intention of finding a scalable, low carbon and circular solution to recover valuable metals from electronic waste streams all over the world. With over a decade of experience in science commercialisation, and backed by a PhD in synthetic science, Dr Will Barker and his team have successfully developed the world’s first commercial scale biorefinery in Australia, using a natural, low-carbon process to break down electronic waste and recycle metals, such as gold and copper, back into local economies. By partnering with local recyclers, Dr Will Barker and the Mint Innovation team provide a clean way that ensures old devices are able to be reused without the carbon impact that mining or smelting has on the environment. With continued investment, Dr Will Barker and his team are looking at finding alternative solutions for other harmful waste streams such as lithium ion batteries, and recirculating them back into the economy. Mint Innovation was recently recognised by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer in the 2022 cohort and as the Most Innovative Deep Tech Solution at the 2020 NZ Hi-Tech Awards.