In last week’s cover story we profiled three young entrepreneurs, and two of them — Rusty Szurek (co-founder of Indie Research) and Tom Szaky (founder of TerraCycle) — are of Hungarian descent.
Szurek and Szaky are 28 and 24 respectively. (We wrongly said Szaky had reached the ripe old age of 29 — not so, he wrote to remind us. Szaky’s youth is his trademark, at least for now.)
This week we feature another colorful entrepreneur who came from Hungary, Zoltan Kiss, a pioneer in photovoltaic energy research. With 50 or 60 patents to his credit, he has founded six companies — all within a 20 mile radius of Princeton. At age 74, Kiss could be the youngsters’ grandfather, but he has lost none of his resolute optimism — a trait shared by young people and successful entrepreneurs of all ages. His first forays into alternative energy were ahead of their time, but the time might be ripe for his technology now.
Meanwhile Szaky is in the news yet again, inviting everyone in Princeton to do their bit for the environment (and, not incidentally, for TerraCycle). We are all invited to bring used plastic soda bottles to Home Depot. “At the Home Depot store in West Windsor on 701 Nassau Park Boulevard, consumers can drop off used 20oz/591ml plastic soda bottles knowing they will be reused to package an all-natural plant food,” says a press release. “Reusing the bottles is even better than recycling them since it eliminates the shredding, melting and reforming needed in the recycling process. To date TerraCycle has saved over a million bottles from going to the landfill and has become America’s fastest growing fertilizer company.”
For each bottle returned, TerraCycle will donate five cents to a school. So far, George School in Newtown has been designated as the beneficiary.
Are you worried about the gas you will use to accomplish your good turn? TerraCycle will donate an additional five cents to an environmental foundation, Zerofootprint, which uses the money to offset the environmental impact of driving.
(Another correction: Last week we spelled Szurek’s name wrong and incorrectly described one of his products. InsiderScore.com focuses on reports of legal insider trading).
